Airport on board to seek FAA's opinion

The Naples Airport Authority agreed Thursday to sign off on a letter asking some of the highest-ranking aviation officials in the country whether the city legally could increase the authority’s rent payment.

The authority agreed to send a joint letter with the exact wording approved Wednesday by the Naples City Council.

The city’s and authority’s lawyers have given different opinions whether it would be legal for the city to charge the authority more than $1 a year for use of 700 acres of city land to operate the Naples Municipal Airport.

Several City Council members wanted to get a definitive answer to the question from the Federal Aviation Administration, which has the power to withhold federal grants if the agency feels a law is being violated.

The joint letter is being sent to the FAA’s chief legal counsel and associate administrator. Some residents have argued that increasing the lease payment could help city coffers at a time when the city may be contemplating property tax increases.

The city’s attorney, Robert Pritt, believes the city could charge the authority “fair market rent.”

But the authority’s lawyer, Joseph McMackin, has said the FAA likely would declare a rent hike to be a case of illegal revenue diversion.

McMackin told the authority to imagine how much money the city of Atlanta could add to its budget if it collected 50 cents to a dollar for every person arriving and departing the Hartsfield-Jackson International airport.

He said this type of situation could result in the airport and city debating whether to spend the money on the airport upgrade or other city services.

“That tension is productive to neither side. The FAA has decided they are going to isolate these two units into their own economic centers,” he said. “The city of Naples, or the city of Atlanta, will live or die on its tax revenues.”

He said the FAA wants money collected from airport properties to go back into upgrading the airport.

McMackin recommended that the authority support the letter to the FAA.

“I think that if the city feels the letter is acceptable for their purposes, we should strongly consider going along with it,” he said.

The joint letter, which was composed by Pritt and McMackin, asks whether the city could enter into a deal to sell the airport property to the authority, or enter into a deal under which the authority had an option to buy it. It also questions whether the city can increase the rent on the land and by how much.

The wording wasn’t entirely pleasing to McMackin, who said there are some hypotheticals in the sentences that he is concerned will solicit unclear answers from the FAA, leaving this debate opened-ended.

McMackin said the authority’s federal legal counsel recommended the authority not endorse asking the FAA the questions, but McMackin said it’s time to put the issue to bed. Authority Commissioner Peter Manion asked McMackin what he thought the odds were that the FAA would give a clear answer to these questions.

“I believe that we in six weeks will get a response, but I am only 60 percent certain that the response will be satisfactory to all parties,” he said.

Authority Commissioner William Hobgood asked McMackin whether he thought the answers to the questions will resolve the controversy.

“As a practical matter,” he said, the answer is, ‘Yes.’ As a legal matter, the answer is, ‘No,’” he said.

McMackin pointed out that Pritt declined an offer to be bound by whatever ruling from FAA comes down.

“But as a practical matter, there comes a point when men and women of good conscience cannot continue to split hairs over this,” he said.

In May, Authority Executive Director Ted Soliday received a letter from Robert Chapman, the airports manager for the FAA’s southeastern United States region, saying that he felt that increasing the lease would constitute illegal revenue diversion.

Pritt has said he isn’t sure he agrees with Chapman’s views.

Airport Executive Director Ted Soliday said, regardless of the wording of these questions, he is confident the FAA will come back with another clear declaration that increasing the lease payment constitutes illegal revenue diversion.

“With 39-plus years in the industry, I believe I know what the FAA is going to answer on that,” he said.