March 2020 Meeting Minutes

Open­ing:

The Semi-Vir­tu­al Board Meet­ing of the Pana­ma City-Bay Coun­ty Air­port and Indus­tri­al Dis­trict was called to order at 9:03 a.m., March 25, 2020 by Chair­man Lee. Board mem­bers were offered the option of call­ing in via Zoom, or attend­ing the meet­ing in per­son observ­ing the CDC’s rec­om­men­da­tion of main­tain­ing a dis­tance of at least six feet from others. 

The Invo­ca­tion was giv­en by Ms. Hol­ly Melzer.

The Pledge of Alle­giance was led by Chair­man Lee.

The Exec­u­tive Sec­re­tary called the roll and indi­cat­ed all the Board mem­bers were present. Every­one called into the vir­tu­al meet­ing except for Chair­man Lee and Ms. Melz­er who were phys­i­cal­ly present. 

The Agen­da was pre­sent­ed to the Board. Mr. John­son made a motion to accept the Agen­da. Ms. Melz­er sec­ond­ed the motion. The vote was tak­en and the motion passed unanimously.

Reports:

Mr. Park­er McClel­lan pre­sent­ed and reviewed the Activ­i­ty Reports.

Ms. Dar­lene Nel­son pre­sent­ed and reviewed the Finan­cial Reports.

Con­sent Agenda:

1. Board Meet­ing Min­utes – Feb­ru­ary 26, 2020

This item pro­vid­ed for Board approval of the Feb­ru­ary 26, 2020 Board Meet­ing Minutes.

1. Spe­cial Board Meet­ing Min­utes – March 12, 2020

This item pro­vid­ed for Board approval of the March 12, 2020 Spe­cial Board Meet­ing Minutes. 

1. Board Work­shop Min­utes – March 12, 2020

This item pro­vid­ed for Board approval of the March 12, 2020 Board Work­shop Minutes. 

1. Exer­cise Option for Sun­trust ATM Con­ces­sion Agreement

This item pro­vid­ed for Board approval to extend the agree­ment with Sun­Trust Bank for ATM Ser­vices for an addi­tion­al one (1) year term. 

Effec­tive June 21, 2019, the Air­port entered into a non-exclu­sive agree­ment with Sun­Trust Bank for two ATMs in the North­west Flori­da Beach­es Inter­na­tion­al Air­port Ter­mi­nal Build­ing, one (1) in the pre-secu­ri­ty area and one (1) in the post-secu­ri­ty area. The con­tract was for a one-year term with two addi­tion­al one (1) year options and the rental pay­ment is $4,400 per year.

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The con­tract will auto­mat­i­cal­ly renew unless either par­ty pro­vides six­ty (60) days writ­ten notice pri­or to the renew­al date. The annu­al rental pay­ment is includ­ed in the FY20 Oper­at­ing and Cap­i­tal Improve­ment Bud­get, and will also be includ­ed in the upcom­ing FY21 Bud­get. Staff rec­om­mend­ed Board approval of the Sun­Trust Bank ATM Ser­vices con­tract first one (1) year renew­al option. 

1. Approve 6‑Month Exten­sion to Matthew Mar­shall Sublease

This item pro­vid­ed for Board approval of a 6‑month exten­sion to Sub-Lease of Hangar 4 between Matt and Amy Mar­shall and Sun­set Eagle Aviation. 

In June 2011, Matt Mar­shall and Amy Mar­shall exe­cut­ed a Land Lease Agree­ment with the Dis­trict to con­struct a hangar. The hangar was orig­i­nal­ly used to store com­pa­ny air­craft. The com­pa­ny air­craft sub­se­quent­ly sold. Since that time Mar­shall has had 2 sub­lease requests approved pri­or to this request. 

Sun­set Eagle Avi­a­tion is an air­craft main­te­nance busi­ness oper­at­ing at the Cal­houn Coun­ty Air­port locat­ed near Blountstown. Fol­low­ing Hur­ri­cane Michael, the hangar that Sun­set Eagle occu­pied at the Cal­houn Coun­ty Air­port was sig­nif­i­cant­ly dam­aged and is unable to be occu­pied at this time. The hangar is sched­uled for repair/​replacement.

