Palmer: Oct. 22, 2026, Airport Advisory

Alex? Present. Joyce? Momo? Present.

Shannon? Dardene? I don't think we have any— anybody online. So then no Shannon. Stacia, I assume no.

And I am present. So 5 makes a quorum. We can move on. OK. Shall we do our Pledge of Allegiance, Richard?

Absolutely. I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America and to the republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

They put the comma on the wrong syllable.

Sorry. Okay, approval of the agenda. Does anybody have any objections or changes to the agenda?

So with no objections or changes, we will just accept. I'll move to approve it. Well, I'm going to use the rule of unanimous consent to speed it up a little bit. Okay. Yeah, I think we still do have to have the motion and second, and then we can unanimously consent.

Okay. Yeah. Okay. So then if we've got a motion and a second, we'll go— we'll accept the agenda based on our unanimous consent and no objections or changes.

Alright, with regards to the meeting notes for the previous meeting or minutes, are there any corrections? Did anybody see and require any corrections to those minutes?

If not, we could get a motion and a second. For those,. All right, I'll move to approve it. I'll second. Okay, no objections.

Um, a motion and a second. We'll, we'll approve those minutes and then we'll move on to our reports and John can take over with our Reports. OK, thanks.

Just the status of the airfield. The PAPIs are good with the exception of Runway 16, which is going to be out until the end of the construction project. Reels are inoperative until the end of the project. All of the taxiway edge lights are on. There's a few that are burned out of the old ones, but they are all on right now.

Runway edge lights are all on.

Pilot control lights are— the pilot control system is still inoperative and will be inoperative to the end of the construction project.

1634 And the gravel runway are both open. 1028 Is open. Helipad AFIS. Beacons operational flight service station. Again, you can expect some personnel shortages in the flight service station.

So far they've been able to keep open— they've been closed for one day in the last three years because of personnel shortages. Talkeetna has got some personnel shortages.

I think they're down two people and they've got one person manning the, the radio. So you can expect Talkeetna to be probably down for several days a week or several days every other week. And so far it hasn't affected Palmer, but we do have on loan to us right now is a, is a gentleman that's come up from Kenai, and if they pull him back to Kenai, we will be down to one controller. So you can expect them to close intermittently as well, which is not good for the Palmer Airport because once the FAA realizes they can start closing stuff, the closures are going to extend. And there's a possibility of— there's already discussion right now of losing the flight service station service in Alaska.

So right now there is— there's been— there's something going on at Nome, Kotzebue, and I think Deadhorse. There's a— they've shut all three of those down.

There's a rumor floating around that they're closed permanently, but there is talk of permanently closing those flight service stations because they've been closed and the air traffic is still functioning in and out of those airports. So That's something that hopefully does not spread through the, the rest of the state. Do they still have Weather Service personnel there, or there's nobody there?

Well, they've got to bring Alaska Airlines, and you've got to have a weather observer to bring in Alaska Airlines to both Nome and Kotzebue. So there is somebody there. Weather Service person there. Yeah,. And Bettles has the same.

It's a, it's a, but it's a weather A weather person, not necessarily a flight service station person. Yeah.

A live body or a recording? Live body. He doesn't talk on the radio, but he's there to take observations. Yeah.

So that's something, just something to keep an eye on for the future.

Winter operations, in case you hadn't noticed it, it snowed. It was— yeah, it's been— the airport is kind of a mess right now. Steve Thomas, our equipment operator, has taken a couple of weeks off and there isn't anybody to plow the runway right now. So. What's the condition of the runway right now?

The condition of the runway is the main runway is about 80% ice and the crosswind runway is 100% ice. The main runway, I've been driving up and down trying to get the slush to go away while it was still slush and ended up turning it into frozen slush. There is still a strip down the middle that you could get on, but it's a, it's a pretty narrow strip. The crosswind runway is a lot friendlier. It's not quite as rough.

I tried to stay off of it, tried to do two separate things to the runways and hoping that at least one of them would work.

So as I said, Steve should get back, I believe, the end of next week, and then we'll— when it goes back into the 40s, and then we'll— yeah, and then we'll have our excellent snow service for the rest of the season. Is the golf course closed? The golf course is closed for the season.

We are in I talked to Council the other night. In the, in the budget, under our revenues, we have— I'm planning on $114,000 rent coming from the golf course.

That's going to be the initial proposal to the FAA, and how that was calculated was by taking 5 years of operation from the golf course and averaging it out so that the actual rent that I'm proposing is the larger of $114,000 or 15.5% of their gross revenue. So from 2019 to 2024, that was basically the operational revenues exceeded the operational expenses by that much. They produced on average $114,000 of cash at about a 15.5% margin on average. I did not count the year 2025 because it was such a large— the net revenue, the net operational revenues exceeded operational expenses by $400,000. So I did not include that number in the expenses because it just seemed like there's no way to really account for how big it was.

What were they currently paying? They were paying $15,000, $100 an acre. So this new proposal is again, $114,000 is 1.8 cents per square foot.

Can we get that for our leases?

Yeah, we're able to. Well, and that's— you. Have to go around Palmer. Yes, sir. And again, This is gonna be proposed to the FAA, who's gonna run it through our, you know, it has to be, it has to fit with our grant assurances, it has to fit with FAA airport policy.

Well, the trick is we just have to tell the president that's the current best use of value of that property right now. Correct. 'Cause if they weren't paying us the $114,000, we'd have to go over and pay money to both maintain it. And so that it should, from my understanding, it should not, as long as it's presented properly, it shouldn't be an issue because at present that is the best value of that ground. Okay.

Now that may change, but right now it would make more sense.

So you said that, so you said that was about 15% of their, or they're making about a 15% margin on their operation? Yep, about between 15-16% margin. Average over 5 years,. Correct?

Thank. You. Okay, again, it's, uh, it's budget season right now. The, uh, the main operational budget has been presented to City Council. Um, there's still more to present.

There's, um, fines, and there's a fine and fee schedule that still needs to be presented, capital, uh, capital projects to be presented.

What I'm going to be presenting is in your packet this evening.

It's on— let me get you a page number— page 11 of the packet.

Then it's projects up on the top, PAC 1, 2, and 3. Acquiring a motor grader, a crack seal project on the crosswind runway, and the second half of the master plan.

Anything beyond that, you can see the projects 4 through 9 down below it. Those are going to be more subject to the master plan. There's a navigation easement that we need to, we need to resolve to the north of the runway over the Matt River Park.

We've got the trees cleared, but we don't have the easement cleared. Or that we have the trees cleared that we need to be cleared for right now, but right now the easement is a— it's shallower than it, than it needs to be at the moment. It's a 34:1 slope, and if we cut every tree that was penetrating that easement, we would mow down about half the park. Which we don't— I don't personally, as the airport, doesn't have any interest of doing. We want to clear our 20:1 slope, which is a 3-degree slope, a little bit shallower slope, or I'm sorry, a little bit steeper slope, and be able for, again, the park and the airport to work together.

But we need to— we need to have the legal easement that shows that 3— that 20:1 glide slope. And right now, the slope, as you're looking down the runway, it only covers half of the width of the runway. It doesn't cover the full width. So we need that. We just need to— we need to see how much we need to finish it up.

But we need to see if we want to go back to a full length of the runway, if we need to— if we need to negotiate that with the borough, or if we can keep the displaced threshold, you know, if we want a 6,000-foot runway or a 5,500-foot runway that we currently have. So this master plan is going to make a recommendation on which way we go with that. How do you extend the runway when it's all covered with buildings and so forth? What are you talking about? The runway right now is 6,000.

