Alamogordo advances first publication of ordinance to remove airport fees from code and create fees schedule

The Alamogordo City Commission voted 6-0 to approve first publication of Ordinance 1698, which removes specified parking, overnight and landing fees from chapter 4 of the code of ordinances and directs that airport rates and fees be published in a separate, consolidated rates-and-fees document.

Troy Orr, airport manager for Alamogordo White Sands Regional Airport, told commissioners the ordinance change responds to inconsistent, hard-to-find fee language in the code and to current practice. “Our objective here, is to publish an amendment to chapter 4 of the code of ordinances, specifically to remove listed parking overnight and landing fees. We're doing this for a couple of reasons. The code of ordinances is established law, and is legally actionable, and we are currently in violation of our own laws. There are a few fees that are listed in the ordinance that we don't typically act upon… which puts us in violation of our own ordinance,” Orr said.

Orr said the airport will develop a single rates-and-fees document to be reviewed annually by the Airport Advisory Board and the city manager and approved by the commission by resolution; he said the city attorney and city clerk recommended removing the old language before publishing a new schedule to avoid legal complications if both appear simultaneously. He told the commission that, in practice, the airport currently does not collect parking fees and collects landing fees only in very limited circumstances, citing the U.S. Forest Service as an example.

Veronica Ortega, community services director, said the existing ordinance language was outdated and praised the effort to consolidate fees: “A lot of these fees that were in this ordinance — it was very outdated ... So we we wanna clean this up.” Orr said the airport advisory board will work with staff to draft the proposed rate sheet and bring it back to the commission for approval; he described an intent to publish the rates-and-fees document on the city website for transparency. Mayor Pro Tem McDonald moved to approve item 14 (first publication of Ordinance 1698); Commissioner Robinson seconded. The motion passed 6-0.

Orr said no rate changes were proposed at the meeting and that any specific fee schedule will be considered separately and publicly via the advisory board, the city manager and a subsequent commission resolution.