January 2023 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., Jan­u­ary 25, 2023 by Vice Chair Mark Sheldon. 

The Invo­ca­tion was giv­en by Mr. Will Cramer. 

The Pledge of Alle­giance was led by Ms. Vic­to­ria Williams.

Roll was called. In atten­dance were: Mr. Will Cramer, Ms. Vic­to­ria Williams, Mr. Les McFat­ter, Mr. Glenn McDon­ald, and Vice Chair Mark Sheldon.

Vice Chair Shel­don asked if there were any Pub­lic Com­ments. There were no Pub­lic Comments.

Vice Chair Shel­don asked if there were any items on the Amend­ed Agen­da, includ­ing the Con­sent Agen­da, that any Board Mem­ber would like to move, and if not, to make a motion to accept the Amend­ed Agenda.

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

Reports:

Mr. Park­er McClel­lan pre­sent­ed the Activ­i­ty Reports. He report­ed that the Air­port fin­ished out the year with approx­i­mate­ly 1.52 mil­lion total pas­sen­gers; only down by less than 5% over our peak year. In Decem­ber, we dropped down to 20% mar­ket share which is nor­mal for this time of year. 

Mrs. Dar­lene Gor­don pre­sent­ed the Finan­cial Reports for the first 3 months of the fis­cal year end­ing Decem­ber 31, 2022. Ms. Gor­don gave an overview of the require­ments of the Gov­ern­men­tal Account­ing Stan­dards Board (GASB). She said that the Audit will be final­ized in the near future and we will present it at the Feb­ru­ary Board Meet­ing. In the first quar­ter of the fis­cal year 2023, our total cash increased $5.5 mil­lion over the same time last year. Our total cash is $40.3 mil­lion, that num­ber, reflects our unre­strict­ed cash of $29.8 mil­lion and restrict­ed cash of $10.5 million. 

We have not made the Set­tle­ment pay­ment, but next month, after the Board adopts the Audit, we will have the checks ready from the air­lines. Rev­enues are strong. Our rev­enues are cur­rent­ly at 107% of our bud­get year to date park­ing, ground trans­porta­tion and retail mer­chan­dise con­ces­sion fee rev­enues are espe­cial­ly strong. The Ter­mi­nal Com­plex is com­ing in at 120% of our bud­get year to date; inter­est income is exceed­ing bud­get and is expect­ed to con­tin­ue. Per­son­nel is at 90% of bud­get. Cur­rent­ly, there are 2 employ­ees on short-term dis­abil­i­ty and we have 3 open posi­tions. We hired 2 peo­ple this week and are con­tin­u­ing to fill the open posi­tions. Gen­er­al Oper­at­ing Expens­es are at 91% of bud­get, elec­tric­i­ty is 15% over bud­get even though we increased our bud­get over last year by 15% to meet the demand. Vice Chair Shel­don asked if the Air­port is explor­ing alter­na­tive ener­gy method options such as solar to help with some of the ener­gy costs. He said that he hopes that will be part of the expan­sion plan. 

Con­sent Agenda:

a. Board Meet­ing Min­utes – Decem­ber 14, 2022

This Item pro­vid­ed for Board approval of the Decem­ber 14, 2022 Board Meet­ing Minutes.

b. Approve Spe­cial Board Meet­ing Min­utes – Jan­u­ary 13, 2023

This Item pro­vid­ed for Board approval of the Jan­u­ary 13, 2022 Spe­cial Board Meet­ing Minutes.

Mr. McDon­ald 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:

a. Pre­sen­ta­tion – 2022 In The Rearview

Annu­al Pre­sen­ta­tion was giv­en to the Board by Mr. McClel­lan, Exec­u­tive Direc­tor. This pre­sen­ta­tion includ­ed a Siz­zle Reel video high­light­ing media cov­er­age in 2022. Mr. McClel­lan the accom­plish­ments of ECP and the Staff over the past year, including: 