Feet long. It is. It is 6,000 feet. But because of the trees in the Matt River Park, the FAA— we had to displace the threshold. Yeah, we had to move the runway.

Yeah, we had to shorten it. Okay. That one shouldn't be an issue, probably, because at present, the current need is for the longer runway for departures, not for landings, because the air tankers typically don't come by tank loaded. Right. It's— but it's also— it's what the tankers need on paper, not necessarily their operational needs.

It's more of the— the limitations that's in the book. I'm not sure the Qs aren't too bad, the little RJs. The RJ is, it's pretty sporty watching that thing take off. Well, it blows all the dirt off the runway, so it cleans the runway well. And it looks like it shaves the top of the trees too.

It is not, it does not have a steep climb out. The only good thing about that is it burns a lot of fuel.

We love that. That's good for everybody. Palmer, what the crew does and hauls about 30% more.

So master plan update. The, the physical survey of the airport is mostly completed. There's still just a little bit left to do. The environmental portion is kicking off.

So what that does is that's going to make our NEPA processes for building on the— for developing on the airport a little bit easier. It will have an updated reference to go from. How often do we have to do that to stay NEPA current?

I don't think we'll have to again. And it's— NEPA is the— is one that it really, it doesn't change. It's an existing condition. It's what is gonna change is the NHPA, the National Historical Preservation Act stuff, where you're consulting with the local indigenous tribes and you're consulting with the State Historical Preservation Office. So it's something 50 years or older is historic.

So there's buildings, You know, every year that get to be 50 years old that we need to, you know, there's an evaluation on whether or not they're historic.

I've never been more historic.

So it's, it's a moving target right now. But what this is doing is hoping to lessen the burden on anybody developing on the airport.

Um, there's going to be a consultant kickoff meeting at the next— not the next council meeting, but the first one in November. So the master plan folks are going to come in and do a kickoff with City Council on November 10th. So that'll be— they're going to come up and present to council why we're doing a master plan, what it's going to entail, and the council is going to be able to ask them questions.

And that— what that's going to do is going to kick off the public engagement piece. So after that, they're going to be starting to reach out to different folks.

There's going to— they're going to form a stakeholders advisory group, which is a group of 8 to 10 people that basically, before they have a public meeting, they're going to pull the group together and say, this is what we're going to do.

And take input from that group. And it's going to, it's going to contain a wide variety of folks from around the community who have a, who have an interest in the airport.

There's, they're going to have 4 meetings in with us, probably starting after the first of the year. I was planning on having the first meeting After, after the new year in February to just get everybody through the holidays here, if that works for everybody. I haven't scheduled any meetings for, for 2027 yet, but was thinking of starting in February if there weren't any objections. We could certainly have one towards the end of January, but I think we're— it's still— we still seem to be interfering with the holidays about right in them.

You better get your foot in the door for Thursday nights, the fourth Thursday night. For some reason, Planning and Zoning thinks they need the fourth Thursday of every month, so we ended up on the— we end up on the third. I don't, I don't understand why. Whatever we're on. Whatever we're on.

But, you know, people forget. They won't remember.

Yes. And then they're going to even— they're going to meet with the golf course, the new golf course advisory committee, and they're going to have several standalone meetings next year as well where they present probably at the depot whatever it is that they're going to present for the plan and invite the public to attend that public— true public meetings. Okay, so considering the Open Meetings Act, or whatever they call that, it's open to the public, and if we're there as people, we should be able to be more than 2 people in there. You can be in there, but what you— where it gets interesting is you can't get together and have a discussion on what we discuss in here. You basically, you can't have a meeting, an airport advisory meeting outside of this room that's not posted.

But because that is going to be posted, if you, you know, more than 2 or 3 or 4 of you attend, it's gonna be an advertised meeting. You're going to, it's gonna be advertised that you're there. It shouldn't be an issue if there's more than however many of you there, more than 3 is the number. It's like this is a small town. If 3 or 4 of you meet in Fred Meyers, just don't talk about the airport or don't talk about the business that goes on in here because obviously you are going to talk about the airport.

Absolutely. I know I'm a topic of conversation around here anyway. So, yeah. You're going to have a. Lot better stuff to talk.

About. Yeah, right.

But that's— and then any questions on the public engagement part for the master plan? What? Or any questions so far? How about that?

Only question I have has anything to do with actually this, but Somebody asked me, I didn't know the answer. What is the weight limits for our two runways? And what is Wasilla's? Do you know what Wasilla's is? I don't have— I don't know what Wasilla's weight limits are off the top of my head.

I could find it. Our main runway is— I don't know the weight itself off the top of my head, but I know it's a— the pavement condition limit, the PCN, is 34. That's, that's our limit. It's, it's about 110,000 pounds. But you can be— what it— what the number does is it takes into account the amount of pressure that the aircraft puts on the— it takes into account, like, if it, if it had two wheels, if the wheels are closer together, the wheels are further apart, it changes that condition.

Drug factor,. Right? It's, it's just a number. It's, um,. Where do you find that information?

AI, I'll tell you here. It's, uh,. Maximum weight at pause is 12,500 pounds. That's. A lot more than that.

Oh, oh, oh, that's it. That's what—. So that's our, our crosswind, our posted crosswind runway limitation is 12,500 pounds. However, if you look at, um, like there was a question,. That was like the taxiway.

That was the runway. That's our posted runway limit, our runway strength limit. However, looking at the Caribou, for example, the Caribou— but let me back up here. So our posted limit is 12,500 pounds, or PCN of 7. That's our pavement condition number is 7.

The Caribou weighs more than 12,500 pounds, but its pavement condition, as heavy as it gets, is a 4. Its PCN is 4, so it is authorized to use the crosswind runway. Main runway is 180,000 per wheel.

That's not right because a C-17 is— has a pavement— the minimum pavement condition number for a C-17 is 37, so a C-17 can't come in here. But it has. What's that? We had one at the air show. Yeah.

Interesting. We had a C-130. Yeah. Oh,. I didn't know that.

But it kind of left dents in the ground. Yeah. Did it? Yeah. The C-7.

Well, and that's what I've seen. I mean, if there's a number, if they can get— if you can get the aircraft to comply with our pavement condition number,. Single wheel limit,. You can do it like a, like a 737. And.

7, There's different numbers for— there's different variants of 737. We have been at 737. A 737, it's a— there's a— it's the PCN is the pavement condition number, and the aircraft has a corresponding aircraft condition number, ACN. And there's generally aircraft that weigh more than 12,500 pounds. So a 737 can rate depending on how much it weighs, can range from in the low 20s or in the mid-20s to the high 30s.

The 737-800 variant that Alaska Airlines is flying gets into, I believe, the low 30s. The load of— it's 32, 33 is the minimum ACM that they can get, which means that they don't have anything on board. There's no— there's hardly any fuel. So it'd be very difficult for a 737-800 to come in, but a 737-200 200 weighs a lot less and is able to meet. That.

I think the 400s. Yeah, it's— but there should be a chart or probably an app now for every airplane that tells you what that ACN of that aircraft is. And I do have a program on the computer which can estimate it because it takes into account how many wheels there are and the configuration of those wheels. Yeah, because I didn't study that, that portion of airport design, but I did highways. And highways, you call it a truck factor.

Yep. And that's where you got the bridge, and then that's, that's why a single set of duals gives you like, gives you 20,000, but two sets only gives you 38. If you, if you have more than 10 foot apart, then you get a full extra 20. If there's, if you have a closed trident, you only get 42, and that's Is that what you're talking about? Yep.

