August 2022 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., August 24, 2022 by Chair Hol­ly Melzer. 

The Invo­ca­tion was giv­en by Vice Chair Sheldon.

The Pledge of Alle­giance was led by Mr. McDonald.

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

Chair Melz­er intro­duced new Board Mem­ber Matt Algar­in, who serves as the Direc­tor of Tourism for Wal­ton County. 

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

Chair Melz­er asked if there were any items on the Amend­ed 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 Amend­ed Agenda.

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

Reports:

Mr. Park­er McClel­lan pre­sent­ed the Activ­i­ty Reports. He report­ed that the num­bers are down about 14.5% for the month, but he is not con­cerned, we are still up 32% over 2019. Load fac­tors have been good, in the high 80 – 90%, which means the air­lines are doing well with capac­i­ty man­age­ment, how­ev­er fares are high­er. We are still main­tain­ing 23% of the mar­ket share. He dis­cussed recent reports in the news of delays and can­cel­la­tions, but said that those issues are occur­ring more often at oth­er air­ports or hubs and are not a huge con­cern here.

Mr. McDon­ald asked about the high load fac­tors and whether the air­lines might be con­sid­er­ing bring­ing in more jets. Mr. McClel­lan said that the sea­son nor­mal­ly begins trend­ing down dur­ing August and Sep­tem­ber and lev­els out through the hol­i­days until Spring. He said that in Feb­ru­ary Amer­i­can Air­lines is up gaug­ing to a larg­er Air­bus 319 from a region­al jet going to Dal­las. He said that this will con­tin­ue to hap­pen as oth­er air­lines will be up gaug­ing to larg­er planes as well in the future. He said that Bon­nie Ossege will be giv­ing a pre­sen­ta­tion at the Board Bud­get Work­shop. that will cov­er ​“Trends In the Air­line Indus­try” that will explain this in more depth. 

Mrs. Dar­lene Gor­don pre­sent­ed the Finan­cial Reports for the 10 months end­ing July 31, 2022. Our cash increased $764,000 over the month of June. Our total cash bal­ance is $36.5 mil­lion. Rev­enues con­tin­ue to out­per­form bud­get. Year to date, our Oper­at­ing Rev­enues are at 126% of budget. 

Air­line rev­enues con­tin­ue to remain a lit­tle over bud­get, as dis­cussed, but the gap is expect­ed to narrow. 

Income from the Rental Cars is exceed­ing bud­get at 139%, and Park­ing Fees are up 150%. TURO sub­mit­ted their July con­ces­sion fees to us and we received $29,000 for July. Ground trans­porta­tion fees exceed­ed bud­get at 230% of what we had planned.

Per­son­nel expens­es are at 91%, and gen­er­al oper­at­ing expens­es are at 92% of bud­get. We cur­rent­ly have 3 Police Offi­cer posi­tions and 1 Main­te­nance posi­tion open and are cur­rent­ly recruit­ing for all of those to be filled. Cur­rent­ly, our total oper­at­ing expens­es are under bud­get by $740,000. We will have an insur­ance claim for a light­ning strike that caused $37,000 of dam­ages to equip­ment in the Park­ing Lot. 

Con­sent Agenda:

1. Approve Board Meet­ing Min­utes – July 27, 2022

This Item pro­vid­ed for Board approval of the July 27, 2022 Board Meet­ing Minutes.

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

Busi­ness Items:

1. Amend Board Guide­lines – Pub­lic Comment

Mr. McClel­lan opened up com­ments with Chair Melz­er about stream­lin­ing the Pub­lic Com­ment process dur­ing the Board Meet­ings. There was dis­cus­sion con­cern­ing whether or not the pub­lic should have to pro­vide their names and address­es on pub­lic com­ment cards to be able to stand up and speak at the Board Meet­ing. It was stat­ed that the Chair has the dis­cre­tion to decide whether or not the cards are required, when the pub­lic is allowed to speak dur­ing the meet­ing, and for how long. 

Dur­ing a recent review of the Board Guide­lines, it was rec­om­mend­ed that a sec­tion be added to ensure the avail­abil­i­ty of pub­lic com­ment at each meet­ing of the Dis­trict. The text below clar­i­fies the need for pub­lic com­ment and will be added as Sec­tion 5(f) in the Board Oper­at­ing Guidelines.

Pub­lic com­ment. Mem­bers of the pub­lic shall be giv­en a rea­son­able oppor­tu­ni­ty to be heard on a propo­si­tion that is on the agen­da before the Board. The oppor­tu­ni­ty to be heard on all agen­da items shall be deter­mined at the dis­cre­tion of the Chair, but need not occur at the same meet­ing at which offi­cial action is tak­en on the propo­si­tion, if the oppor­tu­ni­ty occurs at a meet­ing that is dur­ing the deci­sion-mak­ing process and is with­in rea­son­able prox­im­i­ty in time before the offi­cial action is taken. 

i. A per­son wish­ing to speak shall approach the podi­um when the Chair calls for pub­lic comment.

ii. All remarks shall be lim­it­ed to no more than three min­utes, unless the Chair grants an extension. 

iii. Pub­lic com­ment shall not be required in any instance where pub­lic input is not oth­er­wise required by Chap­ter 286, Flori­da Statutes.

