AIRPORT AUTHORITY BOARD 09-07-2023

There's the meet the president thing going on that We're happy to see you all here this morning. We'll begin by having a motion to approve the minutes from our June 1 meeting.

I'll move approval of the minutes.

Second that. It's been moved and seconded that we approve the minutes from June 1. All in favor, say aye. Aye. Jason, the manager's report.

Good morning, everybody. I'll start with some good news. We got approved for the EV, the electric vehicle and charging station grant. We just got word of that yesterday. So so we'll be moving forward with that. We talked about that. I guess it was June was the last meeting. So so yeah. So that's the the good news. So the other news or another topic I'm gonna talk about is our snow removal. I know that's been a a subject we've talked about quite a bit, in the past meetings. I have two routes we're trying to pursue, because it's gonna snow very soon. I I so we have reached out to quite a few different companies, to get proposals of if they could do the snow removal for us. I got one person that actually gave us a quote, and that was Cache County Public Works. Every construction company I reached out to, they don't have the means to do it. And I I think the biggest thing is being held to the FAA standard and just equipment. So so every construction company that I reached out to said no. So we have a meeting next week with Cash County Public Public Works to hopefully fine tune the proposal that they gave us. We have a five year, contract proposal from them. It includes purchasing equipment, which might be we're because I know we're trying to handle personnel and equipment so that that proposal from them does have purchasing equipment in it and them handling the snow removal. Us hiring our own personnel at the airport. But I think we're leaning toward the going with Cache County. So it is not cheap, but, yeah, we're, you know, pushing almost $200,000 a year for it. 170, 180. Like I said, we are trying to fine tune some of that. That does include purchasing equipment, a different piece of equipment every year for the next five years. So I hope to have some better numbers as far as that goes. Next meeting, but I believe we're trying to get that soon so we can present that to Logan City and Cache County and trying to figure out ways for funding for that. So that's that's the route we're hopefully gonna take. And of my report as far as where I'm pushing for that. I I do we have to figure something out. It's gonna snow here in the next couple months. And I have no one to help me. Good news. We did find a mechanic that is been good to work with. They've been really responsive in working to keep the machinery that we do have up to date and workable. So so that's probably the good news as far as as things go as, I feel like our mechanic is on top of things right now. So so yeah. I am.

You've been having some interviews. Any success with those?

So the interviews I've been having, yes. I hired two guys yesterday, but none of them have a CDL. So they're they're not qualified to to drive the trucks. So they're more by weekend inspection, holiday inspection guys. But as far as CDL workers or people to drive the trucks, I have not had any luck with that. I don't I don't have the budget to hire part time or full time people, and I don't have the bud I didn't know which route to take. I don't know if I'm hiring Cash County or if I'm hiring my own people. So I haven't pursued that route of hiring people with CDLs to help with the snow plowing. I didn't wanna halfway go down one route if we're gonna go the other other route. So, no, nobody so the people that I interviewed and hired were not for snow plowing.

So the $200,000 a year, you said included equipment. Does the equipment is the equipment owned by the airport?

It will be shared is is kind of the plan.

How does that work if we don't want the county to do it after five years or we wanna go a different route?

That that part has not been hashed out yet. I mean, that I don't know. That part hasn't been figured out.

It was What are the five pieces of equipment? Do you know that you're going to purchase? I

do. So next year is a snowblower, and that would be solely for the airport. The county doesn't really have a need for a snowblower. 24, 25 would be a large truck, a dump truck that would be for plowing, kinda similar to what we have right now. '25 2025 and 2026 season, it would be a front end loader that a box blade can be hooked to. 26, 27 is also a loader, and then twenty seven twenty eight is just written in as, equipment replacement costs, so there's not an equipment in that fifth year. Okay.

But we won't own anything except the snowblower?

That's I'll have to try to hash out those details. That part has not been hashed out or figured out with after the five years, who gets the equipment? What? I don't have an answer for that.

Have you done any analysis about, I mean, what it would cost for us to have a person that did that and us buy the equipment? Have you sort of done that sort of

I have is this parallel analysis? I've done some analysis on us purchasing equipment and us hiring our own people to do it. It's I don't have a spread out, but, basically, if we were to replace the equipment that we have and hire full time and part time people, it's about 2 and a half million dollars.

