May 26--The Ocala City Council is looking for ways to make the Ocala International Airport more competitive and will vote June 5 on whether or not to reduce the airport's minimum standards.
The city's Airport Advisory Board, which initially rejected any changes to the standards, agreed at its meeting Thursday to review proposed changes. The board will conduct a special meeting Wednesday to decide what it feels are fair and reasonable changes and will make its recommendation to the City Council at its June 5 meeting.
Board member Gerald L. Walbrun, citing health reasons, resigned Thursday. Board member and attorney Randy Klein excused himself from discussing or voting on the minimum standards issue because of a conflict of interest.
The current standards require anyone who wishes to sell fuel, generally the most lucrative business at an airport, to also provide maintenance and three other services: flight training, aircraft rental and avionics. Those standards have been in effect since 1988, with a few revisions in 2000 and 2006.
What has been proposed is that anyone who sells fuel must also provide maintenance and one of the following services: flight training, aircraft rental, aircraft charter, avionics or aircraft sales. Those specifics could be modified to require, rather than one additional service, perhaps, two or even more.
Another possible proposal to inject flexibility would be to weigh the value of each service and apply a point system. For example, someone who wanted to provide jet maintenance might get more points than someone who wanted to offer an airplane washing service.
Airport Manager Matthew Grow he will present a third, tiered, proposal for the Airport Board to consider. That tier would offer one standard if there is one fixed base operator and another standard if there are two.
A fixed base operator is a business permitted to sell fuel and other general aviation services at an airport. Landmark Aviation is the sole FBO at Ocala International. Landmark meets all the current requirements.
"Council wants to see a lot of flexibility," Grow said. "We don't want to do a little flexibility. We want to do a lot. We want to make a statement."
Airport Chairman Terry Crawford said he does not want to see the standards lowered.
"Going from standards that have been pretty much accepted for a long time to something that's much less than that, I don't think is in the best interest of the airport. I am, obviously, not in favor of that," Crawford said. "The standards prevent someone coming in on the cheap and pumping fuel."
He said he is not an obstructionist and, perhaps, the point system might work.
"I don't think we are going to lose the level of service," Grow said. "They may change."
There have been some missteps along the way, and the interpretation of what happened depends on who is speaking.
City Council President Suzy Heinbockel said the council held a workshop about revising the minimum standards in January and gave Grow direction to proceed. Grow reportedly took that information to the Advisory Board, which said it did not want to revise the standards.
"At that point, they took themselves out of the revision process," Heinbockel said.
She said the board asked the council to hire a consultant, which it did. The board asked the council for a joint workshop, and one was held. When the revised standards were presented to the council May 15, the board asked for time to review them.
"Now they are requesting they be involved in it again," Heinbockel said.
Crawford said the board was led to believe the changes were going to happen regardless.
"Naturally, we balked at that. We didn't have anything to do with it. We didn't like it," Crawford said.
He said the board never saw the changes until they were presented to council. He said he believes the council is rushing to change the standards because someone has presented a proposal to provide services at the airport, although nothing has been submitted in writing.
Mayor Kent Guinn, at the meeting with the consultant, said the city wanted the changes so someone else can provide FBO services at the airport, but Heinbockel denied that, saying Grow has been proposing changes for years.
The Federal Aviation Administration, which has awarded numerous grants to the city's airport, has said the minimum standards may not be written to give favor to someone wanting to do business at the airport over a current operator, or to give favor to a current operator over someone wishing to do business at the airport.
Contact Susan Latham Carr at 352-867-4156 or [email protected].
Copyright 2012 - Ocala Star-Banner, Fla.
