October 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., Octo­ber 26, 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. Will Cramer, Mr. Glen McDon­ald and Mr. Les McFatter.

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. 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 num­bers are down from 2021, but we are still doing very well com­pared to 2019, which was the last ​“nor­mal” year before the pan­dem­ic. We are down about 13% for the month, but he is not con­cerned, we are still only down 5% from 2021. Load fac­tors con­tin­ue to be very good and all of the air­lines con­tin­ue to be very hap­py with the per­for­mance of the Air­port. We are still main­tain­ing 22% of the mar­ket share, and are work­ing on some oppor­tu­ni­ties to see if we can raise that num­ber. Region­al­ly, all 4 air­ports have had sim­i­lar decreas­es in activ­i­ty, but there should be no rea­son for concern.

Con­sent Agenda:

a. Approve Board Meet­ing Min­utes – Sep­tem­ber 28, 2022

This Item pro­vid­ed for Board approval of the Sep­tem­ber 28, 2022 Board Meet­ing Minutes.

b. Approve Pur­chase of ATV for Main­te­nance Department

This item pro­vides for Board approval for the pur­chase of a replace­ment all-ter­rain vehi­cle (ATV), from Beard Equip­ment Com­pa­ny of Pana­ma City, to be used in sup­port of the Airport’s gen­er­al main­te­nance operations.

Ongo­ing main­te­nance oper­a­tions at the Air­port require the avail­abil­i­ty of mobile, all ter­rain type, vehi­cles to trans­port per­son­nel and equip­ment to var­i­ous loca­tions on the Air­port. This pur­chase is for the replace­ment of an exist­ing John Deere Gator Ser­i­al #119641. The cur­rent equip­ment is well beyond use­ful life and requires sig­nif­i­cant amounts of main­te­nance and repair to keep in service.

The equip­ment being replaced will be dis­posed of through the Airport’s approved sur­plus prop­er­ty procedures.

This pur­chase is pro­vid­ed for in the Airport’s FY-23 Air­port Oper­at­ing and Cap­i­tal Improve­ment Bud­get. This item is quot­ed and will be pur­chased from State Contract.

Staff rec­om­mends Board approval of this pur­chase from Beard Equip­ment Com­pa­ny for a John Deere Gator Mod­el HPX615E, includ­ing spec­i­fied acces­so­ry equip­ment, in amount of $10,152.03.

c. Adopt Res­o­lu­tion Accept­ing FDOT Pub­lic Trans­porta­tion Grant Agree­ment (PTGA)

This item pro­vides for the accep­tance of a Flori­da Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion Pub­lic Trans­porta­tion Grant Agree­ment (PGTA) that will pro­vide par­tic­i­pa­tion fund­ing for the con­struc­tion por­tion of the Auto­mo­bile Park­ing Expan­sion Phase 1 project. 

In recent years, the Airport’s Pas­sen­ger Activ­i­ty Lev­el (PAL) has con­tin­u­al­ly exceed­ed antic­i­pat­ed demand lev­els trig­ger­ing the neces­si­ty to increase park­ing capac­i­ty. Tem­po­rary, grass, park­ing areas des­ig­nat­ed as over­flow park­ing are reg­u­lar­ly uti­lized to sup­port park­ing demand. In accor­dance with the Airport’s recent­ly adopt­ed Air­port Mas­ter Plan Park­ing Devel­op­ment Plan, a project was devel­oped to expand sev­er­al park­ing areas at the Air­port. This project includes an addi­tion­al 110 vehi­cle park­ing spaces in the exist­ing long-term park­ing lot, 49 vehi­cle spaces in the exist­ing employ­ee park­ing lot, 45 vehi­cle park­ing spaces in the exist­ing cell phone park­ing lot, and approx­i­mate­ly 330 new vehi­cle park­ing spaces in the pre­vi­ous­ly un-devel­oped over­flow park­ing lot.

The Flori­da Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion is pro­vid­ing a grant to assist in the con­struc­tion of the park­ing areas in the amount of $900,575. The PTGA num­ber will be assigned by FDOT when the grant is formalized.