A year or over the

So each employee is about a $100,000, but to purchase the equipment, the five pieces equipment each piece of equipment is about 200,000. And so I don't I haven't broken it out into purchase this one this year, this one next year. But if we were to purchase those same five pieces of equipment four pieces of equipment and hired our own people, it's about 2 and a half million dollars.

Over the time period or in the front? In the front.

The equipment is obviously the big chunk of it. So so 2 and a half million dollars would include your employees and your equipment. And then next year, if you hired two employees, you're $200,000 a year, moving forward. So I don't know if that helps. You'd be looking at about, you know, 400 a year. 200 for the equipment and 200 for employees. So that's probably how that would break down if Okay. That helps.

Yeah. Thank you. So

so I don't know how to move forward. I like I said, I have a meeting next next week with Cache County, and I I I'll hash that out. I'll talk to them about what a a game plan is in five years who gets to keep that equipment or

how we'll move forward with that. And whether their contract includes maintenance and all of that kind of stuff on the equipment as going forward? I mean Yep. That's fairly critical.

K. K. I think, Jason, if it if it's alright, I think it would be good if once that at that meeting, you discuss some of the potential. Send that out to the board so that we can start getting some thoughts and giving you some input on it as well. Okay. Whatever we can do to help. Last year, that snow came really close to our wings as we're you know the issue there. And that's a little bit concerning. Hopefully, we have a good snow season again. You never know, but Yeah. We just wanna make sure that airport's kept open, and so anything we can be looking at in the meantime to help you in that process, it's a it's a big decision. We gotta we gotta get over mountain with it. We gotta get it done. I agree. Yeah. And I've had quite a few meetings

outside of this, obviously, with Cache County and other construction companies trying to figure out funding and and and things. So I think, yeah, we are getting very close to winter, and I last winter was my first winter here, and so I don't know if what it's typically like, but that's that's I plan on that every year. That's what I'm planning on. That's all I know. And so so, yeah, that's what I'm planning on. The last thing I want to talk about real quick, Erdain isn't here, unfortunately, but I received an email from her that talks about trying to review our rates on a more consistent basis as opposed to every ten years and doing this big increase in rates that we're kind of facing and talking about right now.

Rental rates you're talking about? Rental rates

and Tie down rates. Tie down rates, and just budget overall, how much Cache County and Logan City are contributing to the airport. So everything combined. Okay. And so I think that's something we should talk about in the future. I don't know if we need to dig into it too much today, but I just wanted to talk about that email. And I think that'd be a great idea if we were looking into that every year or two as opposed to every ten, twenty years, and then we come up with this 2 and a half million, 200,000, 400,000 a year asks that we're looking for now. I think if we were doing that every year or two in smaller increments, it'd probably be an easier ask in the future. So I just wanna throw that out there because I did receive that this email from Mayor Daines, and I thought it was a good idea also to to maybe do it in smaller chunks more often. So that's all I really have today.

Any other questions?

Thanks, Jason. Thank you.

Brent? You're you're here with your official hat, not your tenant hat.