And they're in the— in every— in every POH, in the pilot— in every— the pilot up— the operations handbook for every larger airplane should have a chart that tells you what that— what that number is. The question came up is one of the leaseholders over Wasilla said they were telling them that they want— they're planning on bringing in, you know, airliners and stuff like that in the Well, they're gonna have to do more extended runways. They're gonna have to tear the whole thing up and start over. They are. It's— you've got— it's the thickness of the pavement.

Yep. Yeah. All right, so construction update. I'll move on with that. Um, The Taxiway Alpha is complete.

All the, all of the lights have been converted to LED, and all of the newly installed lights function. So we're good there. The construction's— it's expected to start again in May or June of next year, depending on the winter that we have. And there's quite a bit We're about, I would say, less than 30% of the way through. So we've got Pappy's Reels, the airport beacon, and the electrical equipment building to go.

And with that, it's going to— there's going to be a new line that goes to flight service. Flight service is going to have new controls. It's— we're going to go back to having all the, all the systems that, that we should have right now that just are not functioning. Our instrument approaches right now are not, not authorized at night. With the end of this project, we're going to get flight check, and my hope is that we restore all of our approaches for day and night operation.

Yeah, we are losing some business because of that. Yeah, that's— the trees are clear, the request is in with the FAA. I just can't get them to come in until next year.

And that's the reason why that originally that we were not authorized at night is because of the obstructions at the end of the runways. The trees weren't, weren't cleared around the airport, and it was— had mostly to do with the, uh, with the Matt River Park. But the tree that caught the 150 at the south end, is it still there? There's no trees down there that I'm aware of.

Oh, it just gets better.

Yeah, and that's what I have for you tonight for report. Any questions?

Not for me.

Okay, thanks, John.

I guess we Move on to audience participation, and looks like we can skip that.

Yeah,. Uh, and move on to unfinished business.

All right, so we had our master plan. We were talking about our master plan. We were kind of discussed the aprons for a bit. And I think we, we kind of all came to a consensus about the aprons. Does anybody have any other thoughts about the aprons or want to review?

And I'll I'll say with the master plan, you know, progress with HDL going on, there won't be any kind of decisions made until the state of the airport is all determined and everything. So we can continue discussing this, but to make like an actual decision, you know, we can give John our our recommendation, but he'll wait for the master plan process to kind of be at the right stage before he does anything with it. But, uh, the idea of what the timeline on the potential— I've been asked a couple times, okay, when you build theater, when is this going to happen? Are we talking, you know, a year, 2 years, 5 years? I know it's just a guess.

Yeah, I think John, you have the schedule more, but I think the first stage of it that we're talking about is ending pretty soon, right? The first stage of the master plan. We're about a year out from this first phase of the master plan being completed. It's what they're going— what this first phase that we're in right now. If you look on page 15, Which is number 2, page 2 of the HDL proposal.

But there's the different tasks, tasks 1 through 11. The— what we receive at the end of this first phase is task 11, the condition— conditions and needs assessment. So this is— they've talked to everybody in town, they've talked to everybody there is to talk to. And it is their— this is their opinion. This is their report on the condition of the airport and what the airport needs.

So this is what your— this is what your input is going to right now. You know, it's your— you know, right now we're saying we can obviously look around and saying we don't have a lot of T-hangers. We have a lot of open, open parking apron. We need more indoor parking space. So now this would be after Task 11, then?

I mean, because I assume that the council is going to make the final decision, correct? This is, uh, there's not necessarily— there's no decision to be made here. What this is, is a— this is a report on the condition and the need and what the airport needs. Then, then you go to Phase 2 to come up with different alternatives to satisfy the, the the, the needs of the airport. I guess what my question is, okay, just, I understand this would be rough, but how long would it be if we decide we're going to work, okay, we're going to take and turn over apron D or whichever one for, um, lease the whole thing out to go constructing your big hangar or whatever?

When would that envision that being? A year, 2 years, 3 3 years. My kids. Well, there's, there's 2 ways to look at it. If we decide we want Apron D to convert over, we don't need the master plan.

We don't need to wait for the master plan. We can do that now.

Yeah, and that's what, what I can do is I can reach out to the FAA. I know the FAA is going to want They're going to want to be able to approve it because they've paid to pave it, that, you know, they've developed it to pave it. And for us to convert it over to a lease lot is going to need for them to be able to approve it. And going from a public parking space, publicly available parking space, to a privately held lease lot is going to take permission. I already have tentative permission to do it.

And the reason how we justify doing it is the north apron is going to cost upwards of $20, $25, $30 million to repave, to recondition that pavement. It's a huge project. Is the more apron space that we convert over to leased lot, the less we're going to spend paving. Going. To spend, the less the FAA is going to spend paving it.

So if we're going to convert it over, now is the time. And are you, are you going to steer it as far as will it be T-hanger rentals, T-hanger condo ownership? There's only so much that I can steer it. It's, um, and there's only so much I want to steer it,. Right?

Well, you mean you could say, well, I'm not going to lease to you because I don't like your plan, I'll lease to you because I like your plan. The, the way to do it I think the way that the city would equitably— the right way to do it would be to have a— would be to advertise it for proposals and open it up for proposals, probably for 3 months or, or however many. Give somebody some time to put together a proposal and evaluate the proposals. We could have some guidelines in that proposal, how we're going to— we need to tell people how we're going to evaluate it. It.

So when somebody says, I'm going to build a 50 by 50 on it, we can, you know, you have a justification to say that's probably not the right use. Probably, you know, you probably want to publish how you're going to rank it. Absolutely. Because the first question is, well, why does the city care if you're getting so much per square foot? What do you care what the hell they do with it?

You know, so you're going to want to take, and of course be a certain percentage stage would be, you know, the ongoing economic impact of the community. Because obviously if you're going to put in a maintenance facility that's going to employ 50 people, that's going to have a lot more benefit to the town than if you're just going to go put your own stuff in and shut the door. Or if you make 50 T-hangers, you have a lot more airplanes. Yeah. Or if— right, you have some kind of ranking, people know exactly what you're doing.

Right. You want to have a— you want to have a goal of what you ultimately want to attain. And what the rules are. I mean, right. Otherwise you're going to have a lot of conflict with the industry, but you could have a bunch of moaning and groaning and just it's like, you know.

What, another way, another way to do it would be the number of aircraft that you're planning to store per square feet. You know, it's the density of the density of your storage. Yeah. And that could be one of the criteria. It absolutely could be, or the number of jobs that you're going to provide at the facility.

I mean, it could be, it could be any number of criteria. And I think that's something that, you know, you probably weigh in on.

But it's, I think, step one right now is getting, getting the permission from the FAA to do this and getting a timeline put together of when we want to do it. Because, you know, the other part of it is, is there are folks that are occupying that piece of land that we need to give adequate notice to. How much revenue are we currently getting. From. That acre?

Um, 11 cents a square foot. For the whole thing? No, not for the whole thing. For the two tenants that are there, they're paying for their footprint. They're paying 11 cents a square foot, and between the two of them, they occupy about two-thirds of it.

What is the long-term plan for aircraft that will probably never fly again?

That's a hard conversation. It is. I don't, I don't know the answer to that. Hey, we just built a library. Let's build a museum.

We should have used one of those for the library. Yes, just put all the bits and parts,. Pile them in there, and. Stick them in. There.

Go, go get it. It's not heated, but have fun. How many airplanes? There's 3 on the field now that will never fly again, right? Well, in one and two of them, there's enough parts to make like a fourth on carts and equipment and lifts and stuff.

Yeah, so there's a lot of—. We need— yeah, it's— but we need to do The timeline needs to be fair to those folks as well. So. Where in the world are they going to move things to? Do we have land?