At the March 27, 2019 Board Meet­ing, a Sub-Lease of Hangar 4 for one year between Matt and Amy Mar­shall and Sun­set Eagle Avi­a­tion was approved. Present­ly, Sun­set Eagle Avi­a­tion is oper­at­ing out of Matt and Amy Marshall’s Hangar.

Both Sun­set Eagle and the Marshall’s are aware of the loca­tion in our cor­po­rate hangar area and the expec­ta­tions of ​“qui­et enjoy­ment” as defined in the lease. In the event this sub­lease has an impact on the oth­er ten­ants all par­ties have agreed to ter­mi­nate this sub­lease at the dis­cre­tion of the District. 

In the inter­im, Sun­set Eagle Avi­a­tion has request­ed to sub-lease the Mar­shall Hangar 4 for their air­craft main­te­nance busi­ness from Mr. and Mrs. Mar­shall for an addi­tion­al 6 months. The approval of this Sub-Lease will have no impact on the FY20 Oper­a­tion and Main­te­nance Bud­get. Staff rec­om­mend­ed that the Board approve the Sub-Lease of Hangar 4 to Sun­set Eagle Aviation.

Mr. Nel­son made a motion to accept the Con­sent Agen­da, and Mr. Tusa sec­ond­ed the motion. The vote was tak­en and the motion passed except for Mr. John­son who was unable to place his vote due to tech­ni­cal difficulties.

Busi­ness Items:

1. ZHA Task Order #39‑F – Ter­mi­nal Gate 6 & 7 Hold Room Expansion

This item pro­vid­ed for the Board’s approval of Task Order #39‑F to ZHA as the Airport’s con­tin­u­ing engi­neer­ing con­sul­tant to pro­fes­sion­al ser­vices to include project man­age­ment and con­struc­tion man­age­ment services.

Ear­li­er this year the Air­port designed and com­pet­i­tive­ly bid the Gate 6 and 7 Ter­mi­nal Expan­sion project. There was one bid received and it was sig­nif­i­cant­ly over the project bud­get. Based on the present con­struc­tion mar­ket in Bay Coun­ty and around the Region, the Air­port uti­lized a Con­struc­tion Man­ag­er @ Risk (CM@R) deliv­ery method of con­struc­tion to pro­vide a bet­ter oppor­tu­ni­ty to receive com­pet­i­tive sub-con­trac­tor bids and bids with­in the pro­posed project bud­get. Bids were solicit­ed and received for three 

dis­tinct por­tions of the Project: pro­cure the mod­u­lar build­ing units (which had a long lead time for deliver);

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the build out of the expan­sion and ter­mi­nal con­nec­tion; and the pro­cure­ment and instal­la­tion of pas­sen­ger board­ing bridges for Gates 6 and 7. Task Order 39‑D which was approved at the Octo­ber 30, 2019 Meet­ing includ­ed project man­age­ment through June 1, 2020. 

Based on the addi­tion of the rebid­ding effort and addi­tion­al time required and the result­ing increase in project scope, this Task Order will include extend­ed project man­age­ment and con­struc­tion man­age­ment ser­vices based on the com­ple­tion of Gates 6 and 7.

The over­all cost of this task order is $48,400 and will be fund­ed through the Ter­mi­nal Expan­sion Project. Staff rec­om­mend­ed Board approval of the task order for extend­ed project man­age­ment and con­struc­tion man­age­ment ser­vices for the Ter­mi­nal Expan­sion Project.

Mr. McClel­lan addressed the Board and report­ed that as a result of changes we have made to the Ter­mi­nal Expan­sion Project scope, ZHA has asked for an increase in their fees. Mr. McClel­lan asked ZHA Pres­i­dent Rick Mellin to explain Task Order #39‑F. Mr. Mellin addressed the Board via phone explain­ing that the Project began in Feb­ru­ary 2018 with a plan­ning process, moved through a design process and got to design and con­struc­tion bid­ding, but because of Hur­ri­cane Michael the bid­ding envi­ron­ment was chal­leng­ing with only one Bid for $7.3M, well over our bud­get. Because of this, we went out for a CM@R con­tract, and ulti­mate­ly got a con­tract with All­state Con­struc­tion. Mr. Mellin report­ed that we went through a series of Amend­ments – ini­tial­ly to the GMP for the mod­u­lar build­ings, then for the inte­ri­or of the build­ings, then a third Amend­ment at the last Board Meet­ing to add Gates 6 and 7.

