Failure to land

More than three years after being established, members of the Saratoga Airport Advisory Board are requesting some leeway from the Saratoga Town Council.

This request came via Councilmember D’Ron Campbell, who serves as the council representative on the advisory board.

“That the airport advisory board would like to request maybe giving a little more teeth to the board,” said Campbell. “Not a joint powers board kind of level but so that everything does not come to the council for approval for everything.”

In April 2019, the Saratoga Airport Board—which had been established in 1978—was formally dissolved by the Saratoga Town Council with the passage of Ordinance No. 850. At the same time, the town council passed Ordinance No. 851 which created the Saratoga Airport Advisory Board. Prior to its dissolution, the Saratoga Airport Board was independent of the town council, a body corporate which could sue and be sued and was the controlling authority of the airport.

The airport advisory board, meanwhile, was created to specifically be an advisory board and provide recommendations to the Saratoga Town Council to act upon.

Councilmember Jon Nelson, who is the only remaining member of the council which dissolved the previous airport board, told Campbell he had spoken with two advisory board members; Ladd Sanger and Thad York.

“They bring up a good point, which is that they’re trying to do a lot of work up at the airport and get the airport pointed in a good direction long term. Since they’ve been involved, and that board has been kind of re-established and grabbed another gear, the airport really has sort of become self-sufficient,” said Nelson. “It doesn’t rely on contributions from the general fund anymore. It operates in the black and creates its own revenue in order to match its own projects.”

Nelson added, while there had been times where the advisory board and the council weren’t in agreement, both were moving in the same direction.

“It was really more of a question about how to do it,” Nelson said. “I’ve always maintained that concern about that fiscal independence and not having to rely on contributions from the general fund or some other bailout, and some of these projects going (in) directions not everybody’s thinking about.”

The council member also said he was confident in the current advisory board members to “drive that ship in the right direction”.

“It does go back to one of my first experiences being on the council and I’ve expressed this to them (the airport advisory board),” said Nelson. “It’s about democratic accountability and I think it’s important to have the folks that are in charge of the finances and the business of the town be held directly to the voters.”

Citing Campbell’s mention of a joint powers board, Nelson said he wasn’t comfortable with the airport advisory board having similar powers and operating without oversight from the Town of Saratoga. He added he wanted to find the compromise in giving the board some autonomy from changes in council members or changes in priorities.

“What they’re asking for is at this table, that they’ll still have the ability to operate the airport in the direction where they’re trying to take it. I told them I would think about that, and I have, and I don’t know how to accomplish both goals,” Nelson said. “I don’t know how to make sure that they’re isolated in some regard from a change to administration or a change in priorities of the town council and yet avoid the problems that we had last time where that board can go out and put the town in the legal crosshairs of lawsuits and things like that.”

Councilmember Ron Hutchins followed Nelson, saying he believed the airport advisory board and the town council had managed to find a good balance in the operation of the municipal airport.

“In previous contracts that we reviewed and discussed, I think that members of the city council actually contributed to the success of those projects. My take on the whole thing is … this group right here—some of us were elected, others were volunteers—we’re accountable to the taxpayers, to the community members,” said Hutchins. “I have a hard time relinquishing that to an entity that’s not accountable to the community as a whole. Where they can make unilateral decisions before they go to one portion of the town that may or may not cost the rest of the community.”

With a meeting of the airport advisory board before the next council meeting, Hutchins told Campbell he wanted to see more detail before the council discussed the topic further.

The next meeting of the Saratoga Town Council will be at 6 p.m. on July 19 at the Saratoga Town Hall.