Well, what we do have is we have a— if we have a large aircraft parking apron, and that's why— that's why we have. That parking apron, is to park large aircraft. They could very easily go down there. The problem with the airplane is not— the problem with the boxcars is, I mean, they're probably— he works on keeping them basically airworthy. But the thing is, you know, trying to find even somebody now that has a type rating to fly them.

And the cost of it, right? You can't just go fly around for fun. Well, I mean, even if you want to, where are you going to find the pilot? I think the last time the one flew was when I was in it. I was the copilot.

We brought it to Anchorage for the trade show, for the FedEx trade show. That was like 20 years ago. Yeah, so I guess the question is about our discussion on the aprons. Do we feel like we, we want to give John a recommendation that Apron D starts the process of being converted to a lease lot, or, or do we want to wait for the that, you know, deliverable from HDL to make it part of a master plan or something. I think in my opinion, regardless of what they deliver as the state of the state and everything, we just still need that here.

And when is their lease expired? The current lease? They're, they're, they're in extension right now. They've expired already.

And the HDL's conditions and needs assessment is nothing hard. It's their recommendation of observation, right? That's correct. It's basically, it's the facts that they've gathered. Gathered to that point.

It's a collection of facts is what it's designed to be.

I mean, I, I can, I can just comment that working with all of my customers on a weekly basis, especially right now, I can, I can book and, and get a potential down payment on a job, but the first thing they say is I need to know when you can do it because I don't want my airplane going to Palmer until you can put it in a hangar and do it. And they don't— they just don't want their airplane sitting outside in Palmer. And so my gut feeling is that they would be very popular. Everything we've built so far has been. And just— yeah, yeah, I think so.

But that's the question I ask is, is based on what we've discussed for 2 or more, 1 or 2 meetings about the aprons. What do we want to do to recommend something, or do we want to hold off until the condition and needs assessment is finished? You know, for me, I would just, you know, I wouldn't want to put too much effort into doing a feasibility analysis and estimated engineering costs until meaning whether this is something that's gonna— is even feasible, or if it's just a discussion topic. You know, to me, I think that at least initially, we should lean heavily on basically trying to create the most economic enclosed storage that is possible. Because what we're basically doing is you're replacing airplanes that are sitting outside.

Yeah. Because if you have you don't have the wherewithal to go spend $1 million, you have other options. The market I think we should initially see, try to satisfy, is the person that would like to pay a bit more than a parking space but can't afford to go sign a 40-year lease and build a $1 million hangar. Yeah, and I think we're all pretty well equipped to guide and research and provide good ideas on what that is.

They can be shared T-hangers, they can be 3/4 wall T-hangers. Just something you can shut the door and see how it goes. Build 20 units and see how fast they fill up. But again, I think I, I guess I just want to feel like, are we done talking about the aprons? Or, or let's just say apron D. Or do we want to continue the conversation or shelve it for later once HDL's, you know, or maybe we wait for one or two meetings with HDL because they have four meetings that they owe to the Airport Advisory Commission.

And so maybe that's a good idea is to say, let's wait till we meet with them one time and maybe we get a feel for, you know, what—. I'm kind of curious how their level of expertise is because one thing I've noticed in Alaska, I don't know if it's because the demand isn't there or just what, like just Merrill, there's just acres of airplanes. Sitting out tied down. And you go the rest of the country and you do not see that. Nope, I agree, 100% agree.

Places that have much better weather than here and it's indoors. And there's two airplanes on the ramp and they don't even have but one ramp in front of an FBO. There's no other ramp at the airport. There's just rows and rows and rows of T-hangers. Even like when you get my house in Arizona, there's— you go down there, there's 100-some based airplanes and you'd be hard-pressed to see one or two sitting outside.

Well, I don't know what the rules are on all the airports, but McCall, Idaho, you cannot park your airplane outside in the wintertime. They will haul it off. Well, here, Mother Nature hauls it off. Yeah, yeah. Here, Mother Nature doesn't worry.

But what I'm saying is that so some airports don't allow tie-downs. Yeah. You know, they want it in a hangar. They don't want to disrupt snow removal. And I just— I can say it.

I've always found that interesting. You know, all the, any place that's been built has just been snatched up relatively quickly as long as it wasn't just stupid money. And even if it's just a lease, you know, if it's, they don't wanna buy it and someone else. There needs to be an option to where you can, you know, get something for a few months. Yeah.

So you want, you're up here for a temporary period or you're not sure where your job's going, don't want to necessarily invest in. I've been doing that, I stay pretty busy.

Yeah. What I want to be careful of on the city side is that we don't restrict somebody who goes in there too much. You know, we want to be able to allow flexibility where if conditions change, a hangar owner is able to change their business. You know, if we— because if the city, for example, if the city comes in and says, says you must rent your hangars and the rental market dies, how fast is the city gonna be able to react to be able to change that condition for that hangar developer to, you know, it's a, I just wanna be very careful from the city side not to interfere too much, but we do need to, I think there needs to be some restrictions on providing, at least requiring dense storage, and then just seeing what creative people come up with and being able to evaluate a submittal or a submission from them. The two things I would need is one is, okay, how much you gonna lease me the apron for?

And roughly when would I get it? It's going to be this much money and it's in 5 years. It's entirely different than, okay, you can have it in the spring and we want this much for it. Because you can't go get any kind of legitimate quotes from manufacturers, you know, unless they take it— because it's going to take them some time unless they think it's an actual— we're relatively serious. Say, well, this might happen next year, might happen in 5 years, I really don't know.

Well, they probably won't. No, it does. We need a definitive timeline for that and— and.

A cost. Okay. So how much? I think this is— I have thought of— put some thought into this. I think it should be the aeronautical rate, what everybody else is paying, plus a small premium, like, say, aeronautical rate plus 10%, 20%.

I'd put a premium on it because there has been development on the land already. It's not, it's not untouched land. I think it's the other way. I think that I got ripped off. I think that the money I had to put in my land, I should be paying just less rent to cover those costs, which is exactly what your appraisal said.

So I don't know if you could charge them more money. And again, you're Palmer, you're not Merrill Field. Right. So I think you have to be competitive. And I think our biggest competition is Wasilla, especially for like a T-hanger project.

So I want to make sure that if you are going to get an RFP, you're going to have to make it so it's fairly competitive. I mean, if we have facilities, there's a lot of— especially as you get— as Anchorage gets more expensive and more filled up, it's a heck of a lot closer to drive to Palmer than drive to Wasilla. Drive Wasilla from Anchorage is a pretty good haul. You're out in the middle of nowhere when you get there. Here you're walking distance to places to eat.

This is a heck of a lot more friendly place to be as long as your plane doesn't blow away. Yeah. And that's only 3 months a year you got to worry about that. You know, the heavy stuff, you know, it's going to have some winds. But, you know, after you experience the 100-mile-an-hour wind events The 30-mile-an-hour wind events are just like a breeze,.

Right? And this year it's going to change because of what it's going to be. Cruz did—. It's going to be calm all year. Oh, right.

What a day. Cruz is. Changing the weather. He got all the trees down over there. There's just nothing there anymore.

Well, I thought he's just getting— I just thought we're going to like super El Niño or something. That's what I was referring to. I've just heard very mild winter. Come on, work with me. I need a mild.

Like it just started. That's not mild.

Yeah, I think in my opinion, I feel like Apron D is the smallest apron. It's not slated for any sort of tie-down. Parking in the future. We have enough parking. And they're not— there's a lot of empty spots even though the leases are pretty full.

