Commissioners reject airport request
Commissioners Monday night (June 15) rejected a requests from the Jackson County Airport Authority for funds in next year’s budget.
Jackson County Airport Authority Chairman Greg Hall asked county officials for $16,667 as a 10-percent match to obtain $150,000 from the N.C. Department of Transportation.
“We’re faced with safety issues,” Hall said. “We have an unsafe fuel system. It was purchased 35 years ago. We also have an unsafe main hangar. We need a new one. The hangar we have is basically a huge box sitting on unstable supports.”
Along with purchasing a new fuel system, Hall said the money from DOT would be used to begin planning for and installing new hangars. These would be what Hall referred to as “T-hangars,” which allow each plane to have its own space. As it stands, pilots who rent hangar space at the airport all have to share the existing large hangar.
“The pilots really want those new hangars,” Hall said. “They don’t want to put their planes in with the others in a big hangar. It’s hard pulling a plane out of there without scratching another one, especially if you’re doing it by yourself. I have a nice plane that I keep hangared in Macon County because I don’t want it to get damaged.”
Installing the new structure would also be beneficial in that the airport authority could use revenue from hangar rentals to become self sufficient and not need to make requests of the county, Hall said.
“Right now, we’re $2,000 in debt,” he said. “A big reason for that is the gas we’re selling. We bought it at $5.50 a gallon back when gas was so high and right now we’re selling it to pilots at $3.90 a gallon. So we’re losing around $1.50 for each gallon of gas we sell. All of the other airports are selling it for that, so we can’t sell it for more. If we did, they’d just go somewhere else to get their gas and we wouldn’t have any money coming in.”
Bill Austin, a volunteer with the airport, told commissioners that there is currently a waiting list for hangar space.
“Right now that list is at 56,” he said. “About 35 of them have said solidly that they would rent hangar space today if we had it.”
When asked by Commissioner Joe Cowan why the idea of separate hangers had not been discussed before, Hall said he was unsure whether it had before his tenure on the airport authority began two years ago.
A vocal opponent of the airport, Cowan typically votes against funding for the facility.
“Several years ago I made a promise to myself that I would not vote in favor of putting another penny of the taxpayers’ money into the airport,” he said. “And I haven’t. They want Jackson County to subsidize people flying into that airport to spend time in their summer homes when we have other needs. Two entities have wanted that airport to expand – Western Carolina University and Harrah’s Cherokee Casino. The casino wants to fly in people with money so they can go gamble on the weekends and then leave. For WCU, it’s convenient. They don’t have to drive to Asheville to get a flight.
“I’m also against it because I live right below the airport, and I don’t like them buzzing around over my house. Webster is the fourth most densely populated place in the county, and everyone I’ve talked to there does not want it.”
Though not taking as strong of a stance as Cowan, Commissioner Tom Massie also said he’s against the appropriation.
“If they’re buying gas for $5 a gallon and selling it for $3, they’re not running their business well,” he said. “I don’t want to support that.”
The rest of the commissioners agreed by consensus not to include the request in next year’s budget.
