June 2019 Meeting Minutes

Open­ing:

The Board Meet­ing of the Pana­ma City-Bay Coun­ty Air­port and Indus­tri­al Dis­trict was called to order at 9:00 a.m., June 26, 2019 by Chair­man Lee.

The Invo­ca­tion was giv­en by Mr. Russ Mathis.

The Pledge of Alle­giance was led by Chair­man Lee.

The Exec­u­tive Sec­re­tary called the roll and indi­cat­ed all the Board mem­bers were present except Vice Chair­man Glen McDon­ald and Ms. Sandy Sims.

Mr. Nel­son made a motion to approve the Amend­ed Agen­da. Mr. Math­is sec­ond­ed the motion. The vote was tak­en and the motion passed unanimously.

Reports:

Mr. Park­er McClel­lan pre­sent­ed and reviewed the Activ­i­ty Reports and dis­cus­sion ensued.

Ms. Dar­lene Nel­son pre­sent­ed and reviewed the Finan­cial Reports and dis­cus­sion ensued.

Con­sent Agenda:

a. Board Meet­ing Min­utes – May 22, 2019

This item pro­vid­ed for Board approval of the May 22, 2019 Board Meet­ing Minutes.

b. Approve Run­way Rub­ber Removal – Hi-Lite Air­field Services

This item pro­vid­ed for Board approval for the pur­chase of air­field run­way rub­ber removal ser­vices from Hi-Lite Air­field Ser­vices, LLC with the amount not to exceed $26,676.00. Accu­mu­lat­ed rub­ber on run­way sur­faces reduces the fric­tion coef­fi­cient of the run­way caus­ing the run­way sur­face to become slick and slip­pery when wet thus reduc­ing the effec­tive­ness of air­craft brak­ing. The rub­ber deposits also fill the grooves in the run­way sur­face reduc­ing the run­way drain­ing effec­tive­ness dur­ing rainy weath­er conditions.

Approval of this item would pro­vide for the pur­chase of state con­tract ser­vices to remove rub­ber buildup on run­way sur­faces to com­ply with Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion pave­ment main­te­nance require­ments. This is a bud­get­ed main­te­nance item in the Airport’s oper­at­ing bud­get. This ser­vice is offered under a State of Flori­da Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion (FDOT) con­tract for air­field rub­ber removal and paint­ing services.

c. Approve Replace­ment ARFF Vehi­cle Tires – South­ern Tire Mart, LLC

This item pro­vid­ed for Board approval for the pur­chase of replace­ment tires for one of the Airport’s large Air­craft Res­cue and Fire­fight­ing vehi­cles with the amount not to exceed $13,016.00. This tire pur­chase is a bud­get­ed cap­i­tal item approved in the Air­port 2018 Bud­get in an amount of $13,000.00. Sur­plus cap­i­tal funds are avail­able to cov­er the $16.00 overage.

The Air­port owns and oper­ates two, large fire­fight­ing vehi­cles and is required by fed­er­al reg­u­la­tions to main­tain these vehi­cles in oper­a­tional readi­ness at all times. This pur­chase is for the replace­ment and onsite remount­ing of four tires for one of the vehicles.

In accor­dance with Air­port Pur­chas­ing Pol­i­cy writ­ten quotes were request­ed for the replace­ment tires with onsite instal­la­tion. Three quotes were received as follows:

• South­ern Tire Mart — $13,016.00 w/​onsite installation.
• Road Mart — $14,418.20 w/​o onsite installation.
• Cor­ner Tire $13,229.00 w/​o onsite installation.

d. Approve of Dis­pos­al of Sur­plus Property

This item pro­vid­ed for Board approval and autho­riza­tion for the sale and/​or dis­pos­al of sur­plus inven­to­ry items. It has been deter­mined by Staff that the fol­low­ing items are no longer need­ed to sup­port the oper­a­tion of the Air­port and should be declared surplus:

• 2001 Ford F250 Pick­up Truck with Util­i­ty Bed (Replaced in 2019)
• 1989 John Deere Mod­el 84 Front End Loader (Replaced in 2019)
• 2006 Toro Work­man 3200 Util­i­ty Vehi­cle with a Tran­tex CH400A Air­less Paint Striper
• John Deere Gator (Totaled dur­ing Hur­ri­cane Michael. To be sold for parts.)

Staff has uti­lized Gov​Deals​.com and intends to con­tin­ue to uti­lize for these and oth­er items.

Mr. Nel­son made a motion to accept the Con­sent Agen­da, and Mr. Math­is sec­ond­ed the motion. The vote was tak­en and the motion passed unanimously.

