April 2024 Meeting Minutes

MEET­ING MINUTES

PANA­MA CITY – BAY COUN­TY AIR­PORT AND INDUS­TRI­AL DISTRICT

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Open­ing:

The Board Meet­ing of the Pana­ma City-Bay Coun­ty Air­port and Indus­tri­al Dis­trict was called to order at 9:00 a.m., April 24, 2024 by Chair Hol­ly Melzer. 

The Invo­ca­tion was giv­en by Vice Chair Mark Sheldon. 

The Pledge of Alle­giance was led by Mr. Les McFatter.

Roll was called. In atten­dance were: Mrs. Vic­to­ria Williams, Mr. Matt Algar­in, Mr. Les McFat­ter, Mr. Glen McDon­ald, Vice Chair Mark Shel­don, and Chair Hol­ly Melzer. 

Chair Melz­er asked if there were any Pub­lic Com­ments. There were no Pub­lic Comments.

Chair Melz­er asked if there were any items on the Agen­da that any Board Mem­ber would like to move to fur­ther dis­cus­sion and, if not, that a Board Mem­ber make a motion to accept the Agenda.

Vice Chair Shel­don made a motion to accept the Agen­da, and Mr. McFat­ter sec­ond­ed the motion. The vote was tak­en and the motion passed unanimously.

Reports:

Mr. McClel­lan pre­sent­ed the Activ­i­ty Reports. There was a 22% increase in month­ly pas­sen­gers over March 2023 and a 19% increase year over year. Mr. McClel­lan said that load fac­tors are down slight­ly. The mar­ket share remains steady in the 20%-25% range at 24%. 

Ms. Dar­lene Gor­don pre­sent­ed the Finan­cial Reports for the first 6 months of the Fis­cal Year end­ing March 31, 2024. In the month of March, total cash increased $624,000 from Feb­ru­ary. Com­pared to last year, cash increased $4 mil­lion for a total cash bal­ance of $43.5 mil­lion. Of that num­ber, unre­strict­ed cash is $29.1 mil­lion and restrict­ed cash is $14.4 mil­lion. In March of 2024, total lia­bil­i­ties increased just under $100,000 from Feb­ru­ary. Excess rev­enues over expens­es year-to-date are $9.9 mil­lion. Oper­at­ing Rev­enues account for $3.9 mil­lion with Non-Oper­at­ing Rev­enues mak­ing up the remain­ing $6 mil­lion. Oper­at­ing Rev­enues are $9.7 mil­lion year-to-date and are 106% of budget. 

Con­sent Agenda:

a. Approve Board Meet­ing Min­utes – March 27, 2024

This item pro­vides for Board approval of the March 27, 2024 Board Meet­ing Minutes

b. Approval of Update to Admin­is­tra­tive Pol­i­cy 3.3 Drug-Free Workplace

This item updates the Pol­i­cy #3.3 — Drug-Free Workplace.

c. Approval to Dis­pose of Sur­plus Pas­sen­ger Board­ing Bridges and Tunnels

This item requests Board approval to dis­pose of the sur­plus pas­sen­ger board­ing bridges and tunnels.

d. Approve Air­field Light­ing Con­trol Sys­tem Equip­ment Repair/​Battery Replace­ment – Eaton Corporation

This item pro­vides for the Board approval of the pur­chase of air­port air­field light­ing con­trol and mon­i­tor­ing sys­tem 1‑second trans­fer switch replace­ment bat­tery and repair.

Mr. McDon­ald made a motion to accept the Con­sent Agen­da. Mr. Algar­in sec­ond­ed the motion. The vote was tak­en and passed unanimously.

Busi­ness Items: 

a. Real­lo­ca­tion of Funds with­in FY24 Oper­at­ing and Cap­i­tal Budget.

Mr. McClel­lan pre­sent­ed the infor­ma­tion for the real­lo­ca­tion, which is not a Bud­get amend­ment, but mere­ly a real­lo­ca­tion of funds with­in the Bud­get. The CARES grant expires in June, and funds allo­cat­ed for eco­nom­ic devel­op­ment will not be spent pri­or to grant expi­ra­tion; there­fore, these funds will be real­lo­cat­ed to pay for oper­at­ing expens­es in order to spend all the grant mon­ey pri­or to its expiration. 

