Okay, we're gonna call this meeting of the airport commission to order.

It is April 7th, 2026 at 2 p.m.

And uh we have a quorum.

We do it, I guess we can do the um open comment period, but no one is here.

Uh doors are open, but we don't have anyone here to comment.

So we'll uh just move along.

Uh do we need to do we don't need to do a roll call because everybody's here in person.

And uh we do need to uh approve the consent agenda.

So more so it's moved and seconded to approve the consent agenda, which consists of the minutes of the airport commission meeting on March 3rd.

Any questions or corrections anyone has seeing none, all those in favor say aye.

Any opposed?

We're gonna go on through reports, and so we're gonna have 5A is airport financials, followed by 5B, which will be the airport operational and marketing data.

And who's gonna do those first?

Hi, I'm Kyle Gaffney.

Thank you, Mayor.

Um we're pretty early in the year, so numbers are still coming in.

Um income is in line with where it should be for the year at this time, landing fees, our rent, things like that.

Um two areas that are a little bit uh different than last year.

One is uh maintenance expense.

We've had a little bit more snow this time this year than we did last year.

Uh so those expenses are a little bit higher, and then the under the administration category, the investments attributed to the airport or our share of the city's investments.

Previous year we had some good gains.

This year we had some losses the first couple months, so it's creating a little shift in our overall uh budget.

Um, but nothing to be concerned with this time.

Uh any questions on the financials.

All right, moving on to the statistics.

Uh the employments are uh a fun one to look at right now because they're they're pretty high.

Uh pretty dramatic increase over last year.

Um looking at our organizational objectives again.

I'm interested in updating these.

Uh Mary and I have started that conversation uh to come up with some different um um benchmarks here that we can review.

Um I do expect the departing flight options per day to increase once United uh comes into until then they'll remain pretty steady uh compared to last year.

Our passenger numbers are up a pretty good amount this year.

Uh Delta's up 22 percent, Americans up 31 percent.

Um that's you know a 27% increase for the year, uh, which is great.

And that in turn creates um increases in our other revenues such as uh parking lot uh fees and things like that.

Um next page there.

What is that attributed to?

Um simply smaller numbers.

Um it was 362 so far this year.

Well I see I see four was higher.

Yep.

And that'll be like the sun country flights um to um Laughlin.

That's it.

Um but fly out of RSD.

All right, our uh load factors, uh we're up to 76 percent for Delta and 70 5% for American.

Um that's what we want to see.

Over 80 would be ideal, um, but we're we're going in the right direction.

As I mentioned, other revenues increase such as the parking rent or sorry, the rental car activity, uh the parking lot transactions with the increased passengers.

We have increased revenues there as well.

I just ask um compared to pre-pandemic, are we you know we're we're tracking and improving over the last two years?

Do we are we still way down because the flights are so far down yet?

Um, yes, you know, uh, we're hoping to get there with United, you know, closer to uh comparables, um, but it's still um a pretty significant uh difference.

Um else do you have yeah, for international passengers just slightly down from previous years at this time of year.

Uh we didn't have the February data for those numbers yet, either.

Um our cargo um is up a little bit.

But this is only January, correct?

Yeah.

February numbers hadn't come in yet for that report.

Well, that could be low too, given what was happening in the state at the time.

But we're seeing now back.

Yeah, the uh international situation may decrease that and ground transportation, that's pretty straightforward.

Those are the Ubers and the Lyfts, and uh they're increasing too over previous years.

And that's it for uh statistics.

Any questions?

No, that's great.

Do we have some marketing?

So yeah, and you know, the information that we're sharing in the marketing report has February um demand represented.

So we did see it soften, um, likely because of some of the activities that were happening.

Um we also shifted some of our budget to a different type of destination marketing campaign, um, focusing on some of the destinations that you could connect through Chicago uh to on the United Service, and we pushed some inspirational destinations that didn't perform as well.

So you know, all of this is sort of listening to what works and what doesn't and figuring it out.

It also was really early for us to be promoting United Flights, um, which I learned after the fact.

Um all this new new to me, new service, um getting excited and trying to ramp up, but um looking at more of a closer in window would have been more realistic based on some of the conversations I've been having with United Marketing.

Um so all that is to say, we launched it, we started it, we're seeing some of the numbers, the web users and traffic and the interest was lower than we'd like.