The rec­om­men­da­tion for this change was rec­om­mend­ed and devel­oped by legal counsel.

Staff rec­om­mends to Amend the Board Oper­at­ing Pro­ce­dures to include Sec­tion 5(f) Pub­lic Com­ment and to autho­rize Chair to Amend the Board Oper­at­ing Pro­ce­dures as rec­om­mend­ed, fol­low­ing sat­is­fac­to­ry legal review.

Vice Chair Shel­don made a motion to Amend Board Guide­lines – Pub­lic Com­ment, and Chair Melz­er sec­ond­ed the motion. The vote was tak­en and there was one opposed vote by Mr. McDon­ald; the motion was passed.

1. Approve Ricon­do & Asso­ciates, Inc.’s Task Order for Air­port Con­sul­tant Ser­vices

Mr. McClel­lan explained that Ricon­do & Asso­ciates has been our air­line finan­cial con­sul­tant for the last 13 – 14 years and they have played a sig­nif­i­cant role in the Airport’s success. 

This item pro­vides for Board approval for Ricon­do & Asso­ciates to pro­vide assis­tance with the prepa­ra­tion of the 2022 Set­tle­ment doc­u­ments, devel­op­ment of 2024 Rates and Charges, and var­i­ous air­port con­sul­ta­tion issues as needed.

Ricon­do and Asso­ciates has pro­vid­ed air­port finan­cial con­sult­ing ser­vices to the Dis­trict for sev­er­al years, includ­ing devel­op­ing the cur­rent Air­line Agree­ment and assist­ing with bud­get and set­tle­ment cal­cu­la­tions. The Dis­trict has con­tin­ued to uti­lize Ricon­do and Asso­ciates on an ongo­ing basis for air­line ser­vice devel­op­ment issues as well as the bud­get and set­tle­ment calculations.

The cur­rent Air­line Agree­ment requires an annu­al set­tle­ment cal­cu­la­tion, which includes rev­enue shar­ing with Sig­na­to­ry Air­lines. This cal­cu­la­tion is very com­plex and takes into con­sid­er­a­tion total rev­enues, oper­at­ing expens­es, cap­i­tal equip­ment, debt ser­vice, and cap­i­tal reserves, and Ricon­do has devel­oped a rate mod­el for this calculation. 

This Task Order will include assist­ing Staff in updat­ing the rate mod­el and review of the cal­cu­la­tion of the Air­line Rates and Charges for Fis­cal Year 2024. The Task Order will also include pro­vid­ing assis­tance with prepa­ra­tion of the doc­u­men­ta­tion for the air­line bud­get meet­ing, par­tic­i­pa­tion in the meet­ing, and aid­ing with the cal­cu­la­tion of the Set­tle­ment of the Rates and Charges for Fis­cal Year 2022. The Set­tle­ment efforts will include the revisions/​updates to the air­line rates and charges mod­el based on FY22 audit results, cal­cu­la­tion of the final air­line rates and charges, and the rev­enue shar­ing cal­cu­la­tion for the fis­cal year end­ing Sep­tem­ber 30, 2022. 

Addi­tion­al­ly, the Task Order includes for con­sult­ing ser­vices on an as need­ed basis for FY23. The tasks with­in this Task Order will include; debt capac­i­ty analy­sis, future rate analy­sis and oth­er tasks asso­ci­at­ed with the future air­port devel­op­ment projects. 

A not to exceed bud­get of $53,138 is pro­posed for this work effort. Fund­ing will be includ­ed in the Air­port FY23 Budget.

Staff rec­om­mends Board approval of the Task Order to Ricon­do to pro­vide assis­tance with the prepa­ra­tion of the FY2024 Air­line Rates and Charges, the FY2022 Set­tle­ment cal­cu­la­tion, and mis­cel­la­neous con­sult­ing ser­vices to the Airport.

Mr. McDon­ald made a motion to Approve Ricon­do & Asso­ciates, Inc.’s Task Order for Air­port Con­sul­tant Ser­vices, and Mr. McFat­ter sec­ond­ed the motion. The vote was tak­en and the motion passed unanimously.

Con­struc­tion Update (infor­ma­tion only):

1. Air­port Entrance Round­about and State Road (SR) 388 Realignment

Mr. Richard McConnell report­ed on the S.R. 388/​Airport Entrance Roundabout. 