Busi­ness Items:

a. Change Order Ramp Expan­sion – Load­ing Bridge Col­umn and Ramp

This item was removed from the Agenda.

b. Pas­sen­ger Screen­ing Secu­ri­ty Check­point Third Lane Update

Mr. Park­er McClel­lan informed the Board that the queue has changed sig­nif­i­cant­ly in the last month to bet­ter accom­mo­date the pas­sen­gers and where they queue. He said that Air­port Staff has been work­ing with the TSA for the last year to get an addi­tion­al lane at the Check­point; and as a result, an addi­tion­al lane for Pre-Check has been installed, and the TSA has said they will be mak­ing staffing adjustments.

This item was for infor­ma­tion­al pur­pos­es only. No for­mal action was required.

State Road 388 Con­struc­tion Update:

Mr. Richard McConnell addressed the Board inform­ing them that he has been attend­ing the progress meet­ings, and what we don’t see is the clear­ing of all the debris for the rerout­ing of the new road. He said that if you trav­el north on S.R.79, you can see how far they’ve cleared the right of way for the new S.R.388 posi­tion­ing, a four-year project. He report­ed that fol­low­ing our busy sea­son and the Labor Day week­end in Sep­tem­ber, we will begin to see sig­nif­i­cant activ­i­ty as the con­trac­tor moves to the Air­port Entrance Round­about area to start work­ing with the required sur­charge and Air­port Entrance Sign removal. Mr. McConnell report­ed that the con­trac­tor has been on sched­ule, find­ing no issues, and that Air­port Staff will be work­ing with FDOT on a media blitz to inform the pub­lic on how to get to and from the Air­port. Mr. McClel­lan added that we are already into the 9^th month of this four-year project.

Mr. McClel­lan also added that St. Joe Company’s Lat­i­tude Mar­gar­i­taville Water­sound project west of S.R.79 and north of the inter­sec­tion with S.R.388 is expect­ed to break ground by the end of 2019 with approx­i­mate­ly 3,500 homes in Phase 1. Ms. Bec­ca Hardin added that there will be anoth­er exit road for trucks out the back of Ven­ture­Cross­ings to S.R.388, so they won’t need to go through the Roundabout.

The Bay EDA Update:

Ms. Bec­ca Hardin, Pres­i­dent of Bay EDA, informed the Board that she, V.P. Gar­rett Wright, and for­mer GKN North Amer­i­ca CEO Paul Cock­er (as their avi­a­tion con­sul­tant), spent almost two weeks in Europe at the Paris Air Show with a lot of activ­i­ty and fol­low up (12 sol­id leads) as a result of the almost four very pro­duc­tive days meet­ing with 40 companies.

She report­ed that they met with the Project Mas­ter­mind com­pa­ny three times, and the com­pa­ny has since hired a con­sul­tant. They will be tour­ing the assets of Flori­da State Uni­ver­si­ty in Tal­la­has­see in July and are anx­ious to start mak­ing deci­sions on one or all of the five pieces (four MRO’s and one R&D), that would be a game-chang­er project with tremen­dous poten­tial for our Airport.

She said they met with the Euro­pean Project Pur­ple com­pa­ny twice; the com­pa­ny has been look­ing to build a facil­i­ty in Ven­ture­Cross­ings, and Bay EDA is in the final nego­ti­a­tions with the St. Joe Com­pa­ny to build it, and she is very opti­mistic the project will push for­ward by the end of the summer.

She said they also met with the Project Tur­bo com­pa­ny twice and the com­pa­ny put out a press release at the Show that they will be going into a joint ven­ture with anoth­er com­pa­ny. Ms. Hardin said the com­pa­ny wants to tar­get our Air­port and is very focused on bring­ing their busi­ness here.

Ms. Hardin fin­ished her report by say­ing the Project Gator com­pa­ny was not at the Show, but Bay EDA has engaged Enter­prise Flori­da and Space Flori­da and is in the phas­es of com­plet­ing state doc­u­ments to begin nego­ti­at­ing a spe­cif­ic project agree­ment, as the com­pa­ny is anx­ious to move for­ward (needs run­way access, look­ing to build a wide-body hangar for MRO-type operations).

The Moore Agency Update:

Ms. Katie Spill­man of The Moore Agency report­ed that dur­ing the month of May, ECP ran always on Google and Paid Search cam­paigns, and round­ed out the pre­vi­ous month’s Face­book cam­paign. Ms. Spill­man said that as a result of the cam­paign we saw 18K impres­sions, near­ly 500 con­ver­sions to an air­line tick­et, more than 164 assist­ed con­ver­sions, 19K new web­site vis­i­tors, 40K more web­site ses­sions, and as a result of Super Sum­mer Week­ends and enhanced flight sched­ules, 210K earned media impressions.