So we've shifted that.

Um we also at the beginning of the year in January, actually, we launched the um inbound uh patient focused uh marketing campaign featuring um a young uh up and coming national artist.

Um that's still performing really, really well.

So it hasn't fatigued.

We've um dripped it so that it'll pace out throughout this entire year.

So hopefully we continue to see that um show up in some of our top content, not only on organic, but also on the next page in our paid social side, um, because that is what we're using to drive interest and awareness that uh if you're traveling for nail clinic to Rochester, we have an airport, and here's the effects or the experience that you could have should you choose that.

So it's it's our way of getting in front of those patient passengers.

Um and then also we had a really um fun top performing mean um sort of positioning us against MSP, which we love to do.

Um so that one is there's the disappointed cat.

Oh, that's what I thought.

Yeah, kind of fun on TikTok if you saw that.

But um, our paid media, uh, we saw some really high-level searches happening for Fort Myers, which is not surprising knowing that we have a lot of second one ownership there.

Um, but we haven't seen since I've used um Fly My Airport, our booking widget, we haven't seen this high of a volume of searches for Fort Myers.

So for us, it you know, we just doubled down and started promoting Ford Myers even more then.

Um, hoping that people would find the fares that they're looking for.

Um but we overall saw a decrease in activity traffic and just February numbers all together.

Um just a lot of conditions happening around that, but we've since seen that rebound.

That's not in this report.

Um, but March is looking a lot better.

Um any questions that you have any questions, anyone?

No, I agree.

All right, well, we'll file the reports and bold business.

We don't have any of, but we do have some new business today.

Item 7A on your agenda is a grant acceptance and contract award to Mathawitz construction company for the RST ASR11 fiber optic relocation project out of the airport.

Is there someone that was liking to take a look at the I'll take this and then I'll I'll have removal and I'll maybe defer to Matt or some specifics too.

But so this uh this work was originally part of the uh phase four uh runway 0321 project.

Um we didn't get good information from the FA on how this Asville Duck Bank actually looked.

So the contractor wanted to offer a change order for that, and that was they offered it at 2.6 million.

So we decided to pull that work out and um with the FAA's blessing, and then came back and this is a successful bidder at 1 million 75,000.

So we save really roughly a million and a half over by rebidding that and actually pulling it out of phase four work.

So it's at a nine 95% federal and a five percent state bonding to uh Mathewood's construction.

Yeah.

I could add Kurt.

Um we had three bidders on the open bids last Tuesday, March 31st.

Um Matholis was low at uh just over one million dollars.

So um the recommendation is to go ahead and award that to Matthew's instruction.

Um they've got a lot of the work on the north side of the airfield this summer.

Um, so that'll fit in nicely with them coordinating that north end work.

Right.

Does anybody have questions?

So the random um yes.

Um so the fiber work they're doing is is it contained to from the explains it kind of where on the airport campus yeah, it's the primary communication line that runs from the air traffic control tower.

It runs across the airfield under both runways to the radar site, which is located at the southwest quadrant of the airfield.

Um, so it's a concrete encased duct bank, it's buried about four feet deep.

Um it has a series of manholes for access along the way.

And as Kurt mentioned, uh, we didn't have the as built from FA to know that that was encased in concrete or had a series of duct banks.

So um changing the grade approximately 20 feet, we couldn't lower that.

That's what is a big mound of material outground grade currently.

So, what's the lifespan of this?

Um, it should exceed, I think, the facilities themselves, the tower and the uh the radar site.

Yeah, we're we're just replacing it because the old infrastructure is in the way of the line of sight correctly.

And the FA wants us to replace the cable on it or moving it.

Basically, I see they kind of have all the cards in the on the deck.

Got it.

Other questions.

If not, would someone like to move acceptance of 7A?

Move approval.

Second.

It's been moved and seconded.

All those in favor, say goodbye by saying aye.

Aye.

Opposed.

7A passes, and we uh go on to 7B, which is professional services agreement to provide preliminary design and programming services for the reconstruction of the airport terminal parking lot at the Rochester International Airport.

I'll take this as well, and then when we get to the beaten hunt part, I'll defer to Scott.

So Scott Van Goppel's a new uh new to us, team member from Meet and Hunt that's going to be working with us on several projects.

