The International Cessna^® 170 Association

I have had my C170B at same airport for 16 years.

New lease requires that lessee grants City a lien upon said aircraft and makes, and hereby makes , constitutes, and appoints city (airport owner) as Lessee's agent and attorney-in-fact to sell and appoints city as Lessee's agent and atorney-in -fact to sell and convey said property at any public or private sale for the purpose of satisying such lien. provided notice of sale be given by certiied mail at least 30 days prior thereto.

Seems strong doesn't it. Original wording was 15 days and no certified mailing.

Airport has had runway lighting upated via FAA airport fund money and new resurfaced runway last year.

I have heard unconfirmed rumour that an elected official promised to reorganize the water district and sell airport to Walmart . Potential developer cites 53,000 sales tax revenue per month.

Monthly water bills doubled (complications) and now pilots are very worried.

Anti pilot attitude developing.

Can you take federal money and still sell a municipal airport?

Any similar experiences in our group?

I have always been sympathatic to anyone trying to make a living in GA /FBO. It seems overly difficult during the best of times.

regards

While it is difficult when brought to light to the right agencies and organizations (AOPA) to sell airports for a period of time after accepting federal funds, it is not impossible.

One such way is for the funds to be reimbursed to the goverment. In most cases that can be a huge sum of money which sours any development deal.

Get the AOPA involved. They can assist with things you and others should know to include the economic impact of having an airport in the area verses a Wal-Mart.

The purpose of paragraph 2 &3 is to allow the airport to have a lien on any plane for which the lessee does not pay rent. It's becoming normal wording here. If a lessee does not pay the rent without that wording it can take the lessor over three years to get a lien and then auction the property(the airplane). In that time the plane deterioates and no one wins. It makes sense to have that wording just to keep the airport clean. The best way to insure the airport continues is to start your own pilot group thet can tell the story of the airport in economic terms to the municipal leaders. The numbers of jobs supported by the airport. The uses by local businesses. At our airport we heard the same story "Walmart is coming". We got a powerpoint presentation of the airports value to the community and took it on a roadshow to local government, Chamber of Commerce, businesses, schools and local TV. In the past two years we've had $6.5m in improvements. New runways new lighting etc. Local goverment is behind us.

You should contact your Airport Support Network volunteer at AOPA. (Or...if your airport doesn't have an ASN volunteer, ... YOU should volunteer at AOPA!)

The contact link is: http://www.aopa.org/asn/