Mr. Mellin report­ed that Gates 6 and 7 have come through vari­a­tions to find the most eco­nom­i­cal way to hit our tar­get bud­gets. He said that on Gate 6 we are reusing an exist­ing Pas­sen­ger Board­ing Bridge and adding new Pas­sen­ger Ramps up to that Board­ing Bridge; and buy­ing a new Pas­sen­ger Board­ing Bridge for Gate 7. He report­ed that the time to get those Gates in is extend­ing the time the work was to be com­plet­ed, orig­i­nal­ly sched­uled for Decem­ber 1, 2019 – and now is set for Decem­ber 1, 2020, extend­ing the project man­age­ment efforts for that time peri­od (this Task Order).

Vice Chair­man McDon­ald asked for clar­i­fi­ca­tion of the sched­ule of ser­vices with the com­ple­tion date of Decem­ber 2020 when he had under­stood the Project would be com­plet­ed in June 2020. Mr. Mellin explained that the Ter­mi­nal Build­ing would be com­plet­ed in June, but not the Pas­sen­ger Board­ing Bridges. Until then we will be using mobile ramp/​stairs to get up to the plane if necessary. 

Vice Chair­man McDon­ald ques­tioned the neces­si­ty of addi­tion­al sup­port since we are pay­ing the con­trac­tor, and Mr. Mellin explained that gen­er­al­ly the con­trac­tor assem­bles every­thing and pro­vides it to the own­er, but most times it is lack­ing the war­ranties and man­u­als and train­ing, and there needs to be a close out process which ZHA would pro­vide. Mr. Mellin explained that their fee for the entire Project is rough­ly 6 – 6.5% of the entire cost, and is gen­er­al­ly con­sid­ered very reasonable. 

Vice Chair­man McDon­ald asked Mr. McClel­lan and Chair­man Lee for their opin­ion and Chair­man Lee explained that ZHA is oper­at­ing on our behalf as an own­er rep­re­sen­ta­tive and that with­out the pro­fes­sion­al Staff avail­able to mon­i­tor the Project, this Task Order from ZHA is legit­i­mate. Mr. McClel­lan con­curred, but added that ZHA should be direct­ed to adhere to the not-to-exceed part, and min­i­mize efforts as we are about to go into a huge cost sav­ings mode due to COVID-19. 

Last­ly, Vice Chair­man McDon­ald asked if this would be the final Task Order asso­ci­at­ed with the Ter­mi­nal Expan­sion Project, and Mr. Mellin said that assum­ing there was noth­ing that would take the Project past Decem­ber 2020 – no Change Orders or addi­tion­al Scopes to the Work – there would be no more Task Orders. 

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Vice Chair­man McDon­ald made a motion to approve ZHA Task Order #39‑F – Ter­mi­nal Gate 6 & 7 Hold Room Expan­sion, and Ms. Melz­er sec­ond­ed the motion. The vote was tak­en and the motion passed except for Mr. John­son and Mr. Nel­son who were unable to place their votes due to tech­ni­cal dif­fi­cul­ties. Mr. John­son lat­er texted Mr. McClel­lan with his ​“yes” vote and Mr. Nel­son called with his ​“yes” vote.

1. Pre­sen­ta­tion: COVID-19 Update 

This item pro­vid­ed for Board approval of the pro­posed Relief Pro­grams for Sig­na­to­ry Air­lines and Rental Car Com­pa­nies at ECP.

As a result of the COVID – 19 pan­dem­ic, the air­line and rental car indus­tries have been sig­nif­i­cant­ly impact­ed. The num­ber of pas­sen­gers uti­liz­ing the nation’s air­ports, and ECP specif­i­cal­ly, has decreased sig­nif­i­cant­ly. It is esti­mat­ed the drop nation­wide is in excess of 80% and at ECP, it is esti­mat­ed to be between 70 – 80%. 

