Magee’s Board of Aldermen’s meeting Tuesday night led to less than glowing reports of the Magee airport as two parties expressed interest in running the facility.
Mayor Dale Berry said that he has “experienced sleepless nights” as he learned of problems and liabilities associated with the Magee facility.
The two proposals came from Dusty Bourne, local businessman and pilot, and a second bid from Kenneth Aasand, who is currently running the Crystal Springs airport and formerly worked as the fixed-base operator for the Starkville airport.
According to city records, Ashley Steele currently runs the facility and earns $10,800 from the city. She receives $8,000 in insurance benefits. The cost for utilities for the house that is provided is $5,000 per year, and the family is provided a house at the airport to live in.
Bourne told the board that for the past 12 years that Ashley Steel has held the position of airport manager she has also held an additional fulltime job in addition to going to school, and the airport is never open.
Bourne told the board that the fueling station at the airport was shut down because he had gotten contaminated fuel from a pump and he currently had a helicopter that was being serviced with a repair bill of $60,000 because of bad fuel from the Magee pumps.
Bourne detailed the saving he could provide for the city as airport manager. He said to start with, there would be no salary and that he could save utilities in the amount of $5,000 per year for the house that is provided for the manager. Additionally he could save the city $10,000 a year in lighting utilities by replacing the existing runway bulbs with LED lights.
Bourne claimed that Steele had three hangers at the airport for “storage, four-wheelers and junk.” He said they run four-wheelers up and down the side of the run way at the airport.
Bourne offered to operate the airport and rent the house as an office to operate his business.
Kenneth Aasand told the board the number one reason for airplane crashes has to do with contaminated fuel and that the reason the local fuel consumption was so low is because the prices listed for the Magee facility have never been changed since the card lock program was installed.
The rate for fuel was listed at $5.75 per gallon and he said pilots will not fly in to airports with pricing that high; however, the listed price on the pump, he said, was $4.75 per gallon. He said that currently compares to other airports at $3.70 per gallon.
Aasand explained that with the recent storms prices are increasing. But he went on to say the price still has to be competitive in order to get pilots to fly in and purchase fuel here.
He added that filters for the pumps were not being properly serviced and that water exists in the tank. He said that two gallons of fuel are supposed to be tested and accounted for on a regular basis and there was no accounting for that tested fuel.
Aasand also told aldermen that the Jet A fuel tank has never been in service and indicated that this may be an issue with the Federal Aviation Administration.
He said the hoses were out of date and that there were issues of hangers being used for non-aeronautical uses.
Aasand offered to operate the facility for the city for $875 a month along with half of the hanger fee rental. The group discussed the usage fee for fuel.
Aasand mentioned that he had been the fixed-base operator for the Starkville airport. Stories from the Starkville Daily News indicated that his service with the city had been abruptly terminated with no explanation. One story did mention that the city itself had refused to fly the state flag but that it remained flying at the airport. A discrepancy over who owned the fuel at the airport was also noted, which was eventually settled by the city.
Aasand claimed that he had no notice of why his service was terminated and had filed a complaint with the state Ethics Commission. He eventually got the records he was requesting but the reason for the termination was not spelled out, according to information on the internet.
The Magee city board voted to pay an outstanding invoice of $38,500 for sealant for the airport run way.
They discussed additional grants for the airport in the amount of $1 million but decided to wait until they had additional information about the grant before they would make application.
