Board of Aviation Commissioners

Minutes of the August 14, 2014 Monthly Meeting of the Michigan City Aviation Board of Commissioners Call to Order: Meeting called to order at 6:08 PM in the terminal building at the airport. Members Present: David Miller, Kirk Hunter, Doug Buell. A quorum was present. Members Absent: Greg Poulin Others Present: Jessica Ward- Airport Manager, Paul Schaffer- BF&S, Joe Doyle- Council Liaison, Jeff Thorne- BOAC Attorney Minutes: The minutes of the July 10, regular monthly meeting, were emailed. Motion to approve: Kirk Hunter Second: Doug Buell Motion Approved. Reports: The July financial reports were summarized by Jessica Ward. Account Balances: Our first set of salary accounts and second set of supplies accounts are all okay. We will have some trouble in the third set of services accounts for the remainder of this year. First, our legal account is over budget so far this year by $3,655 due to the influx of requests from providers of commercial service operations here at the airport. Here I have the past three year actual history YTD of our legal services account. As you can see, 3 years ago our legal expense was $537.90, 2 years ago it was $2,220.00, both under our $3,500.00 budget. Last year it jumped to $8,917.50 and this year it is currently at $7,155.00, which will increase before the end of the year. Do to last year’s expenses and now this year prior to June, I requested our legal account budget be increased to $11,000.00. Secondly, July and August’s NIPSCO bills were both paid this month which leaves us with an account balance of $298.44. I am estimating having to transfer an additional $3,500 into our gas/electric account to cover the remainder of the year. Our guidelines given to us by the controller’s office for completing the budget forms tells department heads to use the average of the last 3 years for NIPSCO. I unfortunately have a feeling we might have the same problem next year, as I followed the guidelines given to me, but don’t feel it will be as bad as this year. As you can see, I barely have an additional $3,500 to transfer into that account. I will have to pull if from equipment repair and hope we will not need any equipment repairs before the end of the year. Fuel Sales Overall, we sold 3452.9 gallons of 100LL for a total of $12,826.09 and 5725.4 gallons of Jet A for a total of $21,205.07 in July. Avgas gallons were down 18% from July last year while Jet A gallons were down 12% from July last year. We sold 268.5 gallons of self-service based 100LL, 2,230.1 gallons of self-service transient 100LL and 53.4 gallons of self-service transient Jet A last month. We sold 542.6 gallons of full service based 100LL and 411.7 gallons of full service transient Avgas. We sold 1217 gallons of full service based Jet A and 4455 gallons of full service transient Jet A. Year to date we have sold 37,834.9 gallons of fuel for a total of $157,444.25, which is 8 percent higher than 2013. Our self- service Avgas fuel price is $0.20 less than Porter County and $0.12 less than Knox. Our full service Avgas price is $0.30 less than Porter County and $0.29 less than La Porte. Our Jet A price is $0.74 less than Porter County, $0.73 less than La Porte, and $0.04 more than Knox. Airport Manager: 1. Pancake Breakfast: The pancake breakfast was a success. They sold about 550 breakfasts. The EAA Chapter had so many requests for airplane rides they added another pilot about noon. Skydiving went great as well. I know they had at least 3 or 4 people that decided to jump while watching, including Doug. We couldn’t have had better weather.  2. Airport Inspection: We received our inspection for compliance with Indiana safety regulation. We passed. The only problem he saw was the trees on the north end. Without trimming them we won’t pass next year because they are currently about 20.5:1. 3. Fuel Master: I just ordered a replacement smart card reader for the self-service pump today. Ours has gone bad and isn’t reading cards. The new one should be here tomorrow. We have the annual maintenance package for the Fuel master so luckily it was no charge today. 4. Joint Council/Redevelopment Commission Workshop: There has been a Joint Workshop scheduled to discuss and review the Eastside TIF Area in Michigan City by the Council and Redevelopment Commission. I emailed Craig Phillips, City Planner and asked if adding the airport to the district would come up and he said it could be brought up and that I and representation for the board were welcome to come, so thought I would let you know the meeting will be held at city hall on Tuesday, August 26 at 5pm. Greg said he thinks he might be able to make it. 5. Parcel of Land: A gentleman by the name of Ambrose Panico called and asked if the BOAC would be interested in purchasing his mother’s parcel of land. The parcel of land is located about one mile north of Runway 20. After some discussion, there was no interest in purchasing land to the north at this time. Airport Development: 1. AIP 15- Terminal Layout for ALP: BF&S and Michael Brown- planner for the FAA, have been working out final details for the terminal layout. At the board’s direction, Corey Harper from BF&S will put together a modification to standard request and send it to the FAA in regards to the grouping of taxilanes in the hangar section. 