Meeting called to order by Chair Waddell at 13:04. 

 
As the commission has a new member we requested that both commissioners and staff give a small introduction:

Chair Thomas Waddell:
Waddell is a retired Air Force Colonel and has been on the Airport Committee for three years, and served as chair for about a year and a half. He has extensive Air Force experience which is what drew him to the Airport Commission.

Commissioner Andrew Shouse:
Shouse is a local in Flagstaff and a pilot. He owns a business and is a W2 for a corporations doing marketing and websites, SEO for small and medium sized local businesses here. Being part of this commission was a good way to get involved in his local community.

Commissioner Colby White:
White was a Warren Officer in the Army’s Aviation Unit back in Chicago for the National Guard. He also has his private pilot's license, and is active in the local community. Being part of the commission was a good way to give back and help support the airport.

Commissioner Nicolas Barrazza:
Barrazza has been a Flagstaff local since 2012. He moved here initially because he was a pro runner and Flagstaff is a hub for pro-endurance athletes. He’s been in aviation for a while and was supposed to go to school for the National Guard to fly helos but had a shoulder surgery that prevented him from doing it.
He is a pilot and loves to fly and loves the Flagstaff community. He has been involved socially and politically since moving here, and as he worked on getting his private pilot license (PPL) he wanted to get involved with the airport. One thing that's a big passion of his is hopefully helping to bring a flight school or flight program to the Flagstaff area as he is passionate about aviation education and increasing opportunities for younger people and particularly lower income youth.
Additionally, there are so many things around the airport such as tourism and business opportunities and operations that he is also passionate about.

Director Brian Gall:
He has been at the airport about 4 1/2 years and in this role as Director for a little over 2 ½ years.

Programs Manager Adam Miele:
He has been in this role for 2 years now. Prior to that, he worked in Public Works as an engineer.

Communications Manager Claire Harper:
She has been with the city for 15 years in various roles and has been in this position for 3 years. She originally moved up to Flagstaff for her undergrad at NAU.

Administrative Specialist Miciela Sahner:
She has been with the airport for 5 1/2 years and previously served the city in various other roles part-time.

Orville Wiseman:
He owns Wiseman Aviation which is the fixed based operator for Flagstaff. They opened their doors April 1st, 1999.

Chair Waddell also commented that Commissioner Hanovich’s and his own are terms on the commission expire on the 1st of October.
On Tuesday, the 26th of August, Council will review the nine (9) applications for the three (3) open positions the commission.

 

Georganna Staskey, the Deputy City Clerk, presented on Boards and Commissions. The City of Flagstaff has 26 Boards and commissions that play several roles with different responsibilities.

Roles of Commission:
Boards and commissions, make recommendations to council in general. Which then Council can accept the recommendation, ask for changes to the recommendations and send it back, or not accept the recommendation altogether. The Staff Liaison's role is to ensure compliance with open meeting law and answer questions related to city policy and procedures and coordinate involvement with other departments and commissions.

There are different types of boards and commissions they are classified as advisory, ad hoc or quasi-judicial. Most fall into the categories of advisory or ad hoc; advisory commissions have the primary responsibility of making recommendations to council and ad hoc are created to study, review and make recommendations regarding specific issues designated by City Council. Quasi-Judicial are a public body other than a court of law that possess the power to hold hearings and make decisions such as the Board of Adjustments and the Fire Coade Board of Appeals. Commissions can also have subcommittees or informal working groups. Subcommittees are charged with a specific duty or role and Informal Working Groups may be created to research, gather information, and provide recommendations back to the commission for specific purposes. Working groups may consist of members of the public and/or less than a quorum of commission members and all information and recommendations from the working group must be provided and presented to the commission in an open meeting for public discussion. No actions, statements, or recommendations can be made or provided by the working group on behalf of the commission. Working groups are not required to have formal agendas or minutes.

Open Meeting Law:
There are two core concepts in Open Meeting Law; one “All meetings of any public body shall be public meetings and all persons so desiring shall be permitted to attend and listen to the deliberations and proceedings.” A.R.S. § 38- 431.01(A) and two “It is the public policy of this state that meetings of public bodies be conducted openly and that notices and agendas be provided for such meetings which contain such information as is reasonable necessary to inform the public of the matters to be discussed or decided.” A.R.S. § 38-431.09.

The reason we have open meeting law is one to protect the public, by avoiding decision making in secret and promoting accountability by encouraging public officials to be involved responsibly and second, to protect the public officials to avoid them being excluded, to prepare and avoid them being blind-sided and to accurately memorialize what happened. This is all done through public notice, agendas and minutes.

