City takes the right steps in pushing for new airport lease
It appears as though Gavilan College’s 32-year run at the
Hollister Municipal Airport might be coming to a close, and for
good reason if the school doesn’t get realistic about a fair lease
rate for its aviation mechanic program.
Hollister can no longer afford to highly subsidize the program,
which has held shop there on more than 40,000 square feet,
including a 10,000-square-foot hangar building. A nominal discount
is appropriate, but for many years Gavilan has gotten away with an
astonishingly favorable deal in what has become a give-away from a
city government that is particularly ailing during the economic
downturn.
City takes the right steps in pushing for new airport lease
It appears as though Gavilan College’s 32-year run at the Hollister Municipal Airport might be coming to a close, and for good reason if the school doesn’t get realistic about a fair lease rate for its aviation mechanic program.
Hollister can no longer afford to highly subsidize the program, which has held shop there on more than 40,000 square feet, including a 10,000-square-foot hangar building. A nominal discount is appropriate, but for many years Gavilan has gotten away with an astonishingly favorable deal in what has become a give-away from a city government that is particularly ailing during the economic downturn.
Believe it or not, rent is slightly more than $300 a month, while market rate for such a space is close to $8,000. Gavilan has been paying around the same amount since 1978. Comparably, Gavilan pays $11,050 per month for 9,500 square feet to use the Briggs Building for classes.
What it means is that Hollister taxpayers are, indeed, subsidizing a program with a habitually-low enrollment, about a dozen students, most of them from outside the county. It must end and it looks like that might happen sooner than later.
Hollister council members this week took the appropriate direction, while knowing it could lead to Gavilan’s departure from the site, by agreeing to raise the rent to market rate, with a 10 percent discount, starting July 1.
Hollister officials for years have played softball in long-distance negotiations with Gavilan over a new lease. The current lease expired 12 years ago. At the time, talks over a new deal fell flat. Over the years, they never picked up much steam, until now.
Hollister’s airport director and code enforcement officer, Mike Chambless, finally has taken the necessary, aggressive tack with Gavilan, and the city council has followed suit by supporting his decision. In this case, it’s the right move and the only way to eventually maximize the city’s revenue for a significant amount of space at the airport.
Current city leaders deserve credit for taking care of it now and ending the perpetual hangup and string after string of flawed communications.
Former city leadership never should have allowed this to sit so long, while Gavilan officials have managed to successfully use delay tactics for 12 years in which city taxpayers potentially could have benefited financially from some other use.
Now might be the time to consider other uses for the location. Gavilan officials have noted how the state budget crisis has hampered the school’s funding capacity. Its president, Steve Kinsella, also has inappropriately used the future Hollister campus as leverage in his limited communications with the city over the airport.
In July 2008, he wrote to City Manager Clint Quilter, in response to Hollister’s request for a new rent of $2,200 monthly, and noted how the college is moving ahead on its plans for a satellite campus here.
“Paying higher rents at the Airport will reduce the amount of funding available to operate other Hollister facilities,” he wrote.
That sounds like a bribe: Either accept our terms or there might not be money down the line for your new campus.
In that case, the best option for Hollister, if Gavilan doesn’t accept the city’s terms, is to move on past the relationship and allow the college to find a new home for its aviation mechanic program.
The City of Hollister, after all, is not in the education business.