People still aren't just bringing their airplanes here. And I, I kind of feel like I'm game for moving forward to say Apron D should become lease lot and put out an RFQ of some sort. That's my personal feeling. What are the dimensions of that apron? Do we know what the lease lot dimensions would be?

I do. I have them. I don't know them off the top of my head. Yep, absolutely. And there's.

Also been a— Doug Glenn from Glenair has— he's either leased it or had a proposal to lease it at some point, and he's done an engineering study on it. Oh, Apron D. So I have an engineering study I can provide as well. So. Yeah, yeah, provide me whatever you can. I just want to see how many T-hangers we could realistically get on there.

Yeah, it's a— it unfortunately, it's a pretty narrow lot, so it may be— and looked at it a couple of different ways. I think the new zoning thing that we've passed and put through city council has passed that. Will help,. And I think we're— I think that'll help. But I think also it may still be just a little bit too narrow to get T-hangers opening both to the north and to the south.

You have to leave this taxiway here because of these, these, these hangars. Yeah, there is a taxi lane. And there's a taxiway there so that the lot would, would technically be more like this. It would be out with. Border Forestry, this section, and you gotta leave this taxiway and the taxiway.

There's a, there's a dimension off the centerline of the taxiway to the edge that has to be maintained. I don't remember what it is, but I think in the past when I had some hangar projects, it was like 71 feet on each side of the taxiway line that we couldn't impede on. So we had to measure out 71 feet, and that's where we could put the edge of our hangar. So John knows that number. And.

Yeah, I've got the numbers and dimensions. I can get that to you. How many T-hangers we can really get in there with all the space requirements. Just curious to see what that would look like.

And there would be to the north On the north side of that, there would— if we— for— if you, um, let's say we put a T-hanger facility right in the middle of that lot, there would be no space requirements to the north other than the 50— it would be 50 feet from the door to the edge of the lot. Yes, you could taxi by it. So you could taxi by it. Yeah, so that really It may be we relieve some of that to the south because you do have a taxi lane there and we could just— they could pull their airplane out in the neighbor's yard or something. I don't know.

Or onto the taxiway. Right. Or just right straight onto the taxiway. Yeah. You'd have no real space in front of your own hangar.

I mean, that's—. Could be an airplane vending machine. Yeah. Yeah. It's a— Yeah, there's a bunch of different ways to do that.

Yeah, I think we can, we can get creative on what we allow, what we don't in that space.

One of the questions moving on from the, from the apron project is airfield security. Palmer,. It's something that we haven't talked about. That's under new business. Let's talk about the budget.

Oh, that's under— no, that's under the Master Plan. You got to do it under the Master Plan. That's one of the, one of the things that we've been talking about since I've been here at the airport is, uh, fuel theft. Oh, well, there's something else. Wasilla Airport had Donald Trump land there in his helicopter, and the FAA freaked out, and now all of the gates are locked and you can't get on the field.

Yeah,. Because they said from now on you have to lock gates. So I think they have one gate that they're leaving open from 8 to 5, and that's the only access to the field right now. And it was because when Donald came in, there was no security in the FAA, this was not— so what could they do to us here? Same thing, maybe.

They can— they— because I know for a while, especially after, um, 9/11, they were going around saying, hey, all these airports have to be locked up. And it was— they did it here, and I think Jeff probably has some history on that. I think we were— we handed out a bunch of keys and everybody closed the padlock behind them after 9/11 here at this airport for a while, and then everybody quit. I think that number one, I've asked the FAA if they would pay for electronic locks at this airport and they said no, not without justification. And so.

How long ago was that? What? And that was 2 years ago. And so what I would be looking for is if there was a movement at the Palmer Airport for us to lock the gates, maybe we could get some funding to be able to add electronic locks, give everybody a key fob to be able to get on and off. I think we probably leave the gates open from 7 to 7 or whatever hours that we decide we're gonna open them from.

And then they just automatically close at the end of the day, automatically open at the beginning of the day. Well, the only gate that really needs to be open is one by flight service, these guys use, 'cause who else needs to get on the field? Well, there's customers. I mean, like parachute—. They would have a key.

Well, and I'm thinking like parachuters, you know, somebody like passengers. And Jeff, I know, would like to see the gates go between the businesses and to be able to close the flight line off from the roadside. I think that's a great idea. I don't know that we have the money to do that or we'll be able to get the funding to do that. But I think the first step would just be able to have a locked door, just to be able to have the door locked, to be able to provide a code or something to a transient aircraft to get on and off.

But if there, if there is a security issue on the airport, that's our way to fund solving it. And that's— I think that's one of the things that— one of the issues that you need to weigh in on is, is there a security issue here, and do we request from the FAA funding to fix it? The best system I've seen— well, two things. It's going to be a fairly extensive project because in order for it to not be completely disruptive, it has to make it a thing everybody does. The fence lines we have moved because the businesses need to be part of the fence line.

So that way, the general public, when they come out, they park on one side of the fence and then they access the airport by going through the business. Like the flight school, you go in there, all your lessons, you pull up in front, you go out there, and then when you go out through the hangar, the building to the flight line to fly your plane, they come out and leave. So that way, people that are not necessarily tenants, they're not having to go through a gate to go through the business, and that way the business kind of screens the people for you. And then the one gate I've seen, which I like what they did, is in Soldotna where the gates are closed all the time, but during normal business hours, if you pull your vehicle up within like 2 feet, it opens. And then after hours, it doesn't do that.

You have to have your little magnetic card. And so that way, people that that are, you know, know what they're doing and are familiar, are not necessarily, they're not having to fumble for cards or whatever else during business hours. You have a customer coming out that needs to get out on the ramp, you know, he's not, he doesn't have to have a card or whatever. But at night, then the airport, when that's when most of the thefts and problems occur,. The.

Airport is secure. Yeah, that's true. And there's really, there's one road where that's feasible to do that on, and that's the road, that's Airport Drive or whatever. The rest of the, the rest of the gates can open and close as they are because there's no way to include or exclude a business, you know, to fence around a business. Because like down like where I am, you know, the fence would basically attach to the corner of the brown hangar.

Yep. Then you go from the brown hangar to my gold hangar and it's going to go across and that's where the gate would be. At the stop. Sign at the end of that. That's going to attach to the, you know, to the engine shop, and it's going to attach to— not sure who owns that hangar now— that's going to attach to John's hangar, the one I told John, and then it's going to attach to the road.

So when the skydivers come out, they're going to park where they always park, but they're going to go through the Skydive Center to get on the ramp. And then— and I apologize, I don't mean to throw rocks at you, but On that other side, like John's hangar, John's hangar is pushed out onto more towards the airfield, more towards the taxiway. So if we did build a fence from, from the engine shop and ended up on John's shop, he's going to lose aircraft storage area because of, you know, he would just have to be excluded from the fence or something. It's, we, we, we just have to figure it out. Yeah, I'd have to go around and come in and then if he wanted to have And thing is, is with his business, he may not want public access there at all.

But if he did, he'd probably go around and come off Airport Road and come to the corner of his hangar. So it'd just be the, be the one side. You just follow— yeah, yeah, I don't know, follow the lot line or something. Yeah, but with his hangar, given what he does, he may not want to have public access, period. Yeah, I mean, there's no perfect solution, but that's— but just having a bunch of locked gates where we don't have— there's no access for the public would be a serious hindrance to the, like, the skydivers or people going to the engine shop or especially the flight school.

Yep. No, you're right. It needs to be— that needs to be open during business hours. And the airport's business hours, depending on what business you are, could be 24 hours. Yeah,.

You know, the flight school doesn't just work 9 to 5. And for there, you go to the, you know, you go to the office, then you do your thing and go through the hangar, go fly your plane, come back. I mean, that's how most all the other airports I've been to operate. The FBOs or restaurants or whatever it might be can't really control the access. Controls the access.