Mr. McClel­lan also explained that a vehi­cle in the FY24 Bud­get has seen an increase in price since the Bud­get was approved, and that funds will be real­lo­cat­ed for the increased price in order to facil­i­tate the purchase.

Mr. McDon­ald made the motion to approve the Real­lo­ca­tion of Funds, and Mrs. Williams Sec­ond­ed. The vote was tak­en and the motion passed unanimously. 

Con­struc­tion Update (infor­ma­tion only)

a. Ter­mi­nal Buildout

Mr. Richard McConnell dis­cussed the sta­tus of the Ter­mi­nal Build­out, and stat­ed it is mov­ing for­ward. The con­trac­tor has run into a cou­ple of struc­tur­al items in the Exit Lane, but the items have recent­ly resolved. Steel erec­tion is set to begin in the Exit Lane and con­struc­tion will begin on the sec­ond lev­el floor­ing when steel work is com­plete. Sheetrock is being com­plet­ed on the high-lev­el ceil­ing, after which the final lay­out of the duct­work, HVAC, elec­tri­cal, light­ing, ceil­ing grid, and the fire sup­pres­sion sys­tem will be done. 

The floor lev­el on the sec­ond floor in the old FIS area is com­plete. Final designs and col­or picks are being made for the ter­raz­zo, and restroom fix­tures and wall mount­ings are going in, as well as final design deci­sions being made for the coun­ters in the con­ces­sion areas and restrooms. 

b. Bag Make­up Expansion

Mr. McConnell pre­sent­ed that the Bag­gage Make­up Expan­sion is pro­gress­ing. The roofers are on site to com­plete the roof and to ensure the mul­ti­ple lay­ers of the roof sys­tem are in. The bag­gage han­dling equip­ment is being installed now. Stuc­co is going on the front wall lat­er this week and fire­proof­ing is ongo­ing in the exist­ing build­ing area. The bag­gage carousel is laid out and all fix­tures and elec­tri­cal pan­els are installed. This project is mov­ing smooth­ly and rel­a­tive­ly quick­ly now with sub­con­trac­tors here on a reg­u­lar basis. 

Mr. McConnell also dis­cussed the instal­la­tion of three new pas­sen­ger board­ing bridges.

c. Sheltair

Mr. McConnell pre­sent­ed that progress on the new hangar is con­tin­u­ing. The park­ing lot is ready for asphalt to be poured this week. This hangar project is phase four of Sheltair’s expan­sion. Mr. Kei­th Rogers of Sheltair added that lights poles for the new ramp area will be installed and con­trac­tors will start paving the new park­ing area on Monday. 

Dis­cus­sion ensued regard­ing the acqui­si­tion of con­crete and asphalt.

Mr. McConnell also report­ed that the South­ern Sky Avi­a­tion facil­i­ty is now com­plete and the rib­bon cut­ting will take place today at 11:00 a.m.

d. Tie-ins, Slip Road and Admin Lot

Mr. Nick Har­well pre­sent­ed that the tie-ins and slip road were com­plet­ed in advance of South­ern Sky’s soft open­ing on April 1^st. The Admin­is­tra­tion Park­ing Lot has the site prepped, and ele­va­tions for the stormwa­ter drain struc­ture are going in place. The curb path will begin short­ly and then it will be ready for asphalt.

Plan­ning Updates (infor­ma­tion only)

a. North Ter­mi­nal Expansion

Mr. Park­er McClel­lan reports there is a call tomor­row with the design team to go through page by page of the design documents.

b. Project InSpire

Mr. McClel­lan pre­sent­ed an update on Project InSpire. He recent­ly met with Mr. George Gon­za­les of the St. Joe Com­pa­ny in regard to the pro­posed site road options. Mr. Gon­za­les and the St. Joe Com­pa­ny are very sup­port­ive of Project Inspire and the devel­op­ment of the site three pro­posed con­struc­tion area. Mr. Gon­za­les has sent his team out to look at what would be a good road align­ment for the area, after which an effort into site work can begin. Based on dis­cus­sions from last month’s meet­ing, all par­ties appear to agree that site three is the pre­ferred site. Updates on Project InSpire will con­tin­ue to be made to the Board.