At ECP, we had the ben­e­fits of Spring Break and tourist vis­i­ta­tion for much of the month of March. Over the last 5 – 7 days, we have seen a dra­mat­ic reduc­tion in pas­sen­ger traf­fic, and, as a result, air­lines can­celling flights. The reduc­tion in pas­sen­ger and flight activ­i­ty has impact­ed our land­ing fees, con­ces­sions, park­ing, and rental car revenues. 

The sig­na­to­ry air­lines at ECP have asked for relief, and fol­low­ing numer­ous dis­cus­sions, Staff pro­posed a defer­ment of charges. This defer­ment of charges would only extend the pay­ment due dates, with all charges being remit­ted pri­or to the end of our fis­cal year. 

The rental car com­pa­nies oper­at­ing in our Ter­mi­nal have also asked for relief and the abil­i­ty to store vehi­cles. Fol­low­ing numer­ous dis­cus­sions with sev­er­al of the com­pa­nies, Staff would like to pro­pose an ECP Rental Car Relief Pro­gram which will allow the rental car com­pa­nies to only pay the 10% con­ces­sion fee of their Gross Receipts begin­ning in May 2020; and uti­lize funds avail­able in the Cus­tomer Facil­i­ty Charge (CFC) account – the fund where we save their excess rev­enues to be used for future rental car devel­op­ment; i.e. facil­i­ty improve­ments, canopies or a por­tion of a garage for rental car oper­a­tions – to pay the dif­fer­ence in the Min­i­mum Annu­al Guar­an­tee (MAG) and the con­ces­sion fees payable for the month of April 2020 with repay­ment in 18 months. 

Addi­tion­al­ly, Staff will imple­ment an Aus­ter­i­ty Pro­gram to reduce costs and defer projects. The intent of the pro­gram is to post­pone or defer costs until lat­er in the fis­cal year and min­i­mize the fis­cal impacts as much as pos­si­ble. There will be a need to uti­lize Unre­strict­ed Cash Reserves to fund the oper­a­tion of the Air­port as many of our rev­enue sources may be severe­ly impact­ed. It should be not­ed that any agree­ments with the rental car com­pa­nies or the air­lines will include ​“claw­back” claus­es in the event of a fed­er­al or state relief package. 

The bud­get impact is unknown at this time, based on the uncer­tain­ty of the length of time that trav­el will be impact­ed by COVID-19. Approx­i­mate­ly 70% of oper­at­ing rev­enues are derived from vari­able rentals; there­fore, Staff will close­ly mon­i­tor the finan­cial impacts and inform the Board as more facts are known.

Mr. McClel­lan addressed the Board say­ing that COVID-19 is prob­a­bly the most chal­leng­ing issue he has had to deal with in his entire career, count­ing SARS, Bird Flu, and 9 – 11 because it is chang­ing so fre­quent­ly and caus­ing us to do things we do not nor­mal­ly do. He said because of the suc­cess of our Air­port over the last ten years, we have the oppor­tu­ni­ty to do things oth­er air­ports do not have the abil­i­ty to do. He said there is a Fed­er­al Pack­age hope­ful­ly being vot­ed on lat­er today. He said he esti­mates Staff is in four to six con­fer­ence calls each day with the Governor’s Office, FDOT, var­i­ous asso­ci­a­tions, the Police, Fire; and every­one is focused on safe­ty. He said the num­ber of pas­sen­gers screened by TSA has

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been very good until last Fri­day, and nation­al­ly, it is down 87%. He said we’ve been see­ing 1,500 pas­sen­gers dai­ly, but look­ing at today, we will prob­a­bly be at 250. He said that our restau­rant con­ces­sions have been the only net­work here mak­ing any mon­ey in the last three weeks. He said we have had requests from the air­lines, rental car com­pa­nies, and Clear Chan­nel to waive their fees, but instead, Staff came up with this Relief Pro­gram, and the air­lines are very much appre­cia­tive that it would give them time to get back on their feet. He said if there is a relief pack­age from the Fed­er­al Gov­ern­ment, we will reassess how to make repayments. 

Per our Aus­ter­i­ty Pro­gram, Mr. McClel­lan said that Staff has already begun lim­it­ing over­time; would like to defer the Cell­phone Lot Expan­sion and put it on hold (we will not be able to meet the con­struc­tion dates set by the State) until lat­er in the fis­cal year when we have a bet­ter han­dle on the eco­nom­ic air­line recov­ery peri­od (and our eco­nom­ic recov­ery peri­od) as a result of COVID-19; and each vacant job posi­tion will be filled only as based on need. 

