Giving $1.33 million to the Geauga County Airport would be an irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars, Commissioner Carolyn Brakey said at the Geauga County Commissioners meeting March 4.
***Editor’s Note*** This article has been updated to reflect an additional comment from Geauga County Commissioner Carolyn Brakey regarding her past engagement with the airport.
Giving $1.33 million to the Geauga County Airport would be an irresponsible use of taxpayer dollars, Commissioner Carolyn Brakey said at the Geauga County Commissioners meeting March 4.
Commissioners previously voted to approve the airport authority’s request for $1.33 million for a new T-hangar and to upgrade existing facilities Dec. 17. The money, however, was contingent on an agreement for capital improvement funding.
The agreement was never finalized, so commissioners voted Feb. 4 to rescind the old motion and negotiate a new agreement, which has remained in the Geauga County Prosecutor’s Office as of last Tuesday’s meeting.
“If we have this 32-person waitlist for hangar space, that tells me the market’s not functioning because when you have high demand, you should (raise) your prices. You shouldn’t have government subsidies as a result,” Brakey said March 4.
Rather than request taxpayer dollars, the airport should adjust its rental rates to reflect demand, Brakey said.
“The airport, they keep all the rental rate (revenue), they keep all their fuel revenue, they keep any fly-in fees, all the revenue coming into the airport, the airport authority keeps this,” she said. “Right now, it seems like the county is just footing all the bills.”
A deadline is no excuse for bad spending, she said, referencing a Federal Aviation Administration grant the airport secured to partially cover funds for the new hangar.
“I don’t think this money is economic development. I think it’s a government handout,” Brakey said, adding she would not support it and invites public scrutiny.
A reporter in the audience asked Brakey to clarify her statements about economic development.
“How does the airport benefit the average Geauga County resident?” Brakey asked. “The response I’m always given is, ‘It’s economic development,’ and then I’m like, ‘Well, flesh that out,’ and I don’t get a solid answer that makes any sense to me.”
The commissioners failed the airport and local business community by not investing into the airport earlier, Commissioner Ralph Spidalieri said.
Commercial traffic flies in for meetings, which creates jobs for residents based on deals negotiated while they’re in town, he said.
“It’s a number we can never really put our finger on and say, ‘It brought us this much money,’ because if you spend some time down at the airport, you’ll see a jet fly in, they get picked up, there’s a car waiting for them. Two or three people get out, they go for their business meeting, they create their business, they come back and off they go again,” he added.
It may not impact every single resident in the county, but what the airport does for the business community is huge, he said, adding commissioners need to better support it.
The last hangar was sold out before it was built, Spidalieri said.
While the airport could raise prices, the current prices are in check with other local airports, he said.
“I don’t have skin in the game in the sense I don’t have a hangar there, I don’t buy my fuel there,” he said. “So for me, there’s nothing there other than knowing enough in my background of the success that a good airport will make for a county.”
Brakey said she asked the airport board how often they had CEOs coming through and was told it rarely happens as they are a hobbyist airport.
Spidalieri said there are three companies who fly in executives on a near-weekly basis.
“The people that benefit from the airport are the ones that should be paying for the airport,” Brakey said. “The people that benefit from the airport are not the average Geauga County residents.”
Spidalieri countered, “It’s a county airport. It’s our airport and we should maintain it.”
Acting County Administrator Linda Burhenne asked Brakey if she knew whether the airport would lose the grant as a result of commissioners’ decision.
“They don’t have to build a hangar,” Burhenne said. “They can do other things with that money.”
Brakey replied that’s a fair point, however, it was her understanding the money would be used for the hangar.
An audience member pushed back on Spidalieri’s claim he would not personally benefit from the hangar, saying research indicated he may still own a helicopter listed for sale at the airport. Spidalieri said he has a hangar at his home and has never had a hangar at the airport.
Spidalieri does not and has never based an aircraft at the airport, Airport Manager Ric Blamer confirmed in a March 7 followup email.
“Thank you for reaching out to the (Geauga County) Airport Authority and allowing us to respond to the comments made in Tuesday’s BOCC meeting, which is more than Commissioner Brakey gave us on Tuesday by not including it in the agenda,” Blamer said.
The airport is as much a part of the county’s critical infrastructure as the roads, he said, noting University Hospitals emergency helicopter is based at the airport.
“Because of Commissioner Brakey’s action, the airport will most likely lose $160,000 to nearly
$600,000 of the (Federal Aviation Administration bipartisan infrastructure law) funding,” he said.
Blamer said the airport is like a furnace providing economic heat.
“We have about 50 based aircraft, but we bring in people who do business in the county, which, in turn, helps these businesses thrive, providing jobs and wages to the people of Geauga County,” he said.
As the airport is in the middle of an industrial park, it sees a flow of business traffic, such as account managers, consultants and, occasionally, CEOs, Blamer said.
A new, one-page agreement has been negotiated, but has been hung up in the Geauga County Prosecutor’s Office for three weeks, he said.
“In the past, they usually took just a couple of days to review and provide comments,” he added. “The commissioners’ outside council have already said that they are not required to have an agreement with the airport authority as we are both considered co-sponsors of the airport.”
Without the funds, the hangar project, as well as other projects such as upgrading the emergency helicopter facilities, will not be able to move forward, he said.
The airport’s hangar rates are also higher than other airports in the area, with prices differing between “budget” hangars from the 1970s with gravel floors and concrete pads to private “premium” hangars, Blamer added.
“Commissioner Brakey hasn’t taken the time to visit the airport and see firsthand what our facilities are like, what we have or the condition,” he said.
Brakey, however, said in a followup statement she has independently visited the airport multiple times.
“After I began questioning this project, airport representatives requested an immediate meeting. To accommodate their timing, I suggested holding it at the Geauga County Office Building rather than the airport,” she said. “During that meeting, Mr. Blamer and the airport board had every opportunity to justify why taxpayers should give them $1.33 million with no strings attached to build a hangar for eight private plane hobbyists. I wasn’t convinced then and I’m still not.
“Instead of addressing the core issues — taxpayer-subsidized hangar rents and the airport’s failure to maintain its hangars as contractually required — Mr. Blamer has chosen to advance misleading claims about my engagement with the airport while attempting to misdirect by citing unrelated airport services, such as UH’s airport presence,” she added. “This does a disservice to the taxpayers of Geauga County, who deserve an honest discussion about how their money is spent. I remain committed to ensuring taxpayer dollars are used responsibly and will not be bullied into approving a bad deal.”