And usually the door going on to the out on the airport, you have to— you know, has a buzzer, so we just need you to walk through.

It would take a bit of work because we didn't— it wasn't designed that way, but it's not— it's not insurmountable. No, it certainly not. That's going to require more than just a few hundred days. Yeah, yeah. Is.

There a fence over on the golf course side?

Across the runway, yes. Yeah, there's a—. With a fragile base? It does not have a fragile base. That went around.

Fell off the DC-6 and went through the fence in between the golfers and on. I think maybe they were glad it wasn't a fragile base.

Yeah. Is— what's the latest reports of fuel theft and or any other security issues we had?

I think it's been about a month. There was the latest theft that I've heard of was two airplanes down on Apron E, Apron Echo, Apron E down Yukon Road.

Well, it's wintertime, so more fuel will start getting stolen. Really? Yeah, the certain people need it to run their wood stove or their stoves, heaters. So they're not stealing Avgas then? Oh no, they're running them on Avgas.

OK, so. Is there anything like, what do you want from us on this, John?

I would just ask that you consider it, and maybe when, when you weigh in on the issues you want to be addressed at this airport, that you include it or don't.

And that's the, the list of issues. I think I've given you a few different things to consider on page 13. It's towards the bottom, numbered 1 through 4.

But don't think that's not a definitive list. Feel free to add and remove from it as you, as you, as you wish.

What is this one, the road access? What is that you're considering? So right now it's not possible for a vehicle to drive from the north apron to the south apron. So we have a fuel truck that frequents the south apron a bunch and has to drive down a taxiway to get there, which normally isn't a problem. But when you get into a really busy day, it interferes with the flow of the airplane traffic.

So if we were able to pull vehicles off of the taxiway to be able to access the north and south apron, it would be— it would be safer for the airport to pull the fuel truck off. And that fuel truck also has to cross an active runway.

So not only—. Tell me that again, because I know what— I know that the runways are there and you can't drive across an active runway and all that. So what is it you're saying? So what I'm saying is that we put a road kind of going right here, or maybe there's a road that goes around the crosswind runway to be able to get road access from here to here. The only road for vehicles, not for aircraft.

For vehicles, for airport use vehicles. Okay. So how do you do that without crossing the runway? It's going to have to cross the runway. Or we build one that goes out to the west of the crosswind runway and kind of.

Come around the. End. It comes around the end here. There isn't really— there isn't really a good way to do it right now. I don't know if it would be better just to go straight across because anybody driving out here anyway is going to have a radio and blinking lights and be able to do that.

It's— I'm not saying I'm not advocating for the public to be able to do this. No, no, no. This is just for, you know, a tenant of the airport who needs to go from the north apron to the south apron without going on the road system. Right.

I think it's fairly easily done. It's just, it's just building a road, just. Extending. Straight across.

Or maybe we look at a perimeter road going around to the west. I don't know.

Yeah, you know, you got— that'd be probably the quickest, easiest thing to do is just go behind, uh, what's that new parking spot you got out there? No, that Apron E. Apron E. And then come around that DC-3 and then just come along that. Way. He's talking about right here.

Okay, so just follow him right in front of the street and then—. Yeah, and then there is a road that gets you to the fire training center, but there isn't anything that—. There's a trail—. There's nothing that gets you past that. There's a road that goes inside the fence.

Oh, is there? Okay,. Right there. But you can't get You can't get over to the taxiway from there. You have to go into the fire— you keep going into the fire training center.

Is that a problem? Well, if we had a road that continued around, we wouldn't need a road that did this. The road would just come around like that. I don't know. You know, I would think that if you're going to either— I would say either keep using the taxiway rails go around the back end.

I wouldn't be too thrilled to see a road that crosses the runway, the runway, because when you're on the— when you're on the taxiway, yeah, I think you're probably going to be a little more in tune with the fact that you're in the airplane territory, not vehicle territory. If you're on a road, there's a lot better chance that we just roll down the road and not pay attention. Right. Especially a road that goes all the way to here. Yeah, you might as well just run it down there.

Yeah, you know, it's not that big of an issue on the taxiway because they take— because the 99% of our traffic is Thunderbirds, and the taxiway is plenty big enough for a VF and a Thunderbird to pass. No, I'm on the center line. You know,. It's too funny, you know, about 9 out of 10 figured out, and there's one that just freaked Yeah, it's a start. You say, you know, you may want to, you may want to scoot over, then they'll move over.

But I would say either we keep doing what we're doing or else go around the runway entirely because I could see if they're on a road like they're going to extend. Well, the old taxiway used to extend down. But the old taxiway Alpha was there. So we can keep going this way. What they're saying is either keep doing this or go around like this.

Yeah. And it wouldn't be too much of a project, I don't think, to connect that perimeter road to Taxiway November. Well, don't even put it on— just run it down my lease lot. Just run it down, right? Just run it down on my side of the swale.

Down that swale. Yeah. Yep. I mean, just on, you know, just on that, because you have the building restriction line there. So nobody's going to be building anything there anyway, because my hangar is as close as you can get to the taxiway.

To drive around is the best solution. Okay. Not everybody driving a truck is a pilot who's really in tune with the airplanes. At least when you're on the taxiway, you kind of know that you're not where vehicles are really supposed to be, which will tend to make you be a little more vigilant. I'm afraid if they're just— we just make a road that parallels the taxiway, people are going to just go right out in front of somebody on the runway.

Yeah, they won't look down the runway. Because that's the only— the only danger is, is, is crossing the runway. I mean, the taxiway may cause a little bit of heartburn when you're sitting there looking at each other, but there's, there's, there's no real risk of injury. And so I think avoiding the runway and entirely would be by far the best solution. Okay,.

It's a little longer drive, but big deal. You have to go through town, so—. No, you go around. No,. I mean, you don't have to go through town,.

Right? You don't have to go through town. And crossing a runway— John would have to answer this— but is that going to get into a whole training process of approval and, and airport operations. And I don't know that John wants to take on that new responsibility where if you just stay on a non-movement area and go around a dirt road, that you could like give the kid the keys to the truck and say, go around, I'll show you one time and then you're good. But you cross a runway, And you got to be probably on the radio.

I mean, that's a movement area. I don't know if you'd have to be approved, have to contact Flight Service Station prior. And. What we do is you tell Flight Service that you're transitioning. Yeah, that's what, that's what we do too.

And sometimes they just tell us non-movement area, you know, as you wish. But other times they, you know, you want to know where the traffic's at. You don't want to like make sure someone's not coming that way. But anyway, I think around the runway,.

If you're crossing the runway, there's at some point there is a risk of a collision. You're right in the center of the runway. Yeah, you know, right where people are either taking off or whatever, or It's going to add a couple minutes to the trip, but it's simply a safer method to get from one end to the other. Yeah, and you know, Steve could make that road pretty easy with his grader, you know what I mean? We need some gravel maybe because it gets awfully muddy over there, but it might not be hard to do.

He, uh, he's got nothing to do all summer,. Right,. Over at the golf course. We'll just tell him to come over to the airport and build a road. OK, well.

Alright, is there anything else to cover on the master plan? Richard wants to get to a budget.

Richard's been looking at numbers, it looks like.

OK, let's talk about the budget.

You requested—. Yeah, he's going to explain the budget. We're almost to the back. I don't know nothing about no bids.

The only thing new I have for you here in the budget side is, um, the very last page of the packet. If, um, you wanted to make a recommendation on changing the, the fuel flow rate.

I do have that and that is on— I do not have that.

