Airport board looks for long-term solution

Tim Leeds Havre Daily News [email protected]

The Havre City-County Airport has met Federal Aviation Administration requirements and will continue to offer passenger air service for now. But the airport board agreed during a special session Thursday that a permanent solution has to be found. “We'll have to put on our thinking caps,” said board Chair Bob Breum. The airport board received a letter from the FAA earlier this year listing several items in which the facility was not in compliance. If the problems were not resolved by Thursday, Dec. 31, the airport could have lost its certificate allowing it to offer passenger service, provided by Great Lakes Airlines through the federally subsidized Essential Air Service. Airport manager Tim Solomon told the board that all the requirements listed in the letter had been met but one, and that putting the last warning placard on a fueling truck was expected to be completed Thursday when the part arrived. Solomon, also Havre's mayor-elect, confirmed this morning that the last item was finished Thursday. “We're back in compliance,” he said. The thorniest issue having people on staff to cover FAA requirements including daily inspections and having people available for snow and ice removal and for emergency services has temporarily been solved with the help of the District IV Human Resources and Development Council. HRDC has provided three employees at the airport through grant funding, which will give the facility about six months to find a permanent solution. The increasing requirements of the FAA regulating an airport with passenger service has required more hours to do the work, the board members agreed the paperwork Inspections and other requirements mean one person cannot handle all of the duties. That requires finding funding to pay for the positions. “The biggest thing is money,” Breum said. Board member Charlie Inman said the problem is that the federal government is increasing regulations that have to be met by local airports no matter what their size and funding situation. “It's almost like an unfunded mandate,” Inman said. “The money should come from the federal government, but it's not going to happen.” While the airport does receive some income through fees and rentals and through crops and hay raised on airport land, the biggest source of money is through the city and county governments. Both entities now are struggling with increased costs and declining revenues. Many airport projects are partially funded through grants which also require a match by the airport, which has led to problems of its own in the past those grants are for capital improvements and cannot be used for personnel expenses. Paul Tuss, executive director of Bear Paw Development Corp., said that finding grants to pay for personnel is extremely difficult almost all grants are for brick-and-mortar projects. “I can get the city of Havre $2 million for a new sewer system but not a penny for an operator,” he said. Jim Lyons, director of the North Central Montana Transit system, said local organizations may be able to help. He said HRDC and the anti-poverty organization Opportunity Link Inc. both are very good at finding labor pools and ways to fund labor pools. Lyons added that the board had done a good job in identifying what was needed and could spend the next few months looking for a solution. Some other discussions by the board included looking for volunteers which could be used by the airport. That could raise problems of its own, however, including needing supervision of the volunteers and making sure shifts and duties actually were covered. Board member Kathy Bessette, a Hill County commissioner, said that after a meeting was held to gauge interest in keeping the passenger air service in Havre, she received many calls from people saying the service needs to be saved and offering to help. One call was from a retired 84-yearold, she added, who wanted to know what he could do to help. “He said, I don't want to lose that airplane,” she said.