Staff rec­om­mend­ed Board approval of con­cept of the Air­line and Rental Car Relief Pro­grams and devel­op­ment of an agree­ment for each line of business.

Ms. Melz­er made a motion to approve the con­cept of the Air­line and Rental Car Relief Pro­grams and the devel­op­ment of an agree­ment for each line of busi­ness, and Vice Chair­man McDon­ald sec­ond­ed the motion. The vote was tak­en and the motion passed unanimously.

1. Pre­sen­ta­tion: Ter­mi­nal Expan­sion Update (infor­ma­tion only)

Mr. McClel­lan invit­ed ZHA Pres­i­dent Mr. Rick Mellin to address the Board regard­ing the Ter­mi­nal Expan­sion Project. Mr. Mellin report­ed via phone that last week we received our full build­ing per­mit; All­state has laid out the loca­tions for the Pas­sen­ger Board Bridge pedestals; a dump­ster and the steel foun­da­tion beds have been deliv­ered to the site; the elec­tri­cian has begun lay­ing out all the con­duit runs and exist­ing elec­tri­cal rooms back to the PBBs; the con­crete sub­con­trac­tor has begun mobi­liz­ing to begin foun­da­tions; and the mod­u­lar build­ings are about com­plete, with deliv­ery to begin on April 13. Mr. McClel­lan added that we received an email from All­state say­ing there may be delays as a result of COVID-19 and lack of sub­con­trac­tor staff, but Mr. Mellin said he had not seen any delays with oth­er sub­con­trac­tors’ staff as of this moment. Mr. Mellin added that even with the ​“Stay-at-Home” restric­tions issued by some Flori­da cities, for exam­ple all the cities in Orange Coun­ty, the lan­guage exempts all con­struc­tion sites, as well as oth­er busi­ness­es that oper­ate with social dis­tanc­ing, and they will con­tin­ue to be allowed to operate.

1. Pre­sen­ta­tion: State Road 388 Con­struc­tion Update (infor­ma­tion only)

Mr. Richard McConnell pro­vid­ed a S.R. 388 Project update to the Board and report­ed that yes­ter­day there was a vir­tu­al meet­ing with the con­trac­tor and con­stituents, and they report­ed they are ahead of sched­ule and ahead of bud­get, but that the work­ers are con­cerned that they may get an order to remain at home and not be allowed to earn a liv­ing, so they are notic­ing an uptick in eager­ness to get to work and stay on the job. Mr. McConnell said that they con­tin­ue to work on the sur­charge – three feet remains to go up on the east side of the Entrance, and sev­en to eight feet remains to go up on the west side. He said the wick drains are work­ing as they are see­ing dis­charge come out of those drains, how­ev­er they did take a delay on the start of the bridge con­struc­tions until June or July as they wait on Coast Guard per­mits. Mr. McClel­lan added that Staff con­tin­ues to check on the light­ing every night, and the sig­nage is work­ing, and that as the sur­charge goes up anoth­er three feet, it will be a challenge.

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The Bay EDA Update:

Bay EDA Pres­i­dent Bec­ca Hardin addressed the Board via phone and report­ed that this is a good time to strate­gize and look at how now more than ever Bay EDA and ECP need to work togeth­er to diver­si­fy sources of income so that rev­enue is not depen­dent on pas­sen­ger traf­fic, specif­i­cal­ly push­ing the MRO and avi­a­tion projects for­ward. Ms. Hardin report­ed that the inter­na­tion­al prospects are stalled but still inter­est­ed, and are await­ing the COVID-19 pan­dem­ic out­come in the next week or so. She said that the fed­er­al stim­u­lus will def­i­nite­ly help, and that Project Gator is mov­ing for­ward as the project exec­u­tives real­ize their busi­ness has tak­en a hit, so they do not want to slow down this project. Ms. Hardin report­ed that Bay EDA met with the Bay Coun­ty Com­mis­sion­er last week and they approved the qual­i­fied indus­try incen­tive the project has since been sent back to the Depart­ment of Eco­nom­ic Opportunity. 