The total esti­mat­ed cost for the con­struc­tion por­tion of the project is $3,719,624. Fund­ing is antic­i­pat­ed to include par­tic­i­pa­tion in the amount of $2,819,049 by the Pana­ma City-Bay Coun­ty Air­port and Indus­tri­al Dis­trict, and par­tic­i­pa­tion in the amount of $900,575 by the Flori­da Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion through a PTGA.

Staff rec­om­mends Board accep­tance of the Flori­da Depart­ment of Trans­porta­tion – Pub­lic Trans­porta­tion Grant Agree­ment and autho­rize the Board Chair to exe­cute required documents.

Mr. McFat­ter 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. Award Bid for Ter­mi­nal Park­ing Expan­sions Project

Mr. McClel­lan opened the dis­cus­sion on this item. In 2021, there was plen­ty of park­ing spaces. In late 2021 when local pas­sen­gers increased, we began hav­ing to use the over­flow park­ing. At the Board Bud­get Work­shop, the Board expressed their con­cerns on the need for addi­tion­al park­ing and there was a dis­cus­sion of dif­fer­ent ways to han­dle the park­ing issues. 

This item pro­vides for Board accep­tance of a bid from White­sell Green, Inc. for Ter­mi­nal Park­ing Lot Expan­sion Projects. The projects include the expan­sion of the Long Term and Employ­ee Park­ing Lots, the expan­sion of the Cell Phone Lot, and the expan­sion and paving of the Over Flow Park­ing Lot. 

On Thurs­day, Octo­ber 13, three (3) bids were received and opened. All bids were deter­mined to be respon­sive. Bids were received from:

C. W. Roberts Con­tract­ing, Inc.

GCUC

White­sell Green, Inc. 

The Dis­ad­van­taged Busi­ness Enter­prise (DBE) par­tic­i­pa­tion goal estab­lished for the projects was 6.3%. Upon ini­tial review of the bids, there appeared to be some anom­alies in the DBE Pro­gram sub­mis­sion infor­ma­tion regard­ing DBE par­tic­i­pa­tion. ZHA reviewed the Good Faith Efforts (GFE) of each bid­der and deter­mined that all 3 con­trac­tors made a GFE with the results DBE par­tic­i­pa­tion sum­ma­rized as follows:

C. W. Roberts Con­tract­ing, Inc. – 6.3%

GCUC – 6.6%

White­sell Green, Inc.- 8%

The Projects were divid­ed into sev­er­al seg­ments in order to be able to make adjust­ments based on avail­able fund­ing. The seg­ments were: 

Base Bid – Expan­sion of Long Term and Employ­ee Park­ing, and Expan­sion of Cell Phone Park­ing Lot/​Taxi Wait­ing Area

Alter­na­tive #1 – Com­plete Over­flow Park­ing to include drainage, paving entrance/​Exit and infra­struc­ture for park­ing rev­enue con­trol systems

Alter­na­tive #2 – Over­flow Lot Pip­ing and Fill on ditch on the east side of lot

Alter­na­tive #3 – Over­flow Lot New Entry/​Exit, Light­ing and Rev­enue Control 

The Base Bid doc­u­ments and three Alter­nates were pre­pared to max­i­mize the use of the avail­able $1,801,150 FDOT 50/50 grant. There are six options that could be awarded:

Option #1 — Base Bid 174 spaces $1,481,622.50

Option #2 — Alter­nate #1 340 spaces $1,989,232.02

Option #3 — Base Bid & Alt. #1 514 spaces $3,549,839.34

Option #4 — Base Bid & Alt. #2 514 spaces(#) $2,109,711.47

Option #5 — Base Bid & Alt. #3 514 spaces(#) $1,737,072.50

Option #6 — Base Bid & Alt. #2 & 3 514 spaces(#) $2,365,458.98

(#) 174 paved/​340 unpaved spaces

Staff and ZHA reviewed the var­i­ous options and con­sid­ered the increased demand for park­ing over the last 12 months, and it was deter­mined the best rec­om­men­da­tion would be Option #3. Option #3 expands the Long Term and Employ­ee Lots on the west side of the park­ing lot, expands the Cell Phone/​Taxi Wait­ing Area in its present loca­tion, and expands the Over­flow Lot and includes paving, light­ing and rev­enue con­trol systems.