[Sub­ject Change] Mr. McDon­ald asked Mr. McClel­lan to explain how many addi­tion­al gates will be added with the con­struc­tion on the Ter­mi­nal. He stat­ed that sev­er­al peo­ple have asked him ques­tions about the projects. Mr. McClel­lan stat­ed when the build­out is com­plete, there will be two/​three addi­tion­al ramp load­ing posi­tions avail­able, and when the expan­sion is com­plete there will be three addi­tion­al gates. 

Bay EDA Update (infor­ma­tion only)

Mrs. Bec­ca Hardin with Bay EDA report­ed there was del­e­ga­tion that went to Chica­go to attend the MRO Amer­i­c­as show. She thanked Chair Melz­er and Mr. McClel­lan for par­tic­i­pat­ing, and stat­ed that the group had sev­en­teen meet­ings in two days, includ­ing high lev­el meet­ings with com­pa­nies that the EDA has been try­ing to meet with for years. She also stat­ed that the Pre­mier Avi­a­tion announce­ment of locat­ing to ECP was the buzz of the show.

There were at least four sol­id leads gen­er­at­ed from this show, one of which is a com­pa­ny that is in town today as a fol­low-up from the show. The com­pa­ny will have region­al site-see­ing this morn­ing, then look at the Air­port and explore exist­ing build­ings for ware­hous­ing oppor­tu­ni­ties. This new oppor­tu­ni­ty is ​“Project Joe,” an MRO com­pa­ny that is already locat­ed in the south­east and look­ing to grow, and it is a sub­stan­tial project. 

In regards to Pre­mier Avi­a­tion, the del­e­ga­tion met with the com­pa­ny at the show as well. Pre­mier signed a Mem­o­ran­dum of Under­stand­ing with Embraer at the show, and their facil­i­ty here will be the U.S. Avi­a­tion MRO Cen­ter of Excellence. 

The EDA is also start­ing to work with some com­pa­nies on Project InSpire as part of its mar­ket­ing efforts, and com­pa­nies are reach­ing out to get more infor­ma­tion on the project.

Moore Agency

Ms. Katie Spill­man dis­cussed the cam­paign report snap­shot, which includ­ed that the paid ad cam­paign offi­cial­ly launched last month across our online broad­cast, includ­ing dig­i­tal dis­play page search and Face­book and Insta­gram. The ​“Let’s Go” tele­vi­sion spot ad ran for two weeks in March with over 400 spots. There is anoth­er print ad run com­ing in Bay Biz and in The Cir­cuit, and we will be run­ning paid sup­port on NPR, with live and record­ed reads from on-air tal­ent. In addi­tion to man­ag­ing and opti­miz­ing our paid cam­paign mov­ing for­ward, Moore is also gear­ing up for ECP’s 14^th year of oper­a­tions, as May 23^rd is 14^th year ​“birth­day”. Fun social media engage­ments will be pre­pared, and Moore is work­ing with Mr. McClel­lan on some oth­er media oppor­tu­ni­ties as we get clos­er to that date. 

Chair Melz­er had a ques­tion regard­ing the mar­ket­ing account being under bud­get. Dis­cus­sion ensued. 

Mr. McDon­ald stat­ed that he is inter­est­ed in keep­ing Project InSpire in the news and con­tin­ue its momen­tum. Mr. McClel­lan stat­ed he agreed and will con­tin­ue to have it as a priority. 

Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Report

Mr. McClel­lan dis­cussed the Gulf Coast Salute Air Show, which is May 3^rd, 4^th and 5^th. All civil­ian acts will be based at this air­port, with min­i­mal impact on oper­a­tions thanks to Sheltair and South­ern Sky. 

Mr. McClel­lan announced the sum­mer activ­i­ty is real­ly begin­ning to kick off. One of the things that will be dif­fer­ent this year is that South­west is rent­ing a gate from Delta. South­west will have 26 – 28 turns per day on Sat­ur­days in the summer. 

Fly­myair­port will be on the web­site this week, which is anoth­er way to track web activ­i­ty. It will pro­vide the abil­i­ty to track pur­chased tick­ets and will pro­vide users of our web­site the oppor­tu­ni­ty to see bun­dle deals for air­line tick­ets, car rentals and hotels. 

Next meet­ing sched­uled: May 29, 2024 – Board Meet­ing 9:00 a.m.

The meet­ing was adjourned at approx­i­mate­ly 9:35 a.m.

__________________________ ___________________________

Park­er W. McClel­lan, Jr., AAE Hol­ly Melz­er, Chair

Exec­u­tive Director