A meeting is a gathering in person or through technological devices of a quorum of a public body at which they discuss, propose or take legal action, including deliberations. ARS § 38-431(4). This includes telephone and email communications and all conversations are public record. Quorum is a majority of membership which for a commission of seven (7), like the airport commission that would be four (4) members, this is still a requirement if there are vacancies.

Meetings shall be open to the public and agenda’s must including information on when and where the meeting will occur, inform the public of the matters to be discussed or decided and be posted with a 24-hour minimum public notice is required. Legal action (motions and votes), the proposing and discussing of action items must take place in a public meeting and only agenda items may be discussed.

Penalties can be incurred if found guilty of violations of Open Meeting Laws with a fine up to $500 against the commissioner for each violation and the commissioners are personally responsible to pay and may be subject to removal from office. Social events where a quorum may be present requires a Notice of Possible Quorum and includes a statement that no business of public body will be discussed and no actions may be taken.

Decorum:
The commission chair is the presiding officer in all proceedings, and in the absence of the chair, the Vice Chair, will act as chair. Members only speak after recognition by the chair, and the Chair shall not unreasonably withhold that recognition. When two or more members wish to speak at the same time, the Chair shall determine the order and while a member is speaking.

No member shall interrupt except to make a point of order or personal privilege. A point of order would be if someone is getting really off topic. The main goal is to avoid interrupting all together and make sure that everyone has their chance at a fair amount of time to say what they would like to on every topic.

Other items to remember, be on time to the meetings, be respectful of other people’s time, refrain from side conversations during meetings, turn off your ringer/computer sounds, speak clearly for the audience, and make sure to attend as often as possible whether that is in person or virtually, as a general rule, a commission may recommend the removal of any member who is absent for more than two consecutive meetings without prior notification.

Conflict of Interest:
There are different types of conflicts of interest. First, is substantial which is any interest that affects your, or your relative’s, financial (pecuniary) or property (proprietary) interests. You must refrain from voting on or participating in the decision by leaving the room and making the conflict of interest known in the official record. Second, is remote in which financial and property interests are deemed to be so minor as not to trigger the reporting and non-participation requirements, you would still be able to vote in this case.

As with any government entity, gifts and bribes should be not accepted, there is not really7 a way of knowing how it is going to look to the public even if it something small like a gift certificate, tickets to an event, etc.


Communications Manager Harper did inform the commission that we will be enforcing the attendance requirements and if you do respond to our RSVP for the meeting or if you RSVP attending and do not show, after two (2) consecutive meetings we will be recommending your removal to council. We understand that things come up but please keep in communication with staff about changes.
 

None

Moved by Andrew Shouse, seconded by Kolby White

Vote: 4 - 0

None, Council Member Matthews was unavailable to attend the meeting.

Enplanements:
May's enplanements were up 9.4% from 2024. This was a very strong May for us, the highest since 2022 which is especially noteworthy because that's when we had two air carriers. June’s enplanements were up 2.5% tracking a little bit closer to last year. The airport flight schedule has been reduced for July and August and we can see that reflects as July's enplanements were down 7.3% from 2024. Unfortunately, this is due to anticipating some softening demand due to some economic concerns. We hope to see numbers increasing again with more flights starting in September.

Aircraft Operations:
Each aircraft take-off and landing is counted as an operation. This year has been particularly strong for aircraft operations month after month. May's operations were up 13.2% from 2024. June's operations were down slightly at 2 1/2 percent. July's operations were up 2.1% from 2024
There has been a lot of military activity and wildland firefighting aircrafts that have been making stops here. It seems the weather has been pretty favorable towards the significant amount of GA traffic and we are seeing a steady amount of commercial and private jets so far this whole year.

Parking Revenue:
This year's parking numbers are tracking higher than their associated months from 2024, which reflects the increase in enplanements of the early part of this year.
Parking revenue in May was up 50% from 2024, June's parking revenue being up 9.7% and July's parking revenue up 13.9%.
We do expect to see those reduce a little bit as the parking starts to catch up with the reduction in enplanements.


Commissioner White asked if we have data, based on transactions, of the percentage of people that are using the airport and choosing to park.
Commissioner Shouse asked where we are sitting in overall occupancy in the main lot and overflow lot.