Ms. Hardin report­ed Bay EDA con­tin­ues to have dia­log with Project Pur­ple – a defense-relat­ed project –regard­ing a loca­tion in Ven­ture Cross­ings, and are con­fi­dent the project will move for­ward as well. She report­ed that a press release will go out tomor­row regard­ing Project Cobia, a project they have been work­ing on since before Hur­ri­cane Michael.

Ms. Hardin encour­aged every­one to go to the Bay EDA Coro­na Virus web por­tal on baye​da​.com for fed­er­al, state and local resources to help pro­vide busi­ness­es the infor­ma­tion they need dur­ing this pan­dem­ic. Ms. Hardin invit­ed Bay EDA Vice Pres­i­dent Mr. Gar­rett Wright to add his com­ments via phone, and he reit­er­at­ed the impor­tance of their web por­tal for strug­gling busi­ness­es, includ­ing restau­rants, to find out about assis­tance pro­grams they may not know about. 

The Moore Agency Update:

Ms. Katie Spill­man of The Moore Agency report­ed via phone on their Feb­ru­ary mar­ket­ing and adver­tis­ing activ­i­ty. Ms. Spill­man report­ed that they ran three dig­i­tal ads on Face­book – the ​“always on” cam­paign tar­get­ed those vis­it­ed the ECP web­site; the Super Bowl launch cam­paign which tar­get­ed users inter­est­ed in trav­el and like­ly to vis­it the ECP web­site; and the cam­paign that pro­mot­ed the new dai­ly non­stop flight between ECP and DCA. Ms. Spill­man report­ed that the Google paid search cam­paign serves ads to peo­ple search­ing for trav­el-relat­ed terms, and that Feb­ru­ary activ­i­ty also includ­ed earned media engage­ment sur­round­ing the FAA required emer­gency drill which took place at the end of the month. She said the ECP to DCA ad cam­paign per­formed sig­nif­i­cant­ly well with 341 con­ver­sions (air­line web­site clicks).

Ms. Spill­man report­ed that in Feb­ru­ary there were 1,847 air­line web­site click con­ver­sions and 443 assist­ed con­ver­sions as a result of our cam­paign; 6,698 Escape page views; 22,825 new web­site vis­i­tors; 42,786 total web­site ses­sions; 959,463 earned media impres­sions; and 18% of our sub­scribers opened the newsletter. 

Ms. Spill­man report­ed that the ECP TV com­mer­cial ran six times through­out the day before and dur­ing the Super Bowl, as well as through the week on all Pana­ma City TV sta­tions, and an addi­tion­al week on FOX.

Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Report:

Mr. McClel­lan addressed the Board by inform­ing them the ECP Anniver­sary event has been post­poned, and Staff will con­tin­ue to be updat­ed with the lat­est on COVID-19 to keep them informed. Mr. McClel­lan report­ed the impact from the virus real­ly began to be seen here four days ago even though for a month it has been in our focus, and there has been no talk of clos­ing the Air­port. He added that since the impact of the virus start­ed, we have seen very lit­tle mil­i­tary activ­i­ty. He said the Air Traf­fic Con­trol Tow­er is still

oper­at­ing but has a plan in place to reduce staff if nec­es­sary. Ms Melz­er asked for clar­i­fi­ca­tion on the Flori­da Governor’s order to restrict trav­el­ers from the areas hav­ing sub­stan­tial com­mu­ni­ty spread of the 

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virus, and Mr. McClel­lan explained that we are lucky because the restric­tions are for direct flights only, and we do not have any direct or non­stop flights from Louisiana, New York, New Jer­sey and Con­necti­cut. Mr. McClel­lan added Staff has been meet­ing with our local depart­ment of health and they are putting togeth­er a plan as we are when con­nect­ing cities become an issue. Vice Chair­man McDon­ald asked if we have increased our clean­ing pro­ce­dures for high-touch areas and Mr. McClel­lan con­firmed that we began that sev­er­al weeks ago.

Pub­lic Comments:

There were no pub­lic comments.

Adjourn­ment:

The meet­ing was adjourned at approx­i­mate­ly 10:18 a.m.

________________________________ ________________________________

Kathy Gilmore, Exec­u­tive Sec­re­tary Del Lee, Chairman