So this the parking lot's kind of his.

So but I'll I'll run through this quick.

So, you know, obviously the parking lot's kind of been a topic of discussion over the last several years, improvements that are necessary out there.

Payments given us everything it's had.

So we're trying to make improvements and and we've been striving to get federal and state funding and haven't been very successful in that realm.

Um, still working on the state funding, still kind of an outlier there potentially.

But um, the goal of of this initial work is kind of to give us the 30% design and hopefully putting this group and and city council in a spot where we can make a good informed decision as to kind of what that scope looks like, where we want to start and stop with the work in the in the parking lot and how much money do we want to expend, basically, because it's going to be essentially 100% local unless we're successful with uh with outside funding sources, which today we haven't been.

So with that, I'll introduce uh Scott.

Kurt, thank you.

Thank you very much.

Um yeah, as Kurt mentioned, I will be um leading the project on uh for the meat and hunt side for the team on the parking lot.

And the this initial study is to give us kind of a roadmap for the next couple years of what those projects could look like and what the costs could be associated with that.

The parking lot was originally constructed in the 1960s.

Um we've gotten a couple of rehab projects over the last uh 60 plus years.

And uh it's it's time we heard about the increased passenger service as well as uh new opportunities for revenue.

So it's time to take a look at the parking lot and see what we can do to improve that facility for the airport.

Um the scope, as I mentioned, will be the preliminary design, but it does include full geotech technical investigation services as well as survey, uh, which will give us kind of a head start on uh whatever packages we're gonna design that will go out to bid uh once we go through this programming piece.

So the initial programming will focus on the efficiency of the parking lot.

We'll uh we have about 900 spaces out there.

We do know that service is growing, so we'll look at opportunities if we need to expand services, um parking surfaces, I should say.

Uh, we do anticipate reconstruction, so that will come with uh evaluation of stormwater drainage systems and some of the landscaping around the airport to make sure we're compliant with stormwater um regulation.

That's uh current.

Uh we'll also look at uh opportunities for um, as I mentioned, maximizing the parking efficiency.

We'll look at covered parking as well as covered walkways to and from uh the airport terminal, and uh we'll we'll develop concept budgets for that to see uh if the airport wants to move forward with that work, and then also include would be wayfinding as well as information signage for passengers coming to the terminal area.

There's a new digital entrance sign that will be installed off of uh Heldritsen Drive to greet passengers and people as they're arriving at the airport and provide them some information that'll be included in um some of the budgeting and the 25% design for the parking area.

Thank you.

Uh other things just uh sorry, uh, but other things is just ADA parking and accessibility, uh potential ED charging stations, things like that.

We'll look at all the options, what's on the table, we'll put dollars to it, and then we'll uh determine um what projects make sense and when to uh move forward with the um redevelopment projects.

That's it.

Thank you.

Thank you.

Uh appreciate that.

I I like the idea of the cover parking getting into the terminal.

Um, I think you know, given our weather and how far out our parking lot is, which leads me to a question I think I know the answer already, which is probably it costs too much.

Um given that we have kind of uh bad weather a good part of the year, and our parking lot is quite deep.

Was there ever a thought given to creating a two-story or so parking garage and have it closer to the airport terminal?

Yeah, I I think this came up during the master plan.

Yeah, it's pretty involved for spot.

That's what I wonder this all cost.

Like north of 25,000 per spot or something like that.

Yeah, it was it was expensive.

We did look at that in the master plan and decided against it at this time, but in the future with expansion, maybe that's an option.

I think we're projecting like more like 45 to 50,000 a spot right now.

I think almost double that for some other entities that are building parking right now.

Yeah, I know it's expensive.

Just having people closer to the terminal is makes it for a more pleasant experience as opposed to having to walk from way back in that parking lot.

But if we guess if we've got some coverage in a you know center place where they can go to the cover and then walk straight in, that that would be nice.

Yeah, exactly.

That did materialize for the no.

And I will just say that I don't think that was anything about the project.

That was about the dysfunction and the lack of bonding from the legislature.

So you know, I about I would not say give up on that if and you know, continue trying.

I don't think it's that they didn't want to do it.

I just they just aren't doing much on bonding.

Yeah, I think our goal is whatever we do to be still open to that concept that can still occur.

Yeah, I think that'd be great.

Can I ask a question?