2022 FLIGHT PLAN

• Con­tin­ue Finan­cial Plan­ning Efforts — (Bud­get­ing and 5 years Cap­i­tal Plan)
  • Mas­ter Plan Update – Com­plet­ed April 2022
  • Orga­ni­za­tion­al Review for Effec­tive­ness — Ongoing
  • Fund­ing Alter­na­tives for Future Busi­ness Devel­op­ment – COVID-19 Fund­ing Options
• Ter­mi­nal Devel­op­ment Plan – Plan­ning and Design — Ongoing
• Enhance Pas­sen­ger Service
  • Con­tin­ue to enhance exist­ing air­lines with new city pairs — Ongoing
  • Attract New Entrant Car­ri­ers to enhance route net­work — Ongoing
  • Fore­cast – Bring back to 100+% Super Sum­mer Week­ends – Success!
• Com­mer­cial Devel­op­ment – Max­i­miz­ing Non-Air­line Rev­enue – Ongoing 
• Max­i­mize Eco­nom­ic Devel­op­ment Oppor­tu­ni­ties – Project Gator and oth­er Projects in the pipeline — Continuous
• Process Improve­ments – Tech­nol­o­gy (Admin­is­tra­tion, Safe­ty and Secu­ri­ty) — Continuous
• Com­mu­ni­ty Out­reach and Part­ner­ship — Ongoing
• Staff Devel­op­ment –Tar­get — Quar­ter­ly Training

2022 HIGH­LIGHTS

• Finan­cials
  • Air­line Rates and Charges in line or below 
  • with Indus­try Aver­ages (CPE $2.08)
  • Clean Finan­cial Audit!!!
• Process Improvement/​Efficiency – Ongoing
• FDOT State Infra­struc­ture Bank (SIB) Loan Approval
• Air­line Activity
  • Pas­sen­ger Increase (-5% decrease of 2021)
  • Pas­sen­ger Activ­i­ty – Sum­mer Week­ends 11,000 ‑13,000 pas­sen­gers uti­liz­ing Airport 
  • Pan­han­dle Mar­ket Share — Maintained
  • New Air Ser­vice (City Pairs, New Airlines)
• Gen­er­al Aviation/​Military Activity
  • Sheltair Lease Expansion
  • New FBO – South­ern Sky Aviation 
  • Expand­ed GA Activity

Ongo­ing Projects:

• Over­flow, Long Term, Employ­ee, Cell Phone Lot, and Admin Park­ing Lot Expan­sion Projects
• Bag Room Expan­sion Project
• Con­course Build­out (The Great Hall Buildout)
• Sheltair is adding addi­tion­al hangars and a ramp
• South­ern Sky has bro­ken ground on the new FBO

Mr. McClel­lan showed aer­i­al views of the area that show the growth and devel­op­ment of our area includ­ing Mar­gar­i­taville, the new hos­pi­tal, and addi­tion­al devel­op­ments under­way that will be a part of sta­bi­liz­ing the mar­ket. As the area grows, we will begin to see a year around trav­el mar­ket that will be a pos­i­tive for the Airport. 

Hon­or­able Men­tions from the last year:

• Employ­ees Con­tribut­ing Pos­i­tive­ly – 436 tokens (hours) giv­en out rec­og­niz­ing employ­ees for a good job.
• Staff wants to thank the Board for the Cost of Liv­ing Stipend, as well as sup­port of giv­ing a strong raise last year. 
• Ren­o­va­tions were done to the Mil­i­tary Wel­come Center.
• FCS, the new jan­i­to­r­i­al provider will start on Feb­ru­ary 1, 2023
• ECP was rec­og­nized and invit­ed to speak at the Air­lines for America
• Com­plet­ed the Tick­et Counter Expansion
• TURO, peer-to-peer car shar­ing start­ed at ECP

As we look to next year, we will focus on an orga­ni­za­tion­al review, fund­ing­for the North Ter­mi­nal Expan­sion, as well as the oth­er projects we have underway. 

Fun Facts:

• 16,000 Gal­lons of Water
• 22,000 Gal­lons of Soda 
• 52,000 Chick­en Wings

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

Con­struc­tion Update (infor­ma­tion only):

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

Mr. Richard McConnell report­ed on the S.R. 388/​Airport Entrance Round­about. The final traf­fic flow shift is final­ly com­ing. On Feb­ru­ary 6^th, all traf­fic flow­ing east and west will flow through the round­about. The west­bound lane is cur­rent­ly in use and the east­bound lane will be in use soon. Coun­ty Road 388 will be demol­ished and all traf­fic pass­ing the air­port will be rout­ed through the round­about and con­struc­tion on the south­ern­most lane will begin. The sec­tion of S.R. 388 toward the gas sta­tion at Hwy. 79 will become Coun­ty Road 388, and the road from the round­about toward Mar­gar­i­taville at Hwy. 79 will become S.R. 388. We are wait­ing for the pow­er to be rout­ed to the sign by FPL. 

b. Park­ing Lot Expansion

c. Ter­mi­nal Buildout

d. Bag Make­up Expansion

Mr. McConnell report­ed on the Park­ing Lot Expan­sion, the Ter­mi­nal Build­out and the Bag Make­up Expan­sion. All three of these projects are await­ing build­ing per­mits. All doc­u­men­ta­tion has been giv­en to Bay Coun­ty and we are in line for per­mits. Once the per­mits are issued, he will pro­vide month­ly updates on these projects. The con­trac­tors for all three projects are onsite and ready to go.