I didn't put it in. Here. I apologize for that. It's not— I'll put it up on the A. T-hanger sold.

A customer of mine has one of the T-hangers he bought for like $30-something thousand in Maryland a while ago. It sold for like $300-something thousand for just a T-hanger. If you look up on the TV screen behind me, you can see I did make it. I just didn't include it in the packet.

Oh, good. So Merrill's a dime. Everybody else is 5 cents except for Bethel and Kenai. What's the split? The split is signatories and non-signatories to the airport.

Alaska Airlines would probably be a signatory at Anchorage International, but Maybe Delta Airlines would not be. It's somebody that— there has to be— there's an agreement between the airport and the airline. So basically it's $0.07 or $0.10, essentially.

The states— I know the states in there. That's what— that's what my graph is. It's the state airports right now. Yeah, all the rural state airports quartz or nickel.

And Merrill or Wasilla, meaning city sales tax, is just— they charge whatever they're current—. They charge whatever their sales tax is.

So how does that calculate to a nickel or a dime? What is ours? Ours is 5 cents. What's—. What's those fuel right now?

Probably like $7, $7.50. And what's their—. 2.5, 17 Cents. 17 Cents a gallon. Sure.

Yeah, they're disguising it,. Right? They can—. It's less than ours because it's 2.5. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

You're 5, we're only 2.5, but only. For the first thousand. Yeah, I'd say that was the reason why I— it only took me, what, 10 or 15 years to get rid of the sales tax on gas. Because the thing was, it was very discriminatory because people that actually were filling up their small airplane with their own money paid the highest rate. Because the guy that came in and filled up his biz jet and bought a $4,000 worth of paid a quarter of that much.

The state, the feds, everybody else who didn't even care what it was didn't pay anything.

And so this way, everybody— I mean, it doesn't matter who it is, even the propane I sell, a nickel of it goes to the airport.

Well, I, I would— I wouldn't really have much knowledge on what a flowage rate should be. I'd lean on Jeff to. When. Did you put that in place? We were younger.

Weren't we? The deal closed in— I thought that was— 2015? 2015, I think, neighborhood.

So. I think I started fussing about it probably about 2000. I think so too, yes. But so what is the— increase in everything else. What percentage has gone up since 2015 to now?

That's the thing, that's the thing with fuel taxes, that, you know, they're based per gallon. Well, a lot of the maintenance that goes into maintaining an airport or road or whatever else is based on the price of fuel, not the gallons, because of course asphalt is petroleum product, and the fuel, the greater burn or whatever else. So that's why I think it's something worth considering that we look at maybe raising it to 7.5 cents or 7 cents or something because when you figure, okay, it's going to raise the price of fuel to somebody by half a percent. So it brings in about $15,000 a year. That's what it said somewhere.

So what's the— What's that? What's the—. Somebody's not paying it. That's $15,000 a year. Oh really?

Well, I pay $15,000. I pay more than that. I pay more than that. Who else? Oh, Crowley has a fuel pump down on the other end of the field.

Well, it's not Crowley, but I mean, there's a lot of other people here. Oh, it's not? Who owns that? It's Hinshinbrook. Yeah, who owns Hinshinbrook though?

I thought Crowley owned that. They don't? No. So, um,. I'm not sure how much they are, but I mean, I mean, my fuel forage this year I think is about.

So what's this aviation fuel revenue share? The fuel revenue share is a state— it's a state revenue share. They're giving us money. They're giving us money. You can— they're not going to give us $11.

They're not giving us much. Yeah, good one. But you're expecting $3,000 in 2026. I didn't. I was looking back to 2022.

It's like, 'cause right now you can't see. I can't see what I've— they don't give the— they don't give it out to the end of the year, so I'm not going to know what it is in 2025 or in 2026. For another few years, right? Yeah, exactly. OK,.

OK,. So it's been historically— there's been some there. I'm not expecting much. I know the one flight school pays the flowage because they buy all their fuel from me, but the other one, well, they did, but they didn't pay for it, so I quit selling fuel. So if it's actually like $15,000, we need to either do some, either our accounting is wrong or it's time for some enforcement because I know I don't sell every gallon of fuel to the airport.

You and Hitchinbrook. And all the private guys. What kind of guys? Like, like what's with, you know, fly around Alaska? Where are they getting air fuel from?

Oh,. I think I heard he drives up the Glen to one of the—. And the thing is, if they do that, then they should be paying. Yeah. How would you collect that though?

You go to Busker Decaps. Well, I mean, like, like for myself, I buy it from you. Fuel in my own fuel truck, and then I go and I put it in my airplane in my hand, technically, but only because you're the cheapest. Yeah, if you weren't, I'd buy it somewhere else and truck it in on my own thing and then put it in my private plane, but I'm not selling it. So how does that work?

Doesn't matter. So I bring fivers from the—. If you bring a fiver, you should go down and give John a quarter. Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Yeah, but yeah, I mean And, you know, for the people that are going and getting— well, what I do to people that don't buy gas from me, when they leave, I run over their register as if I'm trying to smash it flat.

But I mean, this is something I think that, you know, for commercial operators that are out there, you know, running a business, I think the discussion needs to be had that, hey guys, you guys need to do this because technically we will cite you for not I. Don't know. How they would. It'd be no different if they weren't paying their sales tax. But you have to make a mechanism for them to be able to pay.

I mean, who do they write the check to? It's City Hall. You just, you just go to City Hall and pay. Yeah. Yeah.

Nobody's going to do that. No. Yeah. Nobody does do that. But if you had a tank on the field and Crowley filled it up, then Crowley would pay that flowage fee, right?

It's the supplier that pays it. Yeah. So if the small guys bring his own truck on the field. I don't know how to— I don't know how to get that. Well, it'd be the same— the same way you remit your sales tax.

He's not admitting sales tax. Private guy. He's not—. Yes, if you're— if you're running a business out there, if you're running. A business,.

But I was thinking more about— if you're— if you're making— if you're making sales in the Palmer Airport, then you're technically required to remit sales tax. Correct. And I have a sales account for my business, but Like if I just parked my airplane on the ramp and paid John $75, then. He's—. I'm bringing fuel.

Whoever you pay is admitting—. I understand that, but then I bring fuel to my own airplane, like I said, 5-gallon jugs. I don't even have an account to go pay my flowage fee. You take and you pay the city the same way you pay your parking. Now whether you park your airplane and don't pay, that's up to you, but the The thing is, it's technically a violation.

It is. There aren't very many people that do that, that bring their own fuel on, but there are a few.

The ones I would lean on are ones that are actually commercial operators. Yeah, it'd be the same thing as if you decided— how about I just decided not to pay sales tax,. Right? It was too much pain in the butt. You.

Pay sales tax on your fuel? You don't. No, but I pay sales tax on non-fuel sales. Okay. It's really just probably one operation.

Probably a couple. I really don't know how many there is, but I mean, I'm surprised that the flowage— I guess there's something in there because the flowage I've paid so far this year is over $15,000.

I think we've tried to do this before, but let me try again. Let me show you what I've received and from who, and you can—. I mean, it's just— I mean, that's balancing out.

Yep. You must be selling almost all the fuel. Well, no, because the Hitchinbrook sells fuel. They sell quite a bit. Yeah, they sell much.

Oh, he does? Yeah, they do. Which would be— who's filling him up? You know,. I don't know, but it doesn't matter.

Well, it's—. I— and I have that. Whoever's filling up his tanks. And I have that. I do have record of that.

I have detailed accounting. 'Cause I see Inland Petroleum, I see Shoreside on the field once in a while. Well, they should all be paying. They are. It is Shoreside and Crowley and Inland.

