The Martha's Vineyard Airport Commission met last Thursday without its manager present.
The Martha’s Vineyard Airport imbroglio continued last week with an announcement by airport commission chairman Myron Garfinkle on Thursday that the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) is further tightening funding requirements and deadlines.
Mr. Garfinkle said the FAA gave airport managers until December 31 to come up with the design for a proposed aircraft rescue and fire fighting (ARFF) building, which would also include offices and a bunk area. They may not, as they originally intended, use grant money to construct a snow removal equipment (SRE) storage building.
According to Mr. Garfinkle, on August 26 he and vice-chairman Bob Rosenbaum met with FAA representatives at their regional headquarters in Burlington for a private meeting at the FAA’s request.
“The first item on the meeting’s agenda was the airport’s performance, or lack thereof, between 2011 and the present regarding our AARF/SRE project,” Mr. Garfinkle said.
The FAA granted just under $900,000 to the airport in 2011 for the design of a combined AARF and SRE storage building. Mary Walsh, FAA regional administrator, “was very upset and expressed extreme displeasure” at the delay in usage of the money, “which could have been used by another airport in the meantime,” Mr. Garfinkle told the commissioners.
The airport has spent just under $300,000 of the grant. Airport assistant manager Deborah Potter said the design process is close to 60 percent completed.
Four conditions
Mr. Garfinkle said during the August 26 meeting that he and Mr. Rosenbaum were asked to step out of the room while the FAA representatives considered their options. After 10 minutes, the FAA said they would give the airport another chance, with four contingencies.
Mr. Garfinkle said the FAA only wants to move ahead with the construction of an AARF facility. A separate SRE facility would have to be built within two years of the ARFF design completion.
“There will be no SRE associated with the ARFF,” he said. “Nothing to do with it, that was very plain.”
Second, the airport must have the design plans completed by a December 31 deadline, or else forfeit funding for the project. Third, funding for the project, initially expected to be around $15 million, will be capped at $8 million. Of that total, $3 million will come from airport discretionary funds.
And finally, “the coordination of this project as far as the FAA was concerned will be Bob and myself,” Mr. Garfinkle said.
“To say I left the meeting shellshocked would be a very strong understatement,” he said. “Very, very strong.”
Mr. Garfinkle said he and Mr. Rosenbaum met via telephone on Tuesday, Sept. 8 with engineers and architects, and they determined that the existing building envelope from the 60 percent completed plan can still be utilized for the project, with a number of modifications, rather than scrapping the project entirely and re-designing a new building.
“It’s a shame that we have to spend an extra $81,000 in design work to reshuffle everything,” he said. “It’s a shame that we are not going to get the $2 to $3 million dollars we were hoping to get to have an SRE/ARFF combined building at this time. But nonetheless, we have an opportunity to move forward and not lose this FAA grant money, and I think we’re going to make it.”
Taking charge
Last month, airport manager Sean Flynn was told to take a paid leave of absence. Mr. Garfinkle, a private pilot and businessman appointed to the commission last March, has been the lead negotiator in an effort to dismiss Mr. Flynn. In recent statements, Mr. Garfinkle said, “We are in the process of negotiating an amicable separation.”
Mr. Flynn is in the third month of a new three-year contract that took effect July 1, worth $138,882 annually. Under the terms of the contract, if the airport commission dismisses Mr. Flynn, the commission must pay him through the end of the three-year contract.
The commission, by majority vote, could terminate the contract for cause by meeting a number of conditions. The commission must give the airport manager 30 days notice of the vote, as well as time to correct any deficiencies identified. The commission must also conduct an impartial hearing at least 10 days before the scheduled vote.
Mr. Garfinkel made only a veiled reference to ongoing discussions with Mr. Flynn at Thursday’s meeting. “The legal subcommittee hasn’t met but the legal team has certainly been active the past few weeks trying to come to a positive conclusion with the issues that have been very noticeably contained in the newspapers the past few weeks,” he said.
Following the FAA meeting report, commissioner Rich Michaelson demanded to know why deadlines were missed in the first place, and who could be held accountable. Ms. Potter, appointed acting manager in Mr. Flynn’s absence, said that although it couldn’t explain all of it, necessary re-bids for engineering services, amendments to engineering contracts, and changes within the airport commission added delays to the process.
“I am curious about how we got into this position, but right now the challenge is in front of us about what’s going to be done, and whether we think it was a good management or bad management or we think someone was at fault or not at fault, the essence of it is that the FAA has their own version and opinion, and that’s what I’m talking to right now,” Mr. Garfinkle said.
Tension takes off
The meeting also highlighted simmering tensions over Mr. Garfinkle’s management role. Mr. Garfinkle said he was surprised to learn from an FAA official that airport commissioner Beth Toomey, retired West Tisbury police chief, had called the FAA “and asked why we were there, what we were doing there, and why we were invited there.”
“I was a little bit more surprised when Mary Walsh, who is in charge of FAA New England, announced that she had gotten a lawyer’s letter from an attorney warning and advising her not to meet with Bob and myself,” Mr. Garfinkle said. In a later conversation with The Times, he declined to identify the lawyer or the subject.
Mr. Garfinkle asked Ms. Toomey why she contacted the FAA instead of approaching him first.
“I feel like there hasn’t been a lot of communication, and it feels like the chair and the vice-chair are managing the airport and not the manager, and I have concerns,” Ms. Toomey said.
“I’m not interested in getting into an argument with you, but if you’re talking about communication, that should start between you and I,” Mr. Garfinkle said. “Out of respect to my position, I think that was not an appropriate thing to do.”
In later comments, Mr. Rosenbaum said that “in talking to the FAA, they said it is very common for airport commissioners to be involved in all aspects of the airports operations and management, and this was something they encouraged and really appreciated the commissioners to do.”
Meeting deadlines
Also last week, Ms. Potter said that a number of efforts have been made to meet the deadline for several non-compliance issues noted by the FAA in an annual inspection in May. Ms. Potter said the existing wildlife management plan was reviewed by the FAA inspector and returned with comments. Ms. Potter said she reworked the plan and will have it back to the FAA by Wednesday.
She said they will be 30 days ahead of deadline for addressing the wildlife management plan.
Subject to weather conditions, she said the airport is scheduled for runway marking painting on September 28 and 29. The state will cover the cost.
At the end of the meeting on Thursday, the commission unanimously voted to go into executive session to discuss three open meeting law complaints and, if necessary, “to conduct strategy session in preparation for negotiations with nonunion personnel and/or to conduct contract negotiations with nonunion personnel.”
Source: http://www.mvtimes.com
Assistant airport manager Deborah Potter said several non-compliance issues are being addressed.
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