The total cost of the con­tract for the Ter­mi­nal Park­ing Expan­sion Projects is $3,549,839.34 and the rec­om­mend­ed low bid­der is White­sell Green. 

These Projects will be fund­ed through an FDOT 50/50 grant for $1,801,150 (FDOT — $900,575/ECP — $900,575) with the remain­ing $1,748,689 com­ing from Air­port Funds. Total Air­port Funds is approx­i­mate­ly $2,649,264.

Upon review of Bid Tab­u­la­tion and Rec­om­men­da­tion of Award, Staff and ZHA rec­om­mend accep­tance of the respon­sive bid from White­sell Green, Inc. in an amount of $3,549,839.34 for the Ter­mi­nal Park­ing Expan­sion Projects.

Chair Melz­er abstained from vot­ing on this Item due to con­flict of inter­est. Vice Chair Shel­don made a motion to Award Bid for Ter­mi­nal Park­ing Expan­sions Project, and Mr. McDon­ald sec­ond­ed the motion. The vote was tak­en and the motion passed unanimously.

b. Approve ZHA Task Order #57‑B – Ter­mi­nal Park­ing Expan­sions – Per­mit­ting and Con­struc­tion Admin­is­tra­tion Services

This item pro­vides for the Board’s approval of Task Order #57B to ZHA as the Airport’s con­tin­u­ing engi­neer­ing con­sul­tant to per­form Con­struc­tion Admin­is­tra­tion ser­vices for the Ter­mi­nal Park­ing Expan­sion Projects at the Airport.

This Task Order encom­pass­es Con­struc­tion Admin­is­tra­tion (CA) for the con­struc­tion of the Ter­mi­nal Park­ing Expan­sion Projects includ­ing the Long-Term Park­ing Lot, Employ­ee Park­ing Lot, Cell Phone Park­ing Lot and the Over­flow Park­ing Lot. CA ser­vices were orig­i­nal­ly includ­ed, but not uti­lized, in pre­vi­ous­ly-approved task orders for the Cell Phone Park­ing Lot and the Over­flow Park­ing Lot. CA ser­vices were not includ­ed in pre­vi­ous­ly-approved task orders for the Long-Term Park­ing Lot and Employ­ee Park­ing Lot. In dis­cus­sions with Staff, the orig­i­nal task orders with CA ser­vices will be closed with all project-relat­ed CA ser­vices con­sol­i­dat­ed into this new Task Order #57B.

The not-to-exceed cost of this Task Order is $169,784 and will be fund­ed from bud­get­ed FDOT Pub­lic Trans­porta­tion Grant Agree­ment and Air­port funds.

Staff rec­om­mends Board approval of Task Order #57B – Ter­mi­nal Park­ing Expan­sion – Per­mit­ting and Con­struc­tion Admin­is­tra­tion Services.

There was lengthy Board dis­cus­sion with ZHA con­cern­ing added costs of addi­tion­al per­mit­ting from the orig­i­nal con­cepts from 12 years ago, as well as some added costs due to the increase in mate­r­i­al costs, and clar­i­fi­ca­tion of the mod­i­fi­ca­tions of the stormwa­ter runoff plan just pri­or to the vote.

Mr. McDon­ald made a motion to Approve ZHA Task Order #57‑B – Ter­mi­nal Park­ing Expan­sions – Per­mit­ting and Con­struc­tion Admin­is­tra­tion Ser­vices, and Mr. Cramer sec­ond­ed the motion. The vote was tak­en and the motion passed unanimously.