Thanks for having me. I know most of you. I do not know is it Genie? Okay. I know a lot of you guys too, but I'm the assessor. And John and I have a great relationship for a long time. But he asked me to come down and just talk about our appraisal process and of the hangers. I'm sure you guys maybe have got some feedback. So the so as with all properties, and it's no different with the hangars at the at the airport, we are on a cycle to reappraise every property in the county. About the by state code, we have to visit and do a full appraisal on every property every five years. And so staff I'd love to have a bigger staff in a way, but that would take more resources. But we end up doing it once every five years. So the last time that the hangers were were reappraised was in February 2018 for the 2018 tax year. And so it was time this year, in in the spring of this year, to reappraise them again for the 2023 tax year. And so we did that. Historically, I've done that, but as the assessor, I didn't have time. So I tasked our staff to do that, and I assigned one of our appraisers to do that. And granted, he is not totally knowledgeable about the hangers, but he got up to speed really fast. And I gave him some insights. There's some some unique things. And what we're seeing with the sales, it's it's it's been, I would say, crazy. Maybe not as crazy as the housing market, but still crazy. And so as you can imagine, cost to construct are way higher. Everything from materials to labor, everything is more money and so that's resulted in higher prices. And so just to give you kind of a a report and then give you some time to to ask questions, Some of roughly the the hangers went up roughly 57%, which sounds like a big number, probably less than the housing in this in this county over those that same five year period. So, but we're we're doing this based on, you know, cost and and sell the sales that we do have. There's probably more sales the last few years than we've ever had, but that's there's not very many. There's not a lot of sales that happen. So we've considered those sales and applied it. Just like housing, we feel like from what the data was showing, it's kinda like a house. A house now costs 300,000 for four walls if you want a detached home. There's exceptions to that, but hangers are a similar thing. It's gonna cost you roughly 40,000 is what we estimate to get into a hanger. Even some of those old hangers in the old parts. And, like I say, there may be some exceptions, but then they range way on up to to a much higher. But the average is was 57%. Some of those old ones went up more as a percent. Some of the ones on the front line went up more as as a percent. But that's kinda where the numbers fell out. It's interesting to note, John asked earlier this morning if I could give a report on what it means for tax into the airport. I'm not the treasurer, so I don't have that number. I can work with the treasurer's to to get that number. I'm just the assessor. My job is to get the values correct. But I did do a a little analysis, and it it appears that the taxes will be roughly similar to what they were in 2018, 2019. So because the values of the homes have gone up so much over the last few years, the rate has come down. And so the value stayed roughly the same as the rate came down. Most of the hangar owners probably noticed that their taxes went down over the last five years. So this increase will be an an increase in their taxes, but roughly no higher on average than it was back in 2018, if that makes sense. So, there's roughly 75 hangers. Does that sound right, John? 75 taxable hangars? But I just wanna leave you a few minutes to ask me any questions,

any specific questions. There have been tax increases since 2018?

Tax increases.

There have been. There have been some valuation increases? No. No. Just rate increases.

Well and I'm not the expert to speak on this, but budgets have gone up. Certainly, budgets have gone up, but the average rate has actually come down. I don't know how to best to explain that.

Well, I understand that, but I do know that the school district has increased property taxes, and you all have increased property taxes. Logan City has not, but

probably There have there have been rate changes, and and even though you physically go out every five years, you still look at the numbers, and people may get evaluation adjustment every year,

question. But we have a new software program that's gonna allow us to adjust these every year without having an appraiser go out there and specifically look at it. So So they will be floating as we see changes in the market. So the good news for for hanger owners is they won't get that big bump every five years. Hopefully, that is more stabilized. Now if there's an increase or a decrease in the market, they'll see that reflected from year to year rather than every five years. I don't know if that helps with your your

Well, no. You just said the rate went down, but that assumes that the tax rate didn't change at all overall since 2018.

It's it's gone down considerably. The tax rate has gone down. The the values have gone way up, and the truth in taxation law that was passed years ago requires the cities to to know, hold a hearing if they want to change change the rate. Mhmm. Right? You you're aware of that. And that's been happening. Uh-huh.

So the rate is still going the the valuation rate is still If the values have gone up, the rate has gone down relative. Even with tax increases? Yes. Okay.

You're getting many protests?

Not very many. Not very many. A couple. I'll see you this afternoon. Okay. I'm just kidding. I was I I'm not totally surprised just because the taxes are no higher, generally, than they were a few years ago. So they still have till next Friday to appeal. September 15 is the deadline to appeal. And so and we'd welcome any data. We'd welcome any feedback. We're trying to get these values right. We don't want to be too high. We are not a tax collector. I am not interested in some of the you all's other job of of, you know, setting budgets and that sort of thing. I'm just I'm just the assessor trying to get the values right.

Part of our discussion, there's a misconception that taxes come first and budgets fall. When in fact, what happens is the government entities set their budget, then look at your number to find out what this valuation is and then establish their tax rate in order to meet that budget. Is that accurate?

The way I explain this, if you have a two house community, I wish we had a two house community, and you you had a thousand dollar budget to run this community, and you had one house that was worth a million and one that was worth 500,000, then one one of those the the one with a million dollar house would pay $666, and the guy with the with the half $1,000,000 would pay the $333 Now as you expand that bigger, that that changes. But if the budget increases to $1,500, the rate comes down. Or I'm sorry. The rate goes up. The rate goes up, and and with that same does that make sense? So it just depends on on the budget process, basically.

