Airport meeting fails to get off ground

The Saratoga Airport Board met Wednesday with a quorum, but the meeting dissolved about halfway through after several members of the board left, leaving no quorum.

The meeting began on time and with a quorum and was discussing routine matters. Then, two board members left the meeting leaving the board without a quorum. Later, the board’s clerk Suzie Cox also left the proceeding, leaving attendees hoping to discuss hangar land leasing agreements hanging for another month.

Members of the board who left the meeting did not offer an explanation, according to a video recording of the meeting.

According to Jennifer Johnson, of the airport board, Cox told her before the meeting was convened she may have to leave during the meeting to briefly attend to other business. Cox later returned to the meeting with lease documents she had retrieved.

For members of the public in attendance who were waiting to hear the results of a promised legal review of hangar land leases, the premature dissolution of the airport board in mid-meeting was distressing.

The town’s hangar land leases—a lease for land the lessee build his or her own hangar upon—has been an ongoing issue for years, according to one resident who spoke at a February meeting.

At the meeting, the town’s attorney, David Erickson, was present and had discussed issues surrounding the lease agreements with the board and members of the public.

After reading some part of the lease agreement and speaking to leaseholders, Erickson called parts of the lease as “gibberish” that needed legal review and to be re-written.

Erickson said he would be available to the airport board to review the lease agreements and the airport standards to ensure the contracts are legally sound and do not run afoul of the standards.

During the February meeting, one member of the public in attendance said it had been the most productive meeting of the airport board in years, and he was hopeful long standing issues regarding the lease agreements would finally be addressed.

As Wednesday’s meeting dissolved into a meeting without a quorum, the hopes of those whose lease terms are still uncertain were dashed since the quorum dissolved before members could discuss the lease issue.

The next regular meeting of the Airport Board will be 1 p.m. June 14 at the Saratoga Town Hall.