• Flagstaff Sippin’ with the Symphony is coming up weekend, August 30^th.
• Chambers decided they would love to have their annual event Wiseman’s hangar on October 23rd.
• Master Chorale of Flagstaff is also having an event on November 15^th.
• Wiseman now has 5 A&P’s in the shop, 2 of which are IA’s as well with a third studying for their IA
• Wiseman has entered into a formal agreement with Skywest Airline effective September 1^st, for 24/7 on call maintenance.
• Wiseman’s 5^th company aircraft is about to come out of the paint shop.
• They applied for a company call sign of “Pine Cone” and appears they may get it.
• Wiseman’s security system is due for an upgrade, they are working with security monitoring companies using AI to enhance operations and provide a more secure environment.
• We have become the preferred destination for Camp Pendleton and other military bases on the West Coast bringing in constant military presence on the weekends.
• Wiseman has completed their branding update and new materials are being printed
• Working on upgrading some of the refuelers and should have a new jet truck on the ramp soon.
• Management will be attending NBAA in Las Vegas in October and focuaing on fuel, GSL and POS vendors.
• Overall the year has been solid with steady GA traffic and fuel prices retreating.
• Staffing peaked this summer with an all-time high of 33 team members, currently they have 30 staff members and have doubled staff for each shift to better serve customers.

TSA Screening Storefront:

• TSA Coil Door  filed back in December 24, 2024, the coil door spring barrel broke and the airport installed a temporary man door in its place. Staff worked with the TSA as well as our facilities team at the city and worked out putting in a permanent corrective measure of a storefront.
• The storefront would be a hinged double door where the screening area is going to be and then a third single man door. Double doors are to be seven (7) feet wide and nine (9) feet tall which will allow TSA to move equipment through the door if needed. All doors will be outfitted with card readers with direct access to a log system that we can turn on and off as needed.
• At this point we have received the pricing from a contractor and were approved through the budget process to move forward with this. There is a contract in place that has been signed by all parties. We are looking at a September start date with a goal to have this done before the holidays.

Snow Removal Equipment Building (SREB):

• The SREB has gone through various designs with a total project reduction and re-sizing due to FAA’s eligible funds for this project. The original design was for $33M estimate of a 25,000 square foot building with 6 bays for 12 vehicle storage, a wash bay, maintenance bay and administrative space, with the current design expected to be at $19.5M for a 16,000 square foot building including 4 bays for 8 vehicles, a wash bay and maintenance bay and the room to expand in the future.
• The design team has submitted their concept with architectural renderings to the City for review. We are moving as fast as we can to get to that 60% plan set so that our contractor can start really working on their price.
• This project is to be completed in three (3) phases. Phase I being the Earth work and some design work. Phase II will be to finish up the design work and some of the steel and the long lead items. And Phase III will be the construction of the structure itself.
• Current funding covers Phase I and II with a discretionary funding request for Phase III. We hope to get our final pricing from our construction partners so we can submit the request to the FAA by end of October.

• In June, Brian and Claire attended Jumpstart Air Service Attraction Conference, along with Council Member Lori Matthews. It is the biggest annual air service attraction conference and staff met with nine airlines, which is a record for us. We met with Alaska, Allegiant, American, Avelo, Delta, Frontier, Jet Suite X, United and Sky West. These meetings work a lot like speed dating, you get 20 minutes with each airline where they give us a update, and then we share with them.  There is certainly interest in Flagstaff with the number of meetings we had lined up. Talking to the airlines, they are projecting more of a flat growth due to softening demand, and there have been airlines that are refusing deliveries of aircraft due to tariffs.
• We were able to secure 2 letters of support from airlines. The airlines prefer that until the information's public that we don't share what airlines are going to provide the letter of support. These letters of support are for the upcoming SCASDP grant, which helps alleviate some of the start-up costs for new air service to come in.
• Something new and exciting here you'll see in the terminal on our four digital displays as well as our new digital display in the old café space is our FIDS. You will now see our arrivals and departures on the screens along with other messaging.
• At the end of July, we had NAU summer camp come for a visit. The theme for the week was aviation careers. We took them to Guardian, Wiseman, TSA, airport police, the tower and the ARFF station.

Flagstaff Airport issues security access credentials commonly referred to as badges. We can use those terms interchangeably to anyone who needs unescorted access to the airfield or secured areas within the airport terminal. Broadly speaking, we have two different main categories of badges. One is an AOA badge. This allows folks access into what we call the Air Operations Area, which is inside the fence but not in the area where commercial passenger employment or cargo activity is happening. And the second type is Secure Identification Display Area (SIDA)/Sterile Area. These depend on whether you're inside or outside the building, but essentially are the areas in the terminal and on the apron where commercial cargo and passenger aircraft operate on board.