Absolutely, Matty.

Um, so the 40 to 50,000 per stall is that including the cover covered yeah, for some project.

Oh, that's for a function.

I think that's out, yeah.

Another project you really have another.

I mean, I think in your current day dollars, you would not be at 25,000.

Yeah, that would be ordered 25,000.

Okay, so with uh with the the design that you're going to be doing, are you going to what's the process as far as uh then we're gonna get options?

We'll get the coverage option.

What does that come back to this committee and then to the city council again for comes back to this group, right?

To make a decision as to what they would recommend proceeding with.

Yeah, dollar-wise, scope-wise, and then according to the dollars that would be and what so when will we see that?

When is the when will they put design?

One of our goals, I think, was to try to do something yet this year.

So I think we're gonna be moving pretty quickly.

Okay, if we can.

Yeah, well, we're gonna hit the ground running and hopefully um we'll be able to come back um mid-summer and show what we have for recommendation.

And one final question.

So, what is save uh a parking ramp?

What is the estimate that we're kind of the ballpark that we're probably looking at with covered and non-covered?

Do you have any guess on that, Scott?

I mean, the I I do.

I'm gonna defer to Matt.

Uh Matt, we put an estimate together a while back.

And I if you want to go through that.

Yeah, I I think we were at five million, and I don't recall how much of that was covered parking.

We'll have to look off look back at that estimate.

But we had given a range from two to five.

Um, if we could do overlays versus complete reconstruction with drainage updates.

Um, and we had other amenities in there too, like a message board, um, the covered parking, concrete walkways, other improvements like that.

So I think we're looking at two-tiered parking as well, right?

So, like a potentially like a premium and uh whatever.

Correct.

Yeah, yeah.

And that I would assume unless we were doing well, even if we were doing everything.

So there's some staging that has to look for the sequencing of this because we've got to keep parking going.

And the good news is we don't have a full lot.

Correct.

Most of the time, right?

That way back.

That's no, but but someone's gonna while we're doing work, somebody's gonna be moving parking in the roof bar.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Yeah, correct.

And that's why the programming piece will um, I think during peak times we heard we have about a hundred spots available.

So um, there is a small piece of undeveloped land on the southeast of that loop area.

So uh we'll look at um kind of moving things around and figuring out where to best spend the money on that first project, and we'll have to stage around all that work.

Other questions I don't see any.

Someone would like to move this item.

That would be great.

So moved.

Thank you, Dylan.

Second, okay, second by listen.

All those in favor, signify by saying hi.

Hi, hi.

Wonderful.

Be nice to have that parking lot fixed.

So good luck on the planning, and hopefully the prices of something will come down.

We can only help.

Uh 7C is our last item on the action of action items.

And it's a change order number one with Oshkosh Airport Products LLC for firefighting equipment relating to the purchase of an aircraft rescue and firefighting ARF vehicle at the airport.

Okay, so I'll take that um kind of high level two and I'll defer to Matt.

Um, this one.

So if you recall, we opened bids on a fire truck back in September.

Um part of that process because it involves federal funding, is we use the advisor circle.

The FAA has out of the time, which I think the current one dated that we use had data back to 2011.

So when you go through the process, do you pick and choose the different components that you need on the fire truck?

Then the I the FAA requires you use this advisory circler through that process.

Well, actually, once we got through that process and we opened bids in uh or in June, they actually came out with a new advisory circuit right after we were done that was updated as of today.

So a lot of the technology and that old advisory circuit circular doesn't offer us the equipment that we completely pick from once we talk to Oshkosh, or like all these items are FA eligible, but they're not on the FAA checklist.

So these are things that we've kind of gone through and added um as part of the uh as part of the process.

The FA is concurrent with every these changes that we've made.

Um we also anticipate state funding for this change order, and they have given us a verbal commitment, but not a written commitment as of yet.

So we're still waiting for that.

And I would suggest that we don't, if this goes through, we don't take it, we don't take it to council until we have that that station along with the federal commitments.

So but just an example of some of the things that weren't on there, like for instance, one of the things that you can get now that's FA eligible is you can get a foam testing unit built into the truck.

So you can test the truck's ability to put out the correct amount of foam within the truck instead of having to do an outside source, which is something the FA wants you to have, but wasn't on that checklist that we used to order the truck that we're required to use for the truck.