She said that we con­tin­ue to see women as our top Face­book fol­low­ers at 72%; and that we’re pac­ing well against our Dash­board goals and our key per­for­mance indi­ca­tors are on track to meet our goals at the end of our fis­cal year. She added that we will have the abil­i­ty to increase some of the key per­for­mance indi­ca­tors if we need to with our pro­mo­tion of the Gulf Coast Jam part­ner­ship and spon­sor­ship, and amp up and engage with our fol­low­ers and dri­ve traf­fic to our website.

Ms. Spill­man report­ed 18.2% of our sub­scribers opened the newslet­ter (above the trav­el and trans­porta­tion indus­try aver­age of a 17% open rate); and our organ­ic social media of the month of May reached 342K on Face­book and more than 28K on Twit­ter (an 11% increase from April). She added that our top per­form­ing social media posts include Pho­to Fri­days, an engag­ing way to get trav­el­ers to sub­mit pho­tos of their trav­el and/​or their time here at ECP and the area. Next up for The Moore Agency will be their July 1 cam­paign burst launch on dig­i­tal media, high­light­ing the new Kansas City flight, and the Gulf Coast Jam sponsorship.

Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Report:

Mr. McClel­lan asked Sheltair’s Mike Ler­ma to address the Board and inform them about the gen­er­al avi­a­tion activ­i­ty. Mr. Ler­ma report­ed May 2019 showed a 28% increase in traf­fic com­pared to May 2018, with June being the biggest month they’ve ever had in exis­tence in this mar­ket or PFN. He said they are eager­ly await­ing the open­ing of their new ramp next week, and are plan­ning a third hangar. He explained that the larg­er planes they are see­ing come through require a larg­er foot­print, so they are antic­i­pat­ing a need for more ramp space. When asked about air­craft main­te­nance, Mr. Ler­ma named two shops on the field pro­vid­ing main­te­nance for light aircraft:

Sun­set Eagle and DC Avi­a­tion; and Stephens Avi­a­tion and Tex­tron that do AOG main­te­nance for the frac­tion­al oper­a­tors (Net­Jets, Wheels Up); but that main­te­nance for the Chal­lengers, Glob­als, Cita­tions, and Gulf­streams type air­craft is limited.

Mr. McClel­lan report­ed that Super Sum­mer Week­ends are going well with a soft kick­off in ear­ly June and the 15^th being a very big day, and that we are push­ing through the abil­i­ty to have an esti­mat­ed 4,500 pas­sen­ger arrivals (9,000 pas­sen­gers going through the Ter­mi­nal, not includ­ing the meeters and greeters) on Sat­ur­days. He added that we have added extra Staff, and intro­duced Ops Agent Han­nah Walk­er who will be work­ing 40 hours a week, includ­ing week­ends with Jonathan Legault.

Mr. McClel­lan showed pho­tos of the ramp repair project and said that it did not impact the week­end oper­a­tions, it was done in two phas­es, took three days, and by Sat­ur­day, every Gate was back in oper­a­tion and avail­able. He com­mend­ed C.W. Roberts for get­ting it done.

Mr. McClel­lan showed pho­tos of the two water can­non salutes: Amer­i­can Air­lines’ Chica­go non­stop, and Southwest’s 737 to/​from Kansas City and said Staff gar­nered applause from pas­sen­gers when they board­ed the South­west plane, appre­cia­tive of the new flight option. He report­ed that the ramp expan­sion project will launch in the next few weeks, and then the Ter­mi­nal expan­sion project will begin after that. 

He con­tin­ued his report by say­ing Staff will once again host a Thank You Lunch for Air­port Employ­ees at the end of Sep­tem­ber. Mr. McClel­lan informed that Board that ECP was award­ed the Most Improved Safe­ty Per­for­mance of a Small Enti­ty by the Airport’s insur­ance com­pa­ny, and added that our health insur­ance rates will not increase this year. He end­ed his report by inform­ing the Board of the Alle­giant Air mechan­i­cal emer­gency land­ing over the week­end, and com­mend­ed Air­port Staff for accom­mo­dat­ing them.

Pub­lic Comments:

There were no pub­lic comments.

Adjourn­ment:

The meet­ing was adjourned at approx­i­mate­ly 9:55 a.m.

___________________________ ___________________________

Kathy Gilmore, Exec­u­tive Sec­re­tary Del Lee, Chairman