Hazleton Municipal Airport (KHZL), Pennsylvania: Councilman urges action on hospital hangar

A Hazleton councilman cautioned that delays in approving a lease-purchase agreement for a hangar at Hazleton Regional Airport could derail Lehigh Valley Hospital’s plans for stationing medical helicopters there – and jeopardize the hospital’s plans for obtaining trauma center accreditation for Lehigh Valley Hospital-Hazleton.

Council Vice President Keith Bast on Friday criticized some members of council for removing two airport-related items from today’s meeting agenda.

But one council member said the resolutions were removed because council wasn’t properly informed of either proposal.

One of the items would authorize the city to enter a lease-purchase agreement for a hangar that was erected by Edward Maranuk. A related proposal, which is listed in a separate resolution, would allow the city to enter a business building and aircraft space lease agreement with Lehigh Valley Hospital, which would station up to two medical helicopters and associated air medical ambulance services at the hangar.

Costs and other details related to the lease agreements were not disclosed in resolutions that were included on the meeting agenda released early last week. Bast, however, slammed his peers for removing the agreements from a revised agenda that was released on Friday.

Bast said the deal would not only generate enough revenue to pay off the hangar in a relatively short amount of time, but would result in expedited medical services to the community.

He said he’s puzzled by the decision made by some council members to remove the resolutions from the agenda.

“LVH and (MedEvac) have indicated they want to move into the airport before Jan. 10, 2014,” Bast said in an email to the Standard-Speaker. “This move is part of the merger and commitment to immediately improve medical services in the city of Hazleton and the surrounding region. LVH indicated this is the first step to obtain trauma center accreditation for the City of Hazleton Hospital. LVH has the busiest level one trauma center in the State of PA.”

Stationing helicopters at Hazleton Regional Airport would “save lives” in the Hazleton area, spur economic development and increase job growth at the hospital and throughout the region, Bast said.


Council approved a similar lease-purchase agreement for a different hangar at the airport a few months ago. That hangar has since been filled to capacity, which brought about the need for a second hangar, Bast said.

“The city would buy the (second) hangar and MedEvac would be the tenant,” Bast said. “And, three (council members) do not want it. How ridiculous is that? To be able to get a trauma center and they don’t want it? My message would for the community: If this doesn’t go through, if they die of a heart attack or trauma, sue the city council – sue the three of them.”

Councilwoman Jean Mope on Friday confirmed that the lease agreement resolutions were removed from the agenda – and that Bast unilaterally attempted to get the items resubmitted for consideration at Monday’s meeting.

Mope, however, said items can only be added to the council agenda if they are requested by two or more members.

The items were removed, she said, because a new council lineup was not informed of either proposal until an early version of the meeting agenda was released to council last Thursday.

“It wasn’t fair to the new council members coming on who received no information on this as far as David (Sosar) told me,” Mope said. “We didn’t know anything about any of this stuff. None of us received enough information or had enough time to ask questions. Once again they are rushing legislation through. They’re going to have to learn things aren’t going to be done that way any more. We need to have time to review and to ask questions so we can serve the public properly.”

Brian Downs, Lehigh Valley Health Network’s director of media relations, said on Friday that the health network doesn’t typically disclose details about its discussions concerning real estate until it is prepared to make an official announcement.

Mope said she personally has a number of questions about the hangar and helicopter lease, including why council arranged for an executive session to discuss the issue this morning with “lame duck members of city council,” why the city didn’t share with council plans for applying for a grant for acquiring the hangar, and who in the city authorized the city engineer to conduct a title search on the hangar.

“We weren’t informed of anything,” Mope said. “We’re not even sure who we’re having at an executive session. We want to have the information and we want to be able to give the information to the public so the public has an understanding of what’s going on.”

The Standard-Speaker obtained a pair of confidential emails that Dominic Yannuzzi, of Alfred Benesch – the city’s engineering firm – distributed among council. One of the emails is a response to questions asked by council members.

According to the emails, lease payments and fuel sales stemming from the Lehigh Valley hangar lease will total approximately $46,000 per year. The lease would have a three-year term, with unlimited one-year extensions, and lease payments would increase by 5 percent in the second and third years, the emails say.

Lehigh Valley would pay for all improvements and utility extensions to the hangar, as well as internal cleaning services.

Revenue from the Lehigh Valley arrangement and another roughly $39,000 in lease and fuel sale revenue from a lease-purchase agreement at a different hangar would offset costs of the second hangar, the emails state. The city could also use a possible grant from the state Bureau of Aviation to cover costs for a second hangar, Yannuzzi wrote.

Council meets at 10 a.m. today at City Hall.

Source:   http://standardspeaker.com