MEET­ING MINUTES

PANA­MA CITY – BAY COUN­TY AIR­PORT AND INDUS­TRI­AL DISTRICT

Open­ing:

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

The Invo­ca­tion was giv­en by Vice Chair Sheldon.

The Pledge of Alle­giance was led by Chair Hol­ly Melzer.

Roll was called. In atten­dance were: Ms. Vic­to­ria Williams, Mr. Matt Algar­in, Mr. Will Cramer, 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, includ­ing the Con­sent Agen­da, that any Board Mem­ber would like to move to a Busi­ness Item for fur­ther dis­cus­sion, and if not, to make a motion to accept the Agenda.

Mr. McDon­ald made a motion to Accept the Agen­da, and Mr. Cramer sec­ond­ed the motion. The vote was tak­en and the motion passed unanimously.

Reports:

Mr. McClel­lan pre­sent­ed the Activ­i­ty Reports. Mr. McClel­lan report­ed that in 2023, 1.66 mil­lion pas­sen­gers went through the Air­port, mak­ing it a record year since the air­port opened in 2010. There was steady growth every month of 2023. The mar­ket share remains steady around 20%. There has been very sim­i­lar growth at all of the air­ports in our Region.

Ms. Dar­lene Gor­don pre­sent­ed the Finan­cial Reports for the first 3 months of the Fis­cal Year end­ing Decem­ber 31, 2023. Ms. Gor­don said that the Audit Report will be pre­sent­ed at the Feb­ru­ary Board Meet­ing, with all indi­ca­tions that it will be an excel­lent report with no find­ings to discuss. 

Con­sent Agenda:

a. Approve Board Meet­ing Min­utes – Decem­ber 20, 2023

This Item pro­vides for Board approval of the Decem­ber 20, 2023 Board Meet­ing Minutes.

b. Approve Spe­cial Board Meet­ing Min­utes – Jan­u­ary 11, 2024

This item requests for Board approval of the Jan­u­ary 11, 2024 Spe­cial Board Meet­ing Minutes.

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

Busi­ness Items:

a. Pre­sen­ta­tion – 2023 Year in the Rearview

Mr. McClel­lan pre­sent­ed ​“2023 Year in the Rearview” which includ­ed a ​“siz­zle reel with news sto­ries over the last year high­light­ing the growth and suc­cess of the air­port. Mr. McClel­lan also pre­sent­ed the fol­low­ing infor­ma­tion and highlights:

2023 FLIGHT PLAN

  • Con­tin­ue Finan­cial Plan­ning Efforts — (Bud­get­ing and 5 years Cap­i­tal Plan)
  • Ter­mi­nal Devel­op­ment Plan
  • Enhance Pas­sen­ger Ser­vice — Ongoing
  • Com­mer­cial Devel­op­ment – Max­i­miz­ing Non-Air­line Rev­enue — Ongoing
  • Max­i­mize Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Oppor­tu­ni­ties – Projects in the Pipeline and Fund­ing Sources Maximized
  • Process Improve­ments – Tech­nol­o­gy (Admin­is­tra­tion, Safe­ty and Secu­ri­ty) — Ongoing
  • Com­mu­ni­ty Out­reach and Part­ner­ship — Ongoing
  • Expand Efforts to fur­ther devel­op more State and Fed­er­al Part­ner­ships — Ongoing
  • Con­tin­ued Pro­fes­sion­al Devel­op­ment — Ongoing

2023 HIGH­LIGHTS

  • Finan­cials
  • Process Improvement/​Efficiency – Ongoing
  • FDOT State Infra­struc­ture Bank (SIB) Loan Approval
  • Air­line Activity
  • Gen­er­al Aviation/​Military Activity
  • Mil­i­tary
  • Busi­ness Devel­op­ment Partners
    • Project Good­wrench II
    • Project Stam­per – Day­ton, OH
    • Project Maple – Announced Pre­mier Avi­a­tion Services
    • Investor with Florida’s Great Northwest
    • Project InSPIRE

