Last month Paul Rayhill traveled from Rome, N.Y. and met with Newport Beach and Costa Mesa city managers. Paul's a partner in Hawke Aerospace Group and President of Aviation Services Unlimited in NY.
Hawke Aero Group includes Uniflight Med-Flight and North East Aviation Technologies, which offer helicopter charter, EMS and maintenance operations.
Paul joined forces with Newport resident Peter Adderton, after the cancellation of the ABLE police helicopter program, to propose a public-private partnership with both cities to supply helicopter services.
Up until now, Paul and Peter's ideas have been abstract. They've now revealed their plan.
In a 19-page document on the city of Costa Mesa's website (ci.costa-mesa.ca.us) Paul outlines insurance, safety, personnel, pilot prerequisites and training, maintenance operations, operator transition, marketing, customer service support and cost in a five-year contract proposal.
The proposal calls for a lease back rate of $425 per flight hour per city, 1,765 hours per year, total of $750,000 per city annually.
They would provide pilots, maintenance, manage the entire program and coordinate with the ABLE bureau commander. They are also offering something important that ABLE didn't have: Surf and Mountain Rescue, and Emergency Medical Services - EMS.
Paul says as other cities join in this consortium, the pricing goes down.
But there are two main stumbling blocks as I see it. They're asking the current ABLE helicopters be sold to them for $1, and there still needs to be one sworn officer on all flights.
Costa Mesa CEO Tom Hatch said, "I do see some things that I like in the proposal, especially the idea of a larger service area to make it as efficient as possible. The more cities that would be part of a program, the less costs to Newport or Costa Mesa. We provided a copy of the proposal to the City Council. Given that the City Council has already provided direction on what we are doing for helicopter support services - partnering with Huntington Beach right now - the proposal is interesting but it is also expensive."
He also said, "I agree with you that the sale of helicopters and equipment for $1 is a problem. The commitment of additional resources would be difficult right now as well - up to $750,000 requested. The proposal requires that the two cities provide a sworn observer for the helicopter, which would add additional costs. Given that the City Council has recently made a policy decision on how we are proceeding right now, I would need further City Council direction before we formally looked for proposals for helicopter services. I have asked the Police Department to develop a letter response to Mr. Rayhill and Mr. Adderton with a copy to Newport Beach."
Newport's City Manager Dave Kiff says using reserve officers, not former ABLE pilots, would be a cost saver here, but agrees the $1 sale's going to be a tough hurdle.
Newport's Council last week approved a three-year contract with Huntington Beach for service with a 60-day cancellation clause and directed Dave to keep exploring options in the next 30 days.
Sounds like Paul and Peter are still in the game in Newport; Costa Mesa sounds iffy. And that could be a problem since I doubt Newport would take on the whole package alone, but has the most to gain with these new additional services.