Normally, we issue approximately 135 AOA badges manually and 90 SIDA or Sterile Area badges annually. There's no limit currently to the number of badges that can be issued per tenant, meaning if someone has an aircraft storage permit for one of our hangars, they can ask for badges for as many people as they are willing to sponsor.

Currently, we’re the only commercial service airport in the state of Arizona that does not charge for badges. With current costs listed in the chart below:



You'll notice there's a different cost for initial badges versus renewals. Initial costs include the security background check process through TSA which is why the initial badges are a little bit more expensive. The process for the SIDA and Sterile Area badges is more involved, including more background check programs. Costs listed include both the materials supplies plus postage and handling for the scenarios where we have to send some information out as hard copies for private background check, process fingerprinting fees and an enrollment fee. Every person that has a badge gets enrolled into a security program by TSA which continually checks for new violations that might prevent that person from being able to maintain that badge.

Adding the numbers from the chart gives us a total annual cost of approximately $20,000 out of the airport budget.

We researched different airports for badging costs around Arizona and surrounding states with comparable airports, which can be seen in the chart below:



Flagstaff proposes a separate a cost for initial credentials versus renewals. Our attempt is to recover all material and outside cost and at least a portion of the labor cost, while keeping it affordable for our tenants and aircraft users and also includes an increase in two years.

This topic was brought up in our previous May meeting and was met positively other than not including an exemption for contractors working on airport-funded projects. Some airports do waive those fees for contractors that are working on behalf of the airport. The reason being, if the city is paying a contractor to be here, if we make them pay a badge fee, they will most likely pass that cost back to the city with a potential markup.

Some airports have a whole category for contractor badge fees, but rather than doing that, we thought just adding a note to the bottom of this might be a good way to go. This would be to the effect of contractors working on airport-funded projects are exempt from the initial and renewal badge fees above. The reason to rephrase it that way would be so they are not exempt from loss badge fees as we still want to encourage contractors to keep their badges in possession.

Next step is to put together a report showing the proposed fees and giving some of the background information. The report goes out for a 60-day public notice period, and then it goes before Council who votes on the adoption of that fee. As an advisory committee, City Council will often want to know the recommendation of the commission. If Council approves the fee(s) it can be adopted and put into place. Once adopted, we will then need to do some background work to implement them, such as adding in a payment system.
 
Chair Waddell asked if staff has received any feed back from our badge users on the proposed fees.
We have informed many of our badge holders, such as TSA, Wiseman Aviation, and American Airlines. Without speaking for these badge users, most expect to pay these fees as it is common practice to charge them. TSA even has a program in place for supporting badge fees.

Commissioner Shouse asked if a new lessee would be on the hook for a badge fee.
Director Gall responded: We do plan to implement fees as soon as possible. We do not expect current badge holders to retroactively pay initial badge fees, but they would be responsible to pay for upcoming renewal fees. But a new tenant would be responsible for both that initial fee and then the renewal.

Commissioner Shouse also asked if the badge fee would be something staff would exclude from charging to hangar storage tenants and include this fee in the hanger storage rent.
Director Gall responded: Unfortunately, as the number of sponsored tenants varies by hangar storage, with some being rented by single individuals and others having various family, friends, or partners sponsored, there would not be a fair way to recuperate our costs as these fees would apply to each badge holder, especially considering the cost difference between initial and renewal fees.
Additionally, the FAA requires airports to demonstrate that rent is being charged for aeronautical purposes, specifically things like aircraft storage, are fair and reasonable, so to adjust storage rates we are required to do a rate study. Following the study, it would be a large administrative burden to find some methodology that we could share with the FAA to prove that the additional cost of the badging fees would be fair and reasonable to add to the cost of the hangar storage rent.

Commissioner White also commented that most places such as schools will charge for an ID card and when you purchase an item such as a car you still have to pay for a license separate from the vehicle and believes these fees should be kept separate.

Chair Waddell proposes calling this issue to a vote.

Commissioner Shouse asked when the last rate study was.
Commissioner Shouse raised an objection to voting on the badging fees at this point without a rent study for hangar storage rent and wondered if badging fees were a part of the justification of the rent increases over the last years.
Admin Specialist Sahner also added that badge fees and hangar storage rates are separate topics, and we would be able to add this as a topic for discussion in a future meeting.
 

Moved by Thomas Waddell,

Vote: 3 - 1

NAY:

Andrew Shouse

None

Moved by Kolby White,

Vote: 4 - 0