K. Yeah.

Thank you. Any other questions? Can appeal to you to lower our taxes.

No. If you're gonna lower the taxes, you're gonna have to talk to Go to go to the public hearing. Public hearings. Yep. And I invite I tell I tell everybody to go and make your voices heard. Whether you're listened to or not, I don't know, but voice your concerns. So my door's always open if you have any questions, and email email me if you have any questions. Thanks.

Thank you, Ben. Jason mentioned the EV grant. We have a couple other grants in the works. Armstrong is with us, and we appreciate their consistent support. They're going to give us an update on the other grants that we have in process.

Unfortunately, not sure. Kinda if you wanna come really quick. I am Judd Hill with Armstrong and wanna introduce Connor Butterfield. I'll give him thirty seconds to tell you about himself. Yeah. So I grew up in Ogden, Utah

and ended up getting a degree in civil engineering from the University of Utah. Go Utes. Just kidding. Just kidding. But no. So I I worked in civil. I did heavy civil construction and water. And then all the while got interested in flying airplanes. Became a CFI and have tried to blend being an engineer and a pilot in the same same career. And ended up having lunch with Judd one day a couple months ago and here I am. So looking forward to working with all the airports in Utah. He found a way. Yes. He found a way.

We're very happy to have him. He so as you recall, Armstrong joined Lochner, the end of last year, and Lochner already had a very strong presence in Salt Lake with, roads, rails, bridges, engineering, but we now have aviation. So So Connor is actually based out of our Salt Lake office. So it just puts very, very good resource right down the road. So really, like, it's been great working with them so far. And

You need to get him a team shirt. Yes.

We actually they got ordered. That's how new he is. So that is exactly he did get the new back this week, but but yeah. It hasn't yeah. That's very forthcoming for sure. And I guess there's technical difficulties, so I can talk versus show. First thing when it comes to grants, there's the capital improvement project list, which is the, the ongoing short term and long term, development plans for the airport. I know the last meeting it had been discussed for those working on that general project, perhaps bringing in mister Snow, as another representative along with John and Jason to go through that plan. That's gonna be kicking off usually as September, October is when that process happens. The state of Utah is switching to a program called Black Cat. So it will bring everything online. The FAA has been working with other states with it. It's been very successful. It's just kind of a singular clearing house for tracking the projects. And that will be coming on this year. When it comes to specific projects, we have the sign project and that grants already been issued, but we'll come back to that one as, Jason talked about the EV grant. It will officially be awarded, today or tomorrow according to a conversation I had last night with the that will require some fast action. The FAA is dropping grants like crazy right now, and that is because their fiscal year ends in twenty one days. So all the grants that they said would come out in May or June are coming out this week. And to that end, when that grant does get sent out for electronic signatures and going through the whole route, it has to be signed and completed by next Thursday. So normally, you have a month or two to get you wanna get them done as quick as possible. Run this one, there is a hard deadline of next Tuesday or next Thursday, for that grant and that's the 183,000 and change for that grant with a five or 4.685% match of local

and state.

As far as upcoming project funding, for so this year, it's the signage in the zero emission grant. We have the ongoing airport layout plan project. We'll come back to that. Next year state funded pavement preservation, so that's gonna be paints and markings and, taxiway Charlie, the end of it or the back half of it is in poor condition. And that would be for a state only funded project. Then '26 is showing snow removal equipment acquisition. And then '27 Taxiway India. '20 or that was also in '26. And then again, in '27 more money allocated for snow removal equipment and storage locations. Are these grants? These would be a combination of federal and state grants to the for '26 with snow equipment or snow removal equipment, total of 200 k funding, and then, with a building for storage of that equipment, a total of $6.50 and 27. Now that is where the plan is at today. The finalization of that and, kind of locking things out or locking things in will be during the CIP process. So if it's a reshuffle or reprioritization, because obviously, it's that's the list that was defined a year ago, then you've gone through a winter in this year. So coming up on this year's, there could potentially be reshuffling to meet the priorities of the airport. And and

by by what time would we need to make that decision?

That will be coming up. They have not yet announced the when they're gonna hold those meetings for CIP. They just on Friday rolled out the black cat. I it's so new that we don't even have myself or Jason or John. No airports, no consultants have logins yet even for the system. So ideally, it will be this month and hopefully next month there would be a better idea. And it's one where we will definitely have conversations separate from them. We can have this month to kind of work through in that way, we're already going in with a solid plan. There's plenty of room for informal meetings with FAA and UDOT before a formal meeting with FAA and UDOT.