2. AIP 17- Wildlife Fence: Significant grading and cleanup work was completed the week of 8/4/14. The engineer and the airport walked the site on 8/8/2014 and determined that substantial completion had been achieved. Final walk through will be Tuesday, August 19 at 10am. a. Change Order #2: For adding larger stone aggregate to the installed buried fence line along Meer Road to prevent erosion and maintain the integrity of the fence in the amount of $4,510.00. Motion to Approve: Doug Buell Second: Kirk Hunter Motion Approved. 3. Wildlife Fence Phase 2: We are still awaiting a grant for phase 2 of the wildlife fence. On 8/6/14 the FAA is indicated that discretionary funds were tighter than expected and indicated we should be prepared for the possibility of an NPE only grant. As of 8/12/14 Azra has indicated the project base bid can be funded with state apportionment funds and the alternate items can be funded with a multi- year NPE but we will continue trying to fight for discretionary funds to fund the alternates. a. INDOT Right of Way Letter: INDOT is allowing the fence on the south end of the airport to be constructed in the INDOT Right of Way if the BOAC agrees to assume all costs and maintenance of the fence and guard rail that will be installed. Motion to approve letter be sent to INDOT in agreement of the above conditions: Kirk Hunter Second: Doug Buell Motion Approved. Old Business: 1. Skydive Greater Michigan City: We received a cancellation notice of the insurance policy for Skydive Greater Michigan City. After much discussion the board requested Jeff Thorne send a Skydive Greater Michigan City a notice of termination due to breach of contract. Motion: Kirk Hunter Second: Doug Buell Motion Approved. New Business: 1. Leaking Tank Sump Repair: As some of you are aware the walls of the piping sumps on both the 100LL and Jet A underground tanks have been leaking for years. Although the fuel is not now, nor has ever been affected by this leak it is imperative that we get them repaired. The water table is above these tank sumps causing them to fill with water every single time it rains. The veeder root alarms are constantly going off for high water level. We have to call out Northern Indiana Mechanical to have them verify no product is present each year after our IDEM inspection, in which the inspector always tells up we need to get the sump walls repaired and I have to show I am doing my due-diligence to get them repaired. The hold up in doing my due- diligence has been the fact that Northern Indiana Mechanical has already given past managers estimates that never go anywhere so it has been quite the battle for the last couple of years to get them to spend the time and energy to come out to give us yet another estimate. The battle has finally been won by my assurance that we are intent on fixing the problem. The estimate is for $30,450.00. I also asked for names of a couple other companies that also work on underground fuel tanks so I can get a few more opinions/estimates on fixing the problems, which they gave me three other companies. I will give them a call tomorrow and see if they are interested in giving me estimates as well. September is the month that we usually get our IDEM inspection, so I am hoping by the next board meeting we will have a couple more estimates. 2. Replacement Roto-Phase: I received an estimate for $3,297.38 for the installation of a new Roto-Phase. Our Roto-Phase which converts power from single to three phase for the Jet A fuel farm is defective. I called Marquiss Electric to come out after we had a pilot of a jet try and use the self-service after hours on two different occasions. Both times he couldn't due to the Roto- Phase not picking up. Turns out, it was blowing the breaker. The bearings and windings are bad and could literally go anytime we use it and the insulation is breaking down. It will take 3 days to get a new Roto-Phase after ordering it. The last time it was serviced was 1997 and Harrison Electric said we got a great long life out of this one. They will give us an estimate after they have our old one apart if it is even worth repairing so we could keep it as a back-up if we are interested. Motion to Approve: Kirk Hunter Second: Doug Buell Motion Approved. 3. Skydive Greater Kankakee – Request to Operate: Brad and Gabrielle from Skydive Greater Kankakee requested they be allowed to operate at the airport on five specific Sundays before the end of this season. After much discussion and receiving legal counsel the board denied their request due to the impossibility of them meeting the minimum standards, but encouraged them to submit an application for operation for the 2015 season. Claims Docket: Amount: $69,786.43 Motion: Kirk Hunter Second: Doug Buell Motion Approved. Correspondence: Letter from Nicholas Kant which has been referred to legal counsel. Public Comment: Joe Doyle let everyone know there would fun activities all weekend long Labor Day Weekend down in Washington Park. Adjournment: There being no further business, the meeting was adjourned at 7:37 pm. Motion: Doug Buell Second: Kirk Hunter Motion Approved.