Things Worth Mentioning:

  • Approval of one-time Cost of Liv­ing Stipend ‑Thank You for your Support!
  • Con­tin­ued Staff Sup­port – Thanks!
  • Tran­si­tioned Park­ing Lot for Holidays 
  • Select­ed new Jan­i­to­r­i­al Ser­vices Provider
  • Worked with Lob­by­ist for Fed­er­al Affairs
  • Replaced rental car quick turn­around equipment
  • Roof Clean­ing
  • Traf­fic Safe­ty Devices (Cross­walk Lights and Speed Trailer)
  • Enhanced Run­way Markings
  • School Tours/​Airport Tours
  • TURO Con­tract

This Item was for infor­ma­tion­al pur­pos­es only, and required no for­mal action by the Board.

b. FY 2023 Rates & Charges Set­tle­ment for Sig­na­to­ry Air Car­ri­ers (Infor­ma­tion Only)

Mr. McClel­lan pre­sent­ed the FY 2023 Rates and Charges Set­tle­ment for the Sig­na­to­ry Air­lines with a Cost per Emplaned Pas­sen­ger (CPE) of $2.02. It was not­ed this is report­ed to be one of the low­est in the country. 

Infor­ma­tion for this Item was pro­vid­ed to the Board con­cern­ing sig­na­to­ry air­line rates and charges for Fis­cal Year 2023 in accor­dance with the Air­line Use and Lease Agree­ments that went into effect Octo­ber 1, 2021. 

No for­mal action is required regard­ing this Board Item. It was pre­sent­ed for infor­ma­tion­al pur­pos­es only.

c. Review ZHA Task Orders

Mr. McClel­lan said that he, along with the Air­port Staff, Legal Coun­sel, ZHA, the new con­sul­tants and their staff, as well as the Board Chair have all reviewed all of the remain­ing ZHA Task orders. ZHA has rec­og­nized that there was an error on their part with the CMAR Esca­la­tor Project and they have agreed to rebid that job at no cost to the Air­port. The list was divid­ed into sec­tions that each of the new con­sult­ing com­pa­nies spe­cial­ize in. Mr. McClel­lan asked for Board con­sen­sus to allow him to work with Legal Coun­sel with the devel­op­ment of the con­tract mod­i­fi­ca­tion for ZHA, as well as the abil­i­ty to present the task orders to the new com­pa­nies at the Spe­cial Board Meet­ing on Feb­ru­ary 9, 2024.

Mr. McDon­ald made a motion to allow the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor and Legal Coun­sel to devel­op the con­tract mod­i­fi­ca­tion with ZHA and allow­ing them the abil­i­ty to present the task orders to the new com­pa­nies, and Mr. McFat­ter sec­ond­ed the motion. The vote was tak­en and the motion passed unanimously.

Con­struc­tion Update (infor­ma­tion only):

a. Ter­mi­nal Buildout

Mr. Richard McConnell report­ed on the Ter­mi­nal Build­out. The exit lane and the stair­well have been removed. There was a delay, but the project is now on track. The foun­da­tion has been cut out for the piers for the steel erec­tion. The steel will now be installed and the sec­ond floor will be poured. The con­trac­tor has giv­en a ten­ta­tive date of March 1, 2024 for the exit lane to be oper­a­tional again. March 9, 2024 is the first busy week­end of Spring Break, so there has been a firm dead­line set for the contractor.

b. Bag Make­up Expansion

Mr. McConnell report­ed that the bag make­up project is mov­ing along steadi­ly. The cin­der block walls and foun­da­tion have been put up and the exist­ing tug dri­ve has been torn out in prepa­ra­tion for the con­crete to be poured. The con­trac­tor has been giv­en a ten­ta­tive dead­line of March 1, 2024, to have the tug dri­ves back in oper­a­tion for the prepa­ra­tion of the increased traf­fic dur­ing Spring Break. 

c. Sheltair

Mr. McConnell said that the hangar at Sheltair will be com­plet­ed and ready for occu­pan­cy by the end of Feb­ru­ary. The ramp and park­ing expan­sion to the north of their leased area is mov­ing along and on schedule. 

d. South­ern Sky Aviation

Mr. McConnell report­ed that South­ern Sky has com­plet­ed their ramp. Their project is run­ning as planned. They are in antic­i­pa­tion of the com­ple­tion of the taxi lane tie ins.