I mean, if that's an accurate figure, then I mean, somebody's not paying the bill.

Because it's a line item on all my invoices I get from Crowley. I just got, you know, a load today and it'll be $100 and somewhat, $160 or $70 on the invoice for lowage. Yeah, and it's in 2025, you can see the actual number and then '26, our current budget. When I had the current budget, I budgeted for the '24 number. And so now I'm budgeting for the '25 number.

And that's why the $15,000 is there. So I don't know what the '26 actual number is. I don't know what it is right now. And I won't have that information until the end of the year. All right, and a little faster,.

Right? I'll have to go back and look and see what, 'cause that's, 'cause I mean, the 2025 actual is probably about what I paid.

And I can pull up, I can get detailed information on exactly where it came from, so. Maybe we, you know, I could show that to you and we can see if we're missing anything. I mean, I, I, I, in real time it shows how many gallons of fuel was sold per calendar year. And it's just that, I mean, that, that would be, uh, what, 300, 300,000? But there's, there's also some lag as well.

So when, like, when, when Crowley When Crowley delivers you fuel, the city probably doesn't see the check for 3 months. No, I'm right, but I'm saying, but I mean, the actual numbers for 2025, that would mean that Hinchinbrook didn't sell hardly anything.

I don't know, I, I couldn't tell you. We need to find out and make sure that Shoreside or whoever else is actually remitting the money. Yeah, I agree. Yeah, let me see what I can do with that.

You may find that they may not know. It's not like Shoreside or Inland would have any need or want to try to subvert it. If it's happening, it's strictly an oversight. Because I see I even pay it on the property.

Any petroleum product that basically crosses the airport boundary and it's right on my invoice. Yes, I don't pay taxes because I'm a fuel dealer. But so the thing will be on there is the price of the fuel, the airport flowage fee, and then the federal Superfund tax, which is a tenth of a cent per gallon. It's going to be like, you know, $4 on a tanker.

Anybody have any questions on the budget? When are they going to have the proposed exit marks? General admin expense, salary benefits. Those are published. I just didn't have a chance to get them into the packet.

So we'll see it next time. Bring them. Yep.

They are, there's actually a budget bucket right over in here and right over there too. So if you wanted to see if you could look those up now. But I'll bring them at the next meeting.

What is general admin expense? The general admin expense is the amount that the airport pays to other city departments for services. Like the airport doesn't have an HR, the airport doesn't have finance. So we, we pay, you know, like an accounts receivable clerk to do all the tie-down stuff, to do all the, all the lease stuff. So it's, we pay different, different folks throughout the city to do different things for us.

You know, it's like we pay a grounds crew to, to mow the grass.

Mhm. I like the change in the proposed lease for 2027. I like that. $93,722 That's golf course. It's mostly golf course.

There is— and that went up because of the, uh, the appraisal. The city has the snow storage lots. Their snow storage went up from 11 cents a square foot to 15 cents a square foot because of that, of that appraisal.

What is the current amount? 11? 9. 9.

You're not. You're. Not. I feel like it's 9 and a half. There's, yeah, 20-something.

Well, we need to— so what's going to happen once the golf course is settled with the FAA, the airport and the leaseholders need to sit down And we need to— it would be my goal to work out a 5-year lease rate plan so that we can predict what the lease rate is going to be over the next 5 years. And it's once— but what we can't really sit down and discuss that until we know what the golf course is going to pay. So once that happens, we—. So what are they proposing they're going to do? They're going to create another Department or something?

Uh, the mayor at the last meeting said that he wanted to break Parks and Rec out of Community Development and create another park. Right now Parks and Recreation falls underneath Community Development. The mayor's idea was to break out Parks and Rec and to have the golf course go underneath that.

And was this just to make accounting easier? What was the What's the idea behind the change? I don't know. I don't know what the idea is behind it.

You would think that would add to administrative overhead by making another department. Yeah. I think it's taking the existing people that are in the department already and just making them a separate department.

I don't think it's adding any personnel. I don't think it's adding— I think that the people are doing the same job. They're just doing it under a different— I don't know. I honestly—. Different budget item.

Yeah, a different budget item. I couldn't.

All right, any other questions on the budget?

Okay, so we'll wrap up unfinished business and move to new business.

We— anybody have anything for new business?

No, no, no. John, did you give us this arrow just for like the report to look at and everything? Was there anything like really that stood out in it? There wasn't anything that stood out other than, I guess, if you want to look up at the TV screen, and there is something I did want to show you that was kind of interesting.

Um, so down towards the bottom of that report, you'll notice there's an operations by hour, and I can't really control how it's displayed on your packet, But I can control right here. So this is operations by hour. This is by day of the week. So let's— you can see on Sunday what it looks like. Let me zoom this in maybe a little bit more so it's easier to see.

Oh, that screwed it up. Sorry.

You maximize your screen.

I guess it doesn't like that. It doesn't. Oops, I didn't mean to do that.

How come there's more takeoffs than landings at some point? There'd be no airplanes left.

All right, so right here So this is on Sunday. So we can— what I want to do is to select all. So this is— and this is by time.

So basically in the— this is the 11 and the 12 o'clock hour. It shows on average between March 1st and today, there's 12— there's 12 operations.

And it's showing 6, 7 takeoffs and 5 landings, 6 takeoffs, 6 landings. So there's an— the interesting thing for me on this is that between 11 and 12 o'clock on average from March until now, there's an aircraft either taking off or landing every 5 minutes at the Palmer Airport.

Well, and actually, I mean, you look at it all the way through like 3 o'clock and you're at 10, 11. I mean, it's only one or two more operations at that hour. Right. That's a pretty steady— it's a pretty steady for, you know, somewhere between— and 10 is, you know, 6 aircraft. Who is this 3 guys at midnight?

Mm-hmm. That's another interesting thing. At 11 o'clock on average, 3 aircraft take off and land every single day.

During the summer when it's midnight, there could be like 20 a day going down to the K'nik for the Wednesday, you know, meetup. But there's a— I think Friday is the one with the peak, which is really— there's an 18 at 12, which means every 3 minutes there's a takeoff or a landing on any given Friday. Between March and now. Yeah, and there's. That.

The Blue River is, is the numbers behind this. It's, it's crazy.

So yeah, that, that was the interesting thing I wanted to share with you tonight.

Okay,. I'm terrified part of. That, but, but the other part of it is, you know, again, looking at all the— all the— at the all times, we're pretty well behaved between 11 and 4— 11 and 5 o'clock in the morning, which is good towards not bothering the residents of the city,. Right? We don't have a lot of evening—.

No, we don't.

About all those guys that turn over your hangar and right over my house, all those guys. That's just the Cub jockeys.

Benji Palmer, the top of the hangar.

Okay, is anybody Have any other new business they want to bring up? If not, we can move on to commission member comments.

We'll start with Joyce.

Oh well, I don't have a lot to say, but there's certainly a lot been discussed here tonight. Very informative.

I'm looking forward to the master plan meetings with us. I'd like to see what they're doing, things like that. I'd like them to take less time than they did in the other master plans that I've been through.

Fewer years.

That's about all.

Okay, thank you. Jeff.

Nothing more for me.

OK, Scott.

Yeah, master plan is sounding more and more interesting as we go.

OK, thank you, Richard. I think I'm good.

OK, I don't really have anything. Thanks everybody for coming tonight. And yeah, I think our discussions are good and helpful. I hope they're helpful for John and, uh, learn a lot every week. It, uh, seems like we can contribute good information and advice to you.

Um, but if that's— that's all I got, so we'll go ahead and adjourn at 8:40.