Local aviators are banding together to protest a recommendation
made by Hollister Municipal Airport Manager Bill Gere to double the
rates they pay to rent hangars.
Hollister – Local aviators are banding together to protest a recommendation made by Hollister Municipal Airport Manager Bill Gere to double the rates they pay to rent hangars.
The matter was scheduled for a city council vote this week, but Mayor Pauline Valdivia tabled the resolution to raise hangar rates to give council members more time to study the issue and give airport tenants a chance to challenge a report that Gere compiled at the request of the council. Gere’s report stated that the city could raise hangar rates – currently $260 per month – to as much as $520.
“We need more information,” said Valdivia, who said several airport tenants approached her to voice concerns about the possibility of a rate increase. “We had a lot of people renting hangars concerned about rising rates. It needs some more study.”
Airport tenants were glad to win a chance to build their case.
“We’re hoping the resolution remains tabled until we are able to put something together and give an alternative view,” said Deane Judd, the unofficial leader of the outraged aviators and an airport tenant since 2002.
“I believe Bill Gere’s report is, at best, misguided, and I disagree with his conclusions,” Judd said.
According to Judd, local airport tenants don’t mind paying their fair share, but doubling hangar rents is excessive and would push local aviators out of the airport in favor of wealthy plane owners from San Jose.
“My feeling is tenants should support the airport, the city should not subsidize it,” he said. But, he added, doubling the rents is overkill.
But Gere said the airport tenants are just fighting to keep their rental rates unreasonably low.
“My report was supposed to be just a statement of fact,” Gere said. “They just think it’s not right, it’s not fair.”
Gere’s report compared the Hollister’s hangar rental rates with those charged by similar airports in the region and the cost of renting commercial storage space. Hollister Municipal Airport charges about 26 cents per square foot for hangars that are about 1,000 square feet.
Comparable hangars at Watsonville Municipal Airport rent for about 20 cents per square foot, according to Watsonville Airport manager Don French. At Salinas Municipal Airport, very old hangers range in price from about 7 cents per square foot to about 10 cents. Newer hangars rent from about 14 cents to 20 cents per square foot, according to Debbie Beal, airport assistant for Salinas.
In his report, however, Gere stated that, “Almost unanimously airport mangers will attest that hangar rates are simply a reflection of the influence that the airport tenants and airman’s association can bring to reduce rates from their fair market amount.”
“If I wanted to, I could rent them all out at $600 a month,” Gere said.
French disagrees with the fair market approach to setting hangar rents. He said rates need only be high enough to keep the airport self-sufficient.
“There is no fair market value at any airport. Value is based on the needs of the airport,” adding that rates should be as affordable as possible while still high enough to make the airport self-sustaining.
Beal, on the other hand, said that it is natural for airport tenants to want to keep rates low.
“That is a true statement,” she said. “It’s the case with anything and everything – of course we want to pay as little as we can.”
But at the same time she said she thought doubling hangar rents was excessive.
“He’s (Gere) going to price himself out of businesses if he’s not careful,” she said.
Hollister’s airport has a budget deficit and needs to raise hanger rental rates to pay its bills, according to Gere. He said he doesn’t know how large the airport’s deficit is, but the city’s financial department is putting together a report on the airports financial situation.
“Our expenses do exceed our revenue,’ he said.
In his report, Gere also states that when a previous city council approved a resolution raising hangar rates to 26 cents per square foot in 2002, no provision for raising the rents annually was included.
But, included that 2002 resolution there is a provision to increase rental rates annually according to the Consumer Price Index. Gere said that he thought the ordinance only raised hangar rental rates to 26 cents per square foot in 2002 with the provision that the council would review the rates again in 2007.
“The copy I saw did not have an adequate method for raising rents,’ he said.
Regardless of the provision in the 2002 resolution for raising rents annually based on the CPI, the hangars rents have not been raised in the last two years. Raising the rates was overlooked, according to City Manager Clint Quilter, because of a high volume of personnel turnover at both the airport and in the city’s financial department.
“That’s one thing I want a full report about,” Valdivia said.
The city council will hold a workshop next month to discuss the possible rate increase and give airport tenants and Gere a chance to share their points of view, according to Valdivia.
Whatever the outcome of the August workshop, the decision to raise the rents belongs to the city council, Gere said.
“It’s strictly up to them,” he said. “My job was to give them honest facts.”
Luke Roney covers politics and agriculture for the Free Lance. Reach him at 831-637-5566 ext. 335 or at lr****@fr***********.com.
