While city officials expressed optimism about the future of Yankton’s Chan Gurney Airport, some called a decision to move ahead without Carlson Aviation providing services at the facility a mistake.
City officials confirmed that negotiations with Carlson Aviation to be the fixed-base operator (FBO), and possibly the manager as well, at the airport have ceased.
In December, the City Commission approved a new job classification for an airport supervisor. City Manager Doug Russell said that he expects an employee from within the organization will be hired to fill that position — at least on an interim basis — before the end of the week.
It is unknown at this point if Carlson Aviation will be involved in a transition process after the first of the year. Russell said an agreement was offered that would allow the firm, owned by Gary and Katie Carlson, to remain until the end of January. It has not been signed by the Carlsons.
Russell said the city will be prepared to fuel planes, direct airport traffic and manage the hangars, as well as perform other duties handled by the FBO, next week.
Negotiations were halted this month after it became apparent that the two sides could not come to mutually acceptable terms, Russell said.
“We had a verbal agreement on that contract (in October),” he stated. “Three weeks later, Carlson Aviation backed out of the terms of that agreement and essentially left us looking in different directions. We decided on an avenue to approach ... and will be looking at doing what we can to continue services at the airport from that direction.”
Gary Carlson declined to comment on the situation when contacted by the Press & Dakotan Tuesday.
However, Dave Tunge, a member of the City Commission-appointed Airport Advisory Board as well as the committee formed to develop guidelines when the FBO search process began last summer, said the move is a huge mistake.
“It’s going to fail miserably,” he said. “The biggest comment I hear from people in the city is that they are shocked the whole thing happened, and nobody can understand why. I’m still that way. Why would Doug jeopardize everything we’ve done at the airport?”
Although it wasn’t asked for its input, the advisory board voted earlier this month to recommend to the City Commission that the contract under consideration be approved with several changes. Among those changes were that Carlson Aviation would continue to be allowed to occupy the front office in the airport terminal, the firm would be allowed to use the corporate hangar until the end of 2012 for maintenance services, and it would be paid $1,300 a month for airport management duties.
“It sounds reasonable to me,” board member Roger Huntley said at the Dec. 7 meeting. “I’ve seen this airport when it was a junkyard. You couldn’t get a plane in and out. I can’t believe how good it is now, and I don’t want to lose it.”
Huntley also spoke up during Tuesday’s City Commission meeting, objecting to a raise for Russell “because of his failure to negotiate in good faith for the renewal of the Carlson Aviation contract. He is setting our airport up to fail. Historically, city-run airports are not successful, mainly because of the expertise and dedication required.”
Mayor David Knoff told the Press & Dakotan after the meeting that he doesn’t agree that the city can’t provide the same quality of service as Carlson Aviation.
“That is the goal — for us to continue to have good service out at the airport,” he said. “We don’t want this to become an airport that people don’t want to land at. I don’t see that happening. If any of the commissioners thought that would happen, we would have gone a different direction. Unfortunately, we were unable to work things out with the Carlsons. That’s the way it sometimes works with government contracts. We’re the stewards of the taxpayer dollars and have to watch out for what we think is best for the community.”
Russell said it was Carlson Aviation’s decision not to agree to the contract as proposed, and Russell said he does not have any ill will toward the firm for deciding it could not live with the terms.
“I think Carlson Aviation did a great job in the customer service aspect, and I won’t take anything away from them,” he said. “It was a decision that they made, and they are entitled to it. We as a city have to look at it and make decisions that we think will be best for the long term. Sometimes, there are discrepancies in what that vision is. I think we’ve got a great base to start from.”
Some things will be noticeably absent at the start, such as mechanic services, but Russell said that is an issue that could be remedied in the future. Mostly, he believes that the city will be able to provide the round-the-clock service that clients came to expect from Carlson Aviation.
“I don’t know why we wouldn’t be able to do that,” Russell said. “We have not only the individual who would be there (as airport supervisor), but would also have the ability to cross-train people from our multiple departments. The position is a salaried position and would be able to respond as needed. We’ll monitor that as time goes by. If we have a jet come in that needs fuel during off-hours, we’ll have someone that is going to be able to be out there.
“I think the biggest concern out there was that this was a last-minute decision,” he continued. “It is not. We thought we had an agreement at the end of October and it fell through in November. We’ve been working from that point on to get where we’re at. We’ll move forward. We’re pretty comfortable with the direction we’re going, and we’re confident we’ll be able to provide the services that are necessary.”
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Sources:
http://www.airnav.com/airport/KYKNhttp://www.yankton.net
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