• The land­scap­ing plans were approved yes­ter­day by the State and should be imple­ment­ed in the next cou­ple of weeks. The irri­ga­tion well is due to be installed in the near future. Par­tial open­ing of the Round­about is sched­uled to be around mid-to-late Sep­tem­ber to allow for oth­er areas to be demol­ished and then finished.

Bay EDA Update (Infor­ma­tion Only):

Bay EDA Pres­i­dent Ms. Bec­ca Hardin invit­ed every­one to the kick­off of Indus­try Appre­ci­a­tion Month as well as her pre­sen­ta­tion at the Bay Coun­ty Cham­ber – First Fri­day meet­ing on Sep­tem­ber 2, 2022. She remind­ed every­one that South­ern Sky Avi­a­tion will have their ground­break­ing on Octo­ber 12^th at 2pm on the site. 

The Bay EDA will be hav­ing their Annu­al Meet­ing at noon at the Hilton Gar­den Inn that day and will also be attend­ing the ground­break­ing. Bec­ca and Ben will be trav­el­ling to the North­east to vis­it a com­pa­ny that they met with in Farn­bor­ough. Project Maple, an Inter­na­tion­al MRO is plan­ning to come for a vis­it the week of Sep­tem­ber 26^th. Resia is build­ing a 200,000sf man­u­fac­tur­ing facil­i­ty in Ven­ture Cross­ing and is leas­ing with the St. Joe Com­pa­ny. They have already signed a con­tract with an archi­tec­tur­al firm to begin plan­ning the build­ing. Cen­tral Moloney is start­ing to bring in equip­ment and are work­ing with Career­Source to start their hir­ing process. 

The Moore Agency Update (Infor­ma­tion Only):

Ms. Katie Spill­man of The Moore Agency report­ed on mar­ket­ing efforts. The month of July had a suc­cess­ful email mar­ket­ing cam­paign. They are lay­ing the ground­work for the 2022 – 23 upcom­ing year. They will be run­ning an ad in the Flori­da Influ­ence 100 issue high­light­ing our dai­ly flights from ECP to Wash­ing­ton D.C. that is designed for pol­i­cy­mak­ers. Social media con­tin­ues to do well for the month of July, reach­ing over 600,000 view­ers. They are look­ing at strate­gic plan­ning for the year 2023. She said that they are also wait­ing for final approval on the tele­vi­sion spot script, with pre-pro­duc­tion start­ing next month. It is due to be final­ized dur­ing the hol­i­days and will roll out dur­ing the Super Bowl. 

Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Report:

Mr. McClel­lan gave the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Report. With the ad going into the pro­fes­sion­al jour­nals, we can­celled the RFP for the State Lob­by­ists, and want to begin focus­ing our lob­by­ing efforts at the fed­er­al lev­el. The Mil­i­tary Wel­come Cen­ter will have its Reded­i­ca­tion on Sep­tem­ber 2, 2022 at 11:00am. The Board Bud­get Work­shop is the same day, but we will take a break to go down to show our sup­port. Mrs. Bon­nie Ossege with Ricon­do & Asso­ciates will be giv­ing her ​“Trends in the Indus­try” pre­sen­ta­tion at the Work­shop. There are three projects out at the moment; the Bag­gage Make­up, the Ramp and the North Ter­mi­nal Expan­sion, with only one of them com­ing in under bud­get. We were unable to secure grant fund­ing, so we are going to try to go through the fed­er­al lob­by­ists to try to seek addi­tion­al monies. There are upcom­ing park­ing lot improve­ments; expan­sion of the long term and employ­ee lots, improve­ments to the cell phone lot, and poten­tial improve­ments in the over­flow park­ing lot. These projects are due to be released next month and are expect­ed to be com­plet­ed by June 30, 2023. The Ter­mi­nal Design Project is under­way and should be done in about 8 months. We are con­tin­u­ing to move for­ward with plan­ning, while we are wait­ing for the allo­ca­tion of the funds. 

Chair Melz­er said that she par­tic­i­pat­ed in the Air­line Meet­ing and said that the air­line part­ners seemed very pleased with how the plans for expan­sion are devel­op­ing and how the Air­port has been stay­ing with­in bud­get when plan­ning for the future.

Pub­lic Comments:

There were no Pub­lic Comments.

Adjourn­ment:

The Board meet­ing was adjourned at approx­i­mate­ly 9:45 a.m.

Next meet­ing is sched­uled: Sep­tem­ber 28, 2022 – Board Meet­ing 9:00 a.m.

Reminder: Board Bud­get Work­shop will be Sep­tem­ber 2, 2022 at 9:00 a.m. and the Mil­i­tary Wel­come Cen­ter Reded­i­ca­tion at 11:00 a.m.

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Lisa Brady, Exec­u­tive Assis­tant Hol­ly Melz­er, Chair