If if, Jason has his meetings with the county public works department and, based on that, wants to shift some of the snow equipment costs to earlier years, how long will it take until we feel confident that that would be doable?

Depending on the agreement, any federal funding cannot go to equipment that is used off airport Correct. Or is owned by by any other entity other than the airport. Correct. So this funding wouldn't be available for shared equipment.

Very correct. And as far as the timing for getting it finalized, it would be, probably in the potentially later this month, definitely by the October, when it comes to actually getting funding, putting in a grant application, October 1, the first day of the new year, I would be ecstatic to see a grant in May. This year, it was grants will be coming in March, April, May and they showed up in July, August and September. So Okay. Thanks. So it's definitely one word. It would not without spending a 100% of the cost locally. It would not be realistic to expect federal funding for this winter.

Part of the challenge there, and this applies to state and as well as the federal, is they don't have FAA does not have a budget yet for next year. They cannot approve any grants until Congress gives them their budget for the year. And all of this is just betting on what's going to come. Exactly. Because they won't know until April how much money Denver has. That's why there are no grants issued before next April. And that's why on the last month of their year, September, they issue 50% of their grants. Because if they don't use it by the September, they lose it. Right. And so, again, to review, our challenge is we operate in three different fiscal years. Yes. The airport, the county, and the city operate on a calendar year. The state operates July 1 to June 30, and the fence operate from October 1 to September 30. And so everything we have to do has to juggle within those three different fiscal years.

Exactly. Yeah. We are already three months into the state '24. So, yeah, it it's definitely it's an ongoing process, but we can I would recommend that we, during this month, have, informal meeting of whoever is gonna be working on that list to say, here's where it was last year or for the last five years? Here's the different plans. What do we want going forward? And with the federal, it's almost it's actually more difficult this year, because they're actually trying to significantly increase funding for airports. 3,350,000,000.00 was the national average or the, national budget. And of that, 20% went to general aviation airports, which led to the $150,000 of entitlements. This year, what got passed through House Transportation Committee and has gone on to full house. It has not gotten through senate yet. Takes that annual budget to $4,000,000,000 with 25 going to general aviation, which would roughly bring the entitlements from a 150,000 to about 220,000. Again, I will believe it when they pass when the president signs a bill, but with that, that would bring up entitlements to roughly two twenty, which roughly offsets inflation rise since the last time they adjusted entitlements. So but that would also result in the match going up the corresponding 5% match or 4.685% match. Also having to go up because instead of matching 5% of a 150, you're matching 5% of two twenty. So any questions on the CIP in that long term? Okay. Said for have airport master plan and and the signage and the paint. Do you have a preference on which one to discuss? We'll start with the paint then. That's as Jason said, dealing with paint, working with the state. So the end of last month had correspondence with, UDOT trying to get a particular specific project to redo the paint for the airport. And it's it's 6 figures worth of work to do a full repaint remarking of the airport. So it's just what I'm looking at here is an email from u dot, just discussing that they will try to be working this and to get funding. Now there's local maintenance things that can be done. I mean, as simple as if it's a small area, go out with a roller. If it's large area, possibly looking at city or county resources that have those large paint trucks, equipment, whatnot. But u dot is aware of the situation and is willing to try to come up with solutions through funding at the state level. That will come up during the CIP discussion for trying to figure out getting that particular money. They already have to repaint the runway we just barely resurfaced? The average is five years is every you do the pavement preservation and maintenance. We're three years in now. So but the last winter got a lot of scraping done.

K.