Plan­ning Update (infor­ma­tion only):

a. North Ter­mi­nal Expansion:

  • North Ter­mi­nal Design – Mr. Rick Mellin pro­vid­ed a writ­ten update of the North Ter­mi­nal Project. 

Bay EDA Update (Infor­ma­tion Only):

Mr. McClel­lan said that Ms. Bec­ca Hardin and Mr. Ben Moor­man with Bay EDA are at out of town meet­ings and were unable to attend. 

The Moore Agency Update (Infor­ma­tion Only):

Ms. Katie Spill­man updat­ed on the progress of the devel­op­ment of the ​“Junior Fly­er Zone” for fam­i­lies who are trav­el­ling with chil­dren. Ms. Spill­man said they have cre­at­ed col­or­ing sheets and crayons, fun cus­tomiz­able bag tags, and activ­i­ty sheets and stick­ers fea­tur­ing Pilot the Pel­i­can. The ​“Junior Fly­er Zone” activ­i­ties and perks, along with small kid’s tables and chairs, will be locat­ed in an area at Gates 6 & 7, and the activ­i­ties will also be avail­able on the ECP web­site so that par­ents can down­load them pri­or to trav­el­ling. Ms. Spill­man said that the project should be com­plet­ed pri­or to the busy Spring Break trav­el sea­son. Ms. Williams sug­gest­ed that the activ­i­ties be avail­able for chil­dren to upload them to their dig­i­tal devices with a QR code as well. 

Ms. Spill­man said that ECP was the offi­cial air­port spon­sor of the 30A Songwriter’s Fes­ti­val last week­end. The stage spon­sor­ship was at Cal­iza in Alys Beach. There was cov­er­age of the air­port in the fes­ti­val pro­grams, and the air­port brand­ed com­mer­cial played sev­er­al times at the main stage on Grand Boule­vard through­out the fes­ti­val. Ms. Spill­man said that she will report on the per­for­mance results at the next meet­ing. Mr. McClel­lan said that the Cal­iza venue is very large and the Air­port gets great expo­sure at this event. He said that there were 337 peo­ple in atten­dance just on Sun­day morn­ing at the Gospel Hour. 

Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Report:

Mr. McClel­lan said that the bids for the new FBO Tie-Ins and the Admin Park­ing Lot were reject­ed and have been re-bid as sep­a­rate projects. It is still antic­i­pat­ed that the work can be done pri­or to April 1, 2024. Mr. McClel­lan said that plan­ning is still under­way for the 2024 Gulf Coast Air Show that will be held the first week­end in May with all of the civil­ian acts being held at the Air­port. Vice Chair Shel­don said that the VIP Event will be held Fri­day night with Thun­der­birds and full day shows being held on Sat­ur­day and Sunday. 

Pub­lic Comments:

There were no Pub­lic Comments.

Adjourn­ment:

The meet­ing was adjourned at approx­i­mate­ly 10:00 a.m.

Next meet­ings scheduled: 

Feb­ru­ary 9, 2024 9:00 a.m. – Spe­cial Board Meeting

Feb­ru­ary 28, 2024 9:00 a.m. – Board Meeting 

_________________________________ ________________________________

Lisa Brady, Exec­u­tive Assis­tant Hol­ly Melz­er, Chair

Enhanced Gov­ern­ment Partnerships
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