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Council presses airport commission for verified jet landing counts and donor information
Summary
A council member asked the airport commission for concrete evidence (tail numbers, fuel bills or logs) of jet traffic used to justify proposed hangar spending and asked whether private corporations had been asked to donate.
During the opening budget discussion, a council member questioned how the city is counting jet traffic at the municipal airport and said the city needs verifiable data before allocating taxpayer funds toward a taxpayer‑funded hangar.
“We need the facts,” the council member said, noting the issue has surfaced repeatedly and that some counts appear anecdotal. He asked staff to confirm whether the airport keeps tail‑number logs or whether fuel bills could be used to show refueling activity.
Councilors discussed ways to validate landings: asking the airport commission chair (named in the meeting as Norman Hutcherson) to check tail numbers, looking at fuel billing records and clarifying whether brief overnight or fuel‑only stops are being aggregated into daily landing figures.
The same council member also asked whether corporations that would benefit from hangar space had been asked to contribute money. “I have a problem with...using the one revenue that the taxpayer does get and putting it into a hangar if corporate donors haven’t been approached,” he said.
Staff committed to following up with the airport commission chair and returning to council with more precise counts and any record of corporate solicitations.