The next update is the airport master plan. So I know this is kind of hard to see. You all you all have seen this diagram before showing the general steps, and the last item that the technical advisory committee got was a review and then the submittal to the FAA of working paper one going through the forecast, and that, unfortunately, was submitted in April, and it usually is a forty five to sixty day turnaround. Finally got the FAA's comments back a week ago on Monday. And with it, they have several comments. The next chapter after that is the facility requirements, which is based off of the forecast. Now with your, airport master plan, what really drives it is the how many operations or planes taking off and landing from the airport. Unfortunately, they were underrepresented to the tune of what the FAA was had officially in the records was 40,000 operations a year. Worked a lot with Aaron at USU who has really good tracking like to the tail number and number of exact operations. You weren't at 40,000. You were at a 135,000. And then the FAA looks at certain growth rates for this twenty year forecast of the master plan. So we're already anything over a 10% rise has to go to headquarters. Well, we started at a 300% starting value and then going up over the twenty years up to 225,000 operations, based using the formula formulas of the FAA. With that, it just shows how busy you actually are. Operationally, your top in the state including Salt Lake. So you're very busy. But that level of forecast was a driver for why it took so long for them to get some comments back. We also had thrown, put in some stuff regarding commercial aviation forecast, but that they just needed to come out. It still is in we've already written the facility requirements because we were tired of waiting, but we have to check some of that out. We're protect for the possibilities of commercial service in the future, but we can't include it as operational forecast. But the best case scenario of the full acceptance of the forecast and operations is your crosswind runway. Right now the winds correspond really well with your large runway, to the tune of 98% of the time. It's right down the line. And if it's 95% or less, you're qualified for a second runway. Well, unless you get operational counts. The forecast that they are good with minus couple small tweaks, it makes a second runway eligible. So before for the last fifteen years, you've been required to deal either only locally or with local and UDOT for funding to protect your crosswind runway. If that continues to get approved or everything is finalized and checked off, all of a sudden your Crosswind Runway and corresponding taxiway Charlie would actually become eligible for federal assistance, which, you know, know, it is another thing that has to be maintained, which is already being maintained, but all of a sudden it makes it eligible for 90% federal funding. And that translates to 5% local versus right now it's working with UDOT to try to get funding, and then it's a ninety ten split. So hopefully, this will completely pan out when we're done with it. But that is the reason why that has kind of dragged on something three times longer than what we had our fingers crossed for how fast they get it back to us. But we'll be working through that and sometime this month, the full working paper too will be sent out for the TAC to review.

The last one so any questions on master plan? So they did accept the operation to counts the Erin.

She is good with I need to I'm actually going to be what I I've been working on earlier this week was, kind of compiling the raw data that I got from USU and putting into a nicer table and being able to reference that. But they are okay with that. The only thing they were not okay with was, putting in enplanement and, flights, assuming that you got commercial service starting in cameras either five or ten years. I can't remember. And then growing out of that. So having commercial service here in ten years, it's a possibility. Those numbers were not included in the high operations to get to the threshold for a second. It was kind of a standalone analysis, but they just said because there's not a letter of intent and there's not the facilities developed yet that they just couldn't accept that level.

So that impacts, Romeo Charlie. Does it impact other elements of the airport because of the heavy utilization?

It's the layout's pretty good. I would anticipate right now in Fort Collins, Colorado, there is a test of a remote control tower. So instead of having a person standing in a tower looking out over the airfield, like a class delta or something like that, it is a big pole with a whole lot of cameras and a lot of technology. I could foresee that type of system possibly coming in here during the planning period of this over the next twenty years. I could potentially be a possibility. I don't see it in the near term. But given that operational count, considering there's airports that have 80,000 operations a year and have full time man control towers, if you're at a 135, it's realistic to assume that they could see the value of having a controller. But I would not expect that in the short term at all. Last project is the sign project. So for directional signage, with that and, fortunately, I guess, like I said, we don't have it, but, kinda, hold this up. This is your sign and marking plan. So every sign directional sign that's on the airport. And all of the ones that were associated with the runway, we were able to put those with the runway project several years ago and get new luma curve signs. They're a particular manufacturer, and they have a nice curved front. They look good. So the ones that go along the long parallel runway, those were updated. Your other signs were not, and they were brought out in the last year's inspection, and so they needed to be replaced, and that's and you received a grant for that. That's been executed. The catch though is that when you're doing a federally funded project, you don't get to pick exactly what you want. So, the FAA has certain design specs that have to be met. So, talking with Campbell guys earlier, there's different manufacturers of weather stations and you have to if you get a grant, a federal grant for federal tax dollars to go, you can't pick. Do you want this weather system or this weather system? You hire the electrician and then specifications. And the same goes with tax or with taxiway signs. There is a specific specification that has to be met and that is are different manufacturers for signs. Luma Curve is the one, they were the lowest cost signs when the runway project was done, and so that's the new signs out there. Airport Lighting Company is also make signs that meet the FAA specifications and they were the low cost this year. So when the contractor came to us, they came with the airport lighting company, not the Luma Curve company. From a pilot's perspective, they will look pretty much the same. Walk up on it, you can probably tell the difference between two different makes and models of a sign, but they will be curved signs the same size, all of that, just different manufacturers. And we were asked, so we did some investigation, what would it cost to be able to get exactly matching signs? So, the Luma Curve, so like I said, the contractor meets the grant and design standards with the airport lighting quote, and that's for the base, just for these particular signs, it was 36,000 and change. The luma curve was just over just under 50. And if they cancel the airport lighting group, it's a $10,000 restocking fee. So, the total cost, if you so desire to have exactly matching signs by brand and design versus similar signs that are different brands, which means, you know, different regulators, different cost and or you would need if you wanted to have a spare part for this widget, you would now need two different types of that widget for maintenance to have on hand. But the cost, if you chose to go just Luma Curve is $23,426.70. Of that, none of it is FAA or u dot eligible. So the contractor is willing to change things up, spoke with the FAA yesterday on it. They would support, but they said to make very clear that a 100% of that cost has to be locally born. If this different sign needs an extra two feet of conduit for each sign, that's going to have to be fully, locally funded. They will only go with paying the quoted price because the quoted price meets full FAA design specs.

