Yakima City Council Approves Contract to Restore SEA Flights

Jul. 6—Public money and private company pledges will help restore early morning outbound and late-night inbound flights between Seattle Tacoma International Airport and Yakima this fall.

A contract with Alaska Airlines to restore those two flights to the Yakima Air Terminal schedule was approved Wednesday night by the Yakima City Council after some discussion about the contract's $500,000 minimum revenue guarantee.

Revenue guarantees have been required by Alaska Airlines to restore flights at a trio of Eastern Washington airports: Yakima, Walla Walla and Wenatchee.

As of Wednesday night, the Yakima County Development Association-managed fund to collect the guarantee money stood at $391,000 in pledges, City Manager Bob Harrison told council members.

"I have a pretty high degree of confidence that we're going to hit that $500,000 number," Harrison said.

The contract was approved unanimously by voice vote at Wednesday's council meeting, with District 5 council member Soneya Lund absent.

Early morning and late-night flights with Alaska subsidiary Horizon Air will begin on Nov. 17, with the contract lasting one year, Harrison said. Currently, the airport has one midday flight between Yakima and SeaTac in each direction.

Who's donating

City Council members Patricia Byers, Holly Cousens and Matt Brown had questions about the Alaska Airlines contract, prompting it to be pulled off the consent agenda and discussed before Wednesday's vote.

Harrison read a list of pledges, including $125,000 from the city of Yakima, $100,000 from Yakima County and $10,000 from the city of Union Gap, with those pledges coming from American Rescue Plan Act federal funds.

Five Yakima Valley businesses have made $25,000 pledges: Zirkle Fruit Co., Yakima Valley Farm Workers Clinic, Washington Fruit Growers, John I. Haas Co. and Borton Fruit Co.

Pledges of $5,000 have been made by the Central Washington State Fair, Goodman Place Apartments, HLA Engineering, and Yakima Valley Tourism, and Harrison said there have been some $1,000 pledges that he did not name.

"We do have some additional requests in to the health care industry that seem promising, but they haven't been confirmed by their boards yet," Harrison added.

Byers asked what would happen with the contract if the fundraising fell short of $500,000, and Harrison said the city and Yakima County "would look to partner on how we could close that gap."

"But we still have several requests that are out there," he added.

When the City Council approved the $125,000 in ARPA money for the air service development fund on May 16, Yakima Assistant City Manager Rosylen Oglesby said the $500,000 is an "overage" fund to cover costs and potential losses of reestablishing the flight over the next year.

Harrison and City Attorney Sara Watkins returned to that topic Wednesday, noting that if Alaska/Horizon does need any of the $500,000 for that purpose, or only uses part of the guarantee money, the unused portion would either be returned to donors on a prorated basis or could be used toward additional flights in the future.

Any destinations other than Sea-Tac, or any flights on other carriers, would require different minimum revenue guarantee money, since the $500,000 in pledges was made to Alaska Airlines for restoring service from Yakima to SeaTac, Harrison said.

He noted that Alaska Airlines officials will supply the city with monthly revenue reports once the additional flights resume, and those would list both passenger airfare revenue and income from transporting cargo on the flights.

"If we can see more of that (cargo revenue) ... we'll have a better chance of not having to fully tap into the minimum revenue guarantee money," Harrison said.

Airport parking fine doubled

Also Wednesday, the council unanimously approved ordinance changes that double the fines for unpaid and unauthorized parking at the Yakima airport.

Vehicles parked in no-parking areas or the controlled parking areas without paying would be subject to a $20-per-day fine, double the previous amount, said Brian Aaron, assistant city prosecutor.

"This does not raise the cost of parking at the airport — it's $10 (a day) and has been for quite a while," Aaron said. "This makes it consistent with parking penalties elsewhere in the city.

"Previously it was a $10 fine for a $10 parking space — there was no incentive to follow the parking ordinance (at the airport) since there was really no penalty," he said.

Brown and Byers asked how the parking ordinance would be enforced, and if cars would be ticketed exactly one minute after the 24-hour parking fee is paid, since flights can be delayed.

Aaron said it was his understanding that parking fees can be paid electronically, either by phone or at kiosks at Yakima Air Terminal, and additional days could be added remotely if needed.

The airport parking ordinance will be enforced by the Yakima Police Department's community service officers, who have resumed full enforcement of downtown parking rules.

Downtown parking update

Speaking of downtown parking, Downtown Association of Yakima board president Joe Mann told council members Wednesday night that the DAY board had unanimously endorsed a proposal Mann and two other business owners presented last month.

The proposal from Mann and fellow downtown business and property owners Ben Hittle and Steve Mercy would increase from 30% to 60% the number of spaces in the five downtown parking lots reserved for monthly parking permits. The cost of those permits would also increase, from $40 to $50 per month.

Mann said this would create 260 spaces (out of the 429 spaces in the five city-owned lots) for monthly permit parking and would leave the remaining 1,666 on-street and parking lot spaces for free, two-hour use by customers and other downtown visitors.

The proposal is an alternative to a downtown parking plan approved, then delayed, by a divided City Council in October that would have established a new system of paid downtown parking to provide additional funding to repair and maintain the five city-owned lots.

When Mann and Hittle first presented the proposal at the council's June 6 meeting, Mayor Janice Deccio and several council members asked Mann to present it to DAY board members for an endorsement before the city considers implementing it.

Contact Joel Donofrio at [email protected].

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