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. He pre­sent­ed slides show­ing the progress of the project. There is work being done to get elec­tric­i­ty con­nect­ed to the well, and the Air­port Entrance Sign. Prepa­ra­tions have begun for the land­scap­ing inside the Round­about. The paving is almost done and the bridges are close to com­ple­tion. The project is ahead of sched­ule. Chair Melz­er asked if FDOT had a media plan to edu­cate the pub­lic on the traf­fic pat­tern and Mr. McConnell said that FDOT con­tin­ues to update any changes to the traf­fic pat­tern on their web­site with sup­port from Carpe Diem, which is linked to the ECP web­page. He said that once the per­ma­nent traf­fic pat­tern is opened up, there should be a push by FDOT to inform the pub­lic. Mr. McClel­lan thanked Ron Jar­mon for tak­ing the aer­i­al pho­tos that we use reg­u­lar­ly on our updates of the project.

Bay EDA Update (Infor­ma­tion Only):

Bay EDA Pres­i­dent Ms. Bec­ca Hardin was unable to attend the meet­ing due to a site vis­it with Project Stam­per, Mr. McClel­lan gave the Bay EDA Update in her absence. 

Project Stam­per is an avi­a­tion man­u­fac­tur­er which would pro­vide 1,800 new jobs with an aver­age income of approx­i­mate­ly $100,000 per year and $500 mil­lion in new cap­i­tal invest­ment. Mr. McClel­lan will be meet­ing with them this after­noon. The com­pa­ny is inter­est­ed in the pos­si­bil­i­ty of uti­liz­ing the infield prop­er­ty at the Air­port and plan on mak­ing their deci­sion in Jan­u­ary 2023.

Last week Bec­ca and Ben were at MRO Europe and had 10 meet­ings in 2 days with 4 leads com­ing out of those meetings.

Project Maple, a Cana­di­an MRO with about 300 jobs, will be in town next Fri­day for a site vis­it and meeting.

Mr. McClel­lan thanked every­one for their attend­ing the South­ern Sky ground­break­ing, it was suc­cess. A spe­cial thanks to Bec­ca and her team for their support.

The Moore Agency Update (Infor­ma­tion Only):

Ms. Katie Spill­man of The Moore Agency report­ed on mar­ket­ing progress. The email mar­ket­ing cam­paign has a new fresh look. Pop­ups and dis­tract­ing adver­tise­ments have been removed from the page and high­er con­trast­ing brand col­ors have been used to help both the look, and pro­vides ease for view­ers with visu­al impair­ments. They have added ani­mat­ed GIFs into the design that users can also share on social media. The new design allows the mar­ket­ing team to quick­ly and eas­i­ly update infor­ma­tion such as air­line sales using the new­er tem­plate. The dig­i­tal bill­boards have gone up in the area and there will be more going up this fall. The Den­nis Quaid seg­ment went out on View­point last month. Moore will be using the con­tent from that broad­cast for Air­port adver­tis­ing mov­ing for­ward. They are cur­rent­ly work­ing on cre­at­ing hol­i­day con­tent for the remain­der of the year. 

Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Report:

Mr. McClel­lan gave the Exec­u­tive Direc­tor Report. This week we got word from the FAA, that sev­er­al air­port projects have been ten­ta­tive­ly approved includ­ing; the Esca­la­tor to Gates 6 and 7, the Bag Room Expan­sion, and 78% of the Ter­mi­nal Build­out. Mr. McClel­lan is hope­ful that these items will be brought before the Board in November. 

Mr. McClel­lan recent­ly attend­ed Routes World and Take­Off in Las Vegas, Neva­da. He had 12 meet­ings and all of the air­lines present­ly oper­at­ing at ECP were very hap­py with our Airport. 

There were a cou­ple of air­lines that expressed inter­est­ed in our Air­port, but with the pilot short­age and air­craft avail­abil­i­ty are the lim­it­ing fac­tors to move for­ward in the near future.

Pub­lic Comments:

There were no Pub­lic Comments.

Adjourn­ment:

The Board meet­ing was adjourned at approx­i­mate­ly 9:40 a.m.

Next meet­ing is sched­uled: Novem­ber 16, 2022 – Board Meet­ing 9:00 a.m.

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Lisa Brady, Exec­u­tive Assis­tant Hol­ly Melz­er, Chair