So where did, who, who wants the other ones?

I'm like Well, I don't know. You're, you're emotionally tied.

They will I'm indifferent. I've worked with

Then where did they go? Merely a maintenance issue. We have dealt for twenty five years with having three different manufacturers and having to maintain spare parts for all three products. The way it sits now, we would reduce that number by one, and we would have to maintain spare parts for two. It was merely a convenience to us. The initial indication your understanding was that it would be a $10,000 change, which seemed palatable to avoid the inventory hassle. But for it to go up two and a half times Plus, maybe. It it probably, for me, doesn't justify the additional expense.

Okay.

Yeah. But we appreciate, unless they're strong feelings otherwise.

Well, that's what I asked the question. Doing that for us.

I have never

taxied directly by those two different signs back to back, but I've taxied by both, and it's like, there's a directional sign. It got a curve or it's flat faced. Now I can tell that when I taxi by, but You can't see the data plate. I I cannot see the data plate, and I don't know exactly how different, but even these individual signs will still be 500, a 2,000 feet apart from one another. So it's not like they're sitting right next to each other being but it was worth looking into. I agree. I agree.

So k.

That's all of those projects.

And Any questions, Bob? Great.

Okay. Thank you. Thank you very much.

I was approached some time ago by the people from Campbell Scientific and their aviation department expressing their support for the airport. And I thought it'd be appropriate to invite them to come tell their story a little bit. So if you'd like to come forward and quickly introduce yourselves and I'll just drive. Okay. Perfect.

Well, thank Go ahead and introduce yourself. Sure. Thank you for thank you for having us. I'm Rob Campbell. I'm the CEO of Campbell Scientific and and appreciate the opportunity to share with you all a little bit about Campbell Scientific. When we're talking about infrastructure, I just have to say, you know, the infrastructure of the airport, we we picked up, and we'll talk a little bit about this, our own Pilatus PC 12 here just a couple of years ago. My first flight back into the airport, I think it was in the November, December time frame. We happened to be coming back back in during a snowstorm, and I was so thankful for the runway lights and for the signage when you're coming into a snowstorm, and we were able to land, thankfully, because because we had the the visibility. But it's all these little things, all these little details that you're talking about that you take for granted until your first experience landing in some some adverse conditions like that. That. A little bit about Campbell Scientific. So I'm gonna try to sum up what dates back to almost fifty years ago here in just a couple of minutes. So when you think about Campbell Scientific, Campbell Scientific is often what I like to say is the technology that people don't really think about. So when you look at your Apple Watch and you go, what's the temperature outside? You never think about, I wonder where that sensor is located or I'm I wonder, you know, what's the what's the, the means for getting the temperature or the wind speed or the wind direction, those kinds of things. That's the kind of stuff that we're doing at Campbell Scientific. So what we're most well known for is the data logger, and the data logger