Plan­ning Update (infor­ma­tion only):

a. North Ter­mi­nal Expansion

Mr. Rick Mellin report­ed on the North Ter­mi­nal Expan­sion. He pre­sent­ed a review of the rec­om­men­da­tions from the Spe­cial Board Meet­ing on Jan­u­ary 13^th. He also pre­sent­ed slides of the poten­tial Ter­mi­nal Design and 6 dif­fer­ent roof options. The Board agreed that they liked Option #4, which was a but­ter­fly type roof design. He pre­sent­ed sched­ules for all of the projects that are in progress and will begin pro­vid­ing updat­ed charts at the month­ly Board meetings. 

Bay EDA Update (Infor­ma­tion Only):

Bay EDA Vice Pres­i­dent Mr. Ben Moor­man report­ed that Project Maple, an MRO com­pa­ny with about 250 jobs, and rough­ly $25 mil­lion cap­i­tal invest­ment has been look­ing at a site at the Air­port with access to the run­way. They are work­ing with the com­pa­ny to get esti­mates on con­struc­tion and are hav­ing very pos­i­tive con­ver­sa­tions with that com­pa­ny. Also, they have been talk­ing with Project Stam­per, an orig­i­nal equip­ment man­u­fac­tur­er with about 1,800 jobs and a cap­i­tal invest­ment of half a bil­lion dol­lars. This com­pa­ny would be an asset, not only for our com­mu­ni­ty, but for the whole region. He said that there was a Ger­man con­sul­tant based out of Atlanta that was in town this past week and com­pli­ment­ed our Air­port. He said that he was very impressed by the con­nec­tiv­i­ty and ease of trav­el through ECP. 

They met with state part­ners in Orlan­do and Florida’s Great North­west and were able to share infor­ma­tion about the new devel­op­ments at the Air­port. In 2 weeks, he will be going to Dal­las to a new trade show, Aero-Engines Americas.

The Moore Agency Update (Infor­ma­tion Only):

Ms. Jor­dan Jacobs of The Moore Agency report­ed on mar­ket­ing. She pre­sent­ed a cam­paign designed to help keep pas­sen­gers informed and excit­ed about our upcom­ing con­struc­tion projects. She intro­duced the con­cept of using ​“Pilot the Pel­i­can” wear­ing a hard­hat, to announce all of the changes hap­pen­ing at ECP. He will appear on our web­site and social media and will be placed on sig­nage through­out the air­port to inform pas­sen­gers of what is going on. Once the con­struc­tion is com­plet­ed, the plan would be to switch the hard­hat to a pilot hat and he could con­tin­ue to be used year around. 

She also shared a sneak peek of an upcom­ing tele­vi­sion spot. The high ener­gy com­mer­cial spot will be debut­ing region­al­ly dur­ing Super Bowl 2023. The spot, with the tagline ​“Let’s Go!”, is geared to get pas­sen­gers excit­ed about trav­el­ing with ECP just in time for mak­ing plans for their Spring Break and sum­mer vacations.

Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Report:

Mr. McClel­lan gave the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Report. The Air­port has hired Steve Souther­land with Capi­tol Group as our fed­er­al lob­by­ist. In Decem­ber, he and Mr. Souther­land made the rounds with the North Flori­da and Flori­da Del­e­ga­tion mem­bers and the Fed­er­al Avi­a­tion Admin­is­tra­tion. They found that the South­ern Alaba­ma Del­e­ga­tion uses our Air­port as well, and are part of our com­mu­ni­ty. They were also able to reach an agree­ment to renew the lease with TSA admin­is­tra­tive space and they are going to pay the rent in arrears to the Airport. 

Pub­lic Comments:

There were no Pub­lic Comments.

Adjourn­ment:

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

Next meet­ing is sched­uled: Feb­ru­ary 15, 2023 – Board Meet­ing 9:00 a.m.

____________________________ ________________________________

Lisa Brady, Exec­u­tive Assis­tant May­or Mark Shel­don, Vice Chair