Woodward, Okla. — After having more time to review and discuss concerns raised by a recent inspection of the West Woodward Airport, city leaders decided they wanted to revise their written response to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA).

The new response letter, which was approved by city commissioners on Monday night, differs in several respects from the original response letter that was composed by City Attorney Aaron Sims and mailed to FAA representatives and other officials on Aug. 20.

Both letters were prompted by an FAA report issued in July following an inspection earlier in the sumer over the use of approximately 135 acres of land parcels on the east side of the airport.  One of the major concerns of the inspection was the lack of financial reimbursement to the airport fund for the use of those parcels, which had once been set aside for airport use and are now being used for industrial development purposes.

The newest response letter was written on City of Woodward letterhead and was signed by Mayor Roscoe Hill, rather than on the attorney's letterhead and with Sims' signature.

It was a question over the letterhead that prompted the issuing of the second letter.  City Manager Alan Riffel said that FAA Inspector Edward Chambers had questioned whether the first letter was in fact the city's official response since it was not on official city letterhead.

Riffel also said that there were questions about the validity of some of the arguments that were used by Sims in the initial letter.

The city manager explained that a copy of the first letter had also been mailed to officials with the Oklahoma Aeronautics Commission (OAC), who later explained to him that "some of the facts we used were not applicable under federal law."

For example, Sims' letter had originally relied heavily on an argument that the approximately $800,000 the city has spent to offset operational expenses at the airport over the past 10 years was "far in excess of the fair market rental value of the released Airport properties."

However, Riffel said the OAC informed him that "the operation costs that we were using to offset those (property payments) aren't applicable under federal aviation guidelines."

With this revelation, Riffel said it was apparent that "we were going to have to readdress the bulk of our response."



AN OPEN DIALOGUE

He said city officials "have had a dialogue going with the FAA ever since our first response was sent."

That included providing Chambers with a draft of the proposed 2nd response letter last week, before it was even presented to city commissioners.

Riffel said the reason for providing Chambers with a draft of the proposed 2nd response was "because if we were going to propose a plan to the city commission and it was going to be not acceptable to him, we wanted him to give us a head's up."

"We will comply with the FAA as we need to, we don't intend to pick a fight with them," Riffel said.

That's because FAA grant funding is invaluable as the "main source" of revenue for capital improvements at the airport, he said.

"We want to make sure that partnership (with FAA) continues," he said.  "We don't want to jeopardize any grants."

That's why the newest letter concludes with a statement requesting continued dialogue on the matter rather than the more final-sounding statement in Sims' letter when he claimed that as of his letter "The City considers all issues addressed and this matter closed."

Instead the more recent letter ends with an invitation to contact Riffel or Assistant City Manager Doug Haines for any questions that may arise form the response.



CHANGE OF PLANS

The action that the city plans to take has also changed significantly from what was proposed in the initial letter.

Riffel noted that "the second letter will supersede anything that was in the first letter."

For example, in the first letter Sims wrote that the city would establish measures to "assign all future rental income from the land alone to the airport fund portion of the City's accounting system."

However, the second letter says that the city is under "no obligation" to pay any rental income, either past, present or future.  Instead the letter states the city will just "reimburse the airport fund for all properties released from Federal obligations and transfered for non-aeronautical purposes at the appraised value of said property in accordance to the date of transfer."

Essentially this means the city will reimburse the airport fund as if it had just purchased the land itself 20-some years ago, and thus in ownership of the land wouldn't be responsible for paying the former owner rent from other transactions since then.

But how much the city will be reimbursing the airport fund for the purchase of those lands is not yet known since historical appraisals have yet been conducted to determine the former land value and subsequent inflation, Riffel said.

In addition, he noted that while the city is unable to use operational expenses to offset that reimbursement, it is allowed to use any capital expenditures to count toward those appraised values.

This includes any payments the city may have made for projects at the airport, such as the recent project to rehabilitate the large round-top hangar.  Back in February, city commissioners approved a bid of almost $125,000 from Preferred Roofing Foam and Coating, Inc. to repair the hangar's roof.

However, Riffel said, "typically capital investments (at the airport) have come through grants so I don't expect a lot of offset that way."

The city manager said it will likely take "several months" to sort through all the documentation to determine the historical appraisal values for the land as well as any past capital improvements that the city can use to offset reimbursement amounts.



REIMBURSEMENT FOR T-HANGAR AND ASPHALT

Additionally, Riffel said it will take time to research the value of the salvage cost of a T-hangar that was previously dismantled at the airport.

Initially the city hadn't planned to reimburse the airport for the value of the T-hangar because the city hadn't received any payment for its demolition, Riffel said.  Rather, the city had entered into an interlocal agreement with Fort Supply in which the other community had personnel take down the derelict hangar at no cost to the city.

The city manager said the city didn't realize at the time that it should have charge Fort Supply for the value of the scrapped materials.

"Had we'd known we were supposed to pay for that, they (Fort Supply) would have had to pay the scrap value," he said.  "But we're not going to go back and charge them now.  We're just going to get with Razien's to determine the value of the salvaged materials and reimburse the airport for that."

About the only amount that the city does know when it comes to reimbursing the airport is how much it will pay for milled asphalt that was taken from the airport.  However, even that amount has changed from the initial letter.

In Sims' letter, the attorney estimated the value at $3.50 per ton for approximately 1,000 tons that had been sold.  However, Riffel said that when city officials located the exact record of sales, they determined that only 667 tons of milled asphalt had been sold, and at a price of $3 per ton.

But in discussions with the FAA, Chambers told the city that $3 a ton didn't seem to be an appropriate fair market value for the asphalt and suggested the city use $15 per ton instead.

According to the latest letter, the city has agreed to Chambers' evaluation plans to reimburse the airport for those 667 tons that were sold at a rate of $15 per ton, but minus the $3 per ton that was previously received.  This means that the city plans to pay the airport $8,004 as reimbursement for the asphalt millings.

There was a question from an audience member Monday night about why the city wouldn't be reimbursing the airport to the tune of $77,000 as was the figure used in the initial FAA report.  City officials responded that the only record of sale for the asphalt showed that just 667 tons had been sold, so that was what the city had to use for reimbursement purposes.



"WORKABLE" SITUATION, BUT MORE WORK NEEDED FOR GUN RANGE

Riffel said he feels the latest letter is a "good response" as it "indicates compromise on all those areas" that were brought up in the FAA inspection report.

"I think the situation is very workable," he said as far as getting the issues resolved and ensuring that the city remains on the FAA's good and generous side.

"But there's one unfortunate piece of this currently and that's the gun range," Riffel said.

Until the FAA report was issued and called for the gun range to be closed, the city manager said "I was unaware of just how many programs used that gun range, Woodward programs, county programs, and in particular youth programs."

While he understands the FAA's directive to close the range since it is in line with the crosswind runway, Riffel said he feels bad that the range is unavailable for use by groups like Woodward County 4-H who used it for youth shooting programs.

"The gun range is as big of a concern as anything else," Riffel said.  "Because we know we can address all the other issues, but we don't know how long it's going to take or how we can assist in relocating the gun range."

However, he said the city is trying to do what it can "to work with the 4-H clubs and other groups to see if we can't support them at least through ideas in discussions" to find a solution for the gun range issue.