The Daniel DePonti Airport in Forest Lake may be getting a paved runway soon after the Forest Lake City Council voted to seek a MnDOT grant to fund 90 percent of project costs.
In a special meeting on Dec. 8, the Forest Lake City Council voted 4-1 to seek a grant for a $3 million paving project on the runway of the city’s Daniel A. Deponti Airport. If the airport gets the grant, the city would have to match 10 percent – or $300,000 – of the project cost, with the airport commission ultimately picking up half of the tab.
The idea of paving the airport’s grass runway has been proposed regularly over the years since the airport’s longtime owners Kay and Tom Doherty sold the facility and hundreds of surrounding acres to Forest Lake Township in 1998. However, the concept found its way to controversy last week when the council voted 3-1 to lay off patrol officer Max Boukal in order to shift part of 2016’s police budget to other areas (learn more by reading the Dec. 10 story “Despite protest, council lays off patrol officer” or online at tinyurl.com/oybsnjr). Residents noticed that the city’s 2016 budget included $89,453 – roughly equivalent to the cost of Boukal’s pay and benefits – to pay for the city’s share of the paving grant, and several demanded that the city transfer this money into the police budget to cover the cost of Boukal’s job. Even Councilman Michael Freer, who was absent from the vote to lay off Boukal (but who had expressed support for keeping Boukal’s job in 2016), proposed the fund transfer during the council’s Nov. 23 meeting.
Councilman Ed Eigner, who voted along with Mayor Stev Stegner and Councilman Ben Winnick in favor of the layoff, brought up some of the residents’ arguments at the airport meeting.
“Why are you cutting … an officer at $90,000, and yet in the next breath, you’re going to give the airport, which benefits so few people, 300,000?” he said, attempting to describe the complaints of the previous night.
“I’m thinking, ‘How do I argue against that?’” he added. “What rationale do I have to say you’re right or you’re wrong?”
He told airport commission member Rick Ashbach, one of the primary drivers for getting the runway paved, that he would like to see some more “skin in the game” from local airport users and hangar owners, akin to the special assessments residents of a city block would pay if improvements were made to their road.
Contrary to some statements made by the public during the police layoff discussion, the airport does provide some revenue to the city of Forest Lake, and it does so while operating without property tax dollars. In 2011, 2012 and 2013 (the most recent years the information was available from the commission), the airport turned a profit of $2,510, $10,608 and $9,908, respectively, thanks to a variety of revenue sources including fuel sales, land leases for private hangar owners, public hangar rentals, nearby agricultural leases, and maintenance fees paid by the Minnesota Department of Transportation to the city to cover the cost of public works mowing and snow plowing at the site.
While those profits go back to the airport fund to cover future needs and capital improvement programs, there are city revenue benefits as well. The private hangar owners pay personal property tax on their hangars, a portion of which goes to the city, and each time a new hangar is built, the city collects building permit fees from the owner. When new hangars are built, owners have the option of connecting the buildings to city utilities, as well.
Currently, there are 15 private hangars at the airport, with the potential for 15 more to be built close by. Ashbach said there are other parts of airport land that could also support more hangars and other potential airport-related development, like a “hangar home” where someone could live and store his or her plane. The more development occurs on the airport land, he said, the more profitable the airport can become, both for the city and the airport fund.
“The pavement of the runway itself will improve the possibilities of building out the hangars,” he argued, noting that some pilots will not land on grass because they are uncomfortable doing so, their plane can’t handle it, or they can’t find affordable insurance to do so.
As for “skin in the game,” Ashbach told Eigner the $2.7 million grant from MnDOT Aeronautics is made up of taxes charged to airplane users, including the users of the Forest Lake airport, and he pointed out that the commission has already agreed to front airport fund reserves of $65,000 toward the $300,000 total. He added that the commission would likely be able to come up with more money over time and said that maintenance money from MnDOT will increase if the airport is paved; between the increased MnDOT money, airport funding and grants, Ashbach believes most, if not all, of future repairs to the runway as it ages can be paid for without city support. The current grant, which pays for 90 percent of the cost, is historically unusual; Ashbach said that in the past, the department typically only covered 80 percent of project costs when awarding similar grants.
Stegner said he was “strongly in favor” of the project, pointing out that when the Dohertys sold their land to the township at a steep discount – $1.8 million for 630 acres, what Ashbach called farmland prices in an area valued for residential opportunities – one of the couple’s goals was that the land uses could support the airport, with leases and land sales benefiting the facility’s operations. Instead, he said, the city has given much of that land away or used it for things that have not profited the airport, citing the YMCA, Fenway Fields, the FLAAA Sports Center and the Teamvantage location as community assets that sit on the family’s former property.
“All of those are great uses for the property, but my concern is, had it not been for us giving it away, we would have the revenues to build this,” Stegner said. “In my mind, for the spirit and intent of what it was there for, I think the city should be funding that.”
Ashbach agreed with the sentiment, saying that in addition to the airport’s fiscal independence and city revenues, it also serves as a community asset. He pointed out that it’s not uncommon for business to be done through the airport, as well as the airport serving as a hub for personal visits to town. He added that residents flock to the facility each year for the airport’s popular fly-in open house event and said that if not for the Dohertys’ sale to the city, the area would likely be filled with homes rather than boasting multiple community gathering areas and public space.
“Some people don’t want to hear this, but I truly believe the community must celebrate what the Dohertys did,” he told The Times after the meeting. “They didn’t want to see houses over all of their property. They wanted to see public open space and public uses. The benefit of their … gift is that we have over 200 acres of public uses.”
The council members ultimately told Ashbach and the commission that they respected the airport’s community contribution and were willing to commit the funding if the commission paid back half of the cost over time. The lone no vote was from Freer, who said he believed he would support the project but wanted more time to research it. Besides the $89,000 in the 2016 budget and the $65,000 from the airport fund, the city will likely pay the rest of the cost, if the grant is approved, from excess city revenues and the 2017 budget, until the airport commission can pay back its half.
The grant is not a sure thing, though Ashbach said MnDOT believes Forest Lake fills a need for a paved airport runway in the area. The grant request and approval process will begin this winter. If approved, construction will likely start in the summer of 2016 and complete in the summer of 2017.