So now we can use that it's an FA eligible item.

So that's some of the changes that we're discussing today.

Okay, so if I'm understanding correctly, we we accepted we or you went out.

I suppose you got a approval, but you went out for bids, turned them all down because the new regulations had come out.

No, we just had to use the FA's older now antiquated documentation to actually spec spec out the truck.

So once we order the truck under that old spec, now there's new things available to us that we can pick from that the FA will fund.

So they're gonna be added to the truck that you've always already purchased.

Got it.

So Oshgash came to us as a vendor and said these are other things you can purchase that the FA will participate in.

Okay.

I didn't explain that probably the best, but that's okay.

But you bought the truck already.

Yep.

You can upgrade it, and the FAA is not helping much.

$4,000.

Well, we moved move some money around, and they're yeah.

Then the state's gonna take the rest of it.

And the state's taking it.

The local is the $28.

So that's that's what it's anything.

No, I think there were there were some subtractions, and those are shown in there as the detailed sheet with the change order.

Um the bracketed items are deducts that were federally eligible.

So those offset the costs of the yellow highlighted federally eligible items.

So I had a summary at the bottom there.

Um there's a net increase of 4836 dollars of federally eligible items, which like Kurt mentioned, um, they agreed to support um at 95% two and a half, two and a half.

Um, you know, between state and local, and then um $99,000, um, excuse me, $95,116.

We're at the state local match 730.

So that's the additional amount that Kurt was mentioning.

We've kind of got the verbal agreement from the state, but they don't have the paperwork done yet.

Um officially accepting that.

Okay.

So we are accepting this pending receipt of the receipt of the written statement from by the state.

And when you get that, we're basically going to be giving you approval today to take that final document to the city council.

Correct.

All right.

So it may not even happen by the next council meeting, perhaps if the state kind of works on their time frame.

Surprise me.

Anyone else have questions?

Yes, EV.

Correct.

We're we're looking to we're um yeah, we're looking to place the order.

They're they're the lowest bidder.

We're looking to place the order with these changes.

Yep.

I thought that you said it.

Thank you.

Good to have it on there.

Uh okay.

So if someone would like to move this item.

Oh move.

7C is moved.

Do I have a second?

Second.

Thank you, Dylan.

We have a second.

All those in favor, signify by saying aye.

All right, aye.

Any opposed.

All right.

So that is the those are the action items.

We don't have anything listed under other business.

Um, although I will pause here and see if folks have things to say, and it looks like someone does.

So thank you, Mary.

I just thought I would update the airport commission on the latest Jazz B proceedings.

Uh, we had our third meeting last Wednesday night on April 1st, and I think we had a really good meeting.

We had all 10 members of the Jazz be there.

Um, and uh Evan Verrett with Meet and Hunt gave a presentation.

Uh, we had uh representation from the city of Stewartville, the uh the mayor was there, the city administrator was there.

Uh we also had representation from High Forest Township, uh the township supervisor was there.

Uh, and all of those individuals took an opportunity to speak during the public hearing and provide the Jazby with their thoughts and comments.

And uh ultimately um with the unanimous decision, the JASB uh voted to adopt zoning ordinance number seven, uh, which is the the proposed model ordinance.

Um next steps in the process will be for us to forward that to MINDAT for their final review and approval.

I would note that we did two sort of two rounds of uh review by MINDAT before the meeting.

So we're fairly confident that there isn't gonna be any big changes.

Um so that process looks like it's gonna be concluding um within uh so essentially once MINDAT approves it, then I will circulate the ordinance for signature amongst all 10 Jazby members, and uh that process will be complete for now.

Wonderful.

Thank you for that update.

That's great.

Did you go to that?

I was there.

Well, I one I want to come in Brent for his guidance on getting us through the process.

I think it was new to all of us, uh, where whether we came from Rochester or one of the other comp one of the counties.

And so I I think it was an amazing group, and then uh the Evan did an amazing job of really walking us through the process and and in the end at our last meeting, as Brent said, we had how many uh speakers during the open the public count?

I think there were five officially five five individuals, but each with an average of five questions, and he went through every single question that came up.

Very specific questions about people's properties and the height limits, and and so and I think uh everybody from the public and the uh members were very um pleased and went came out of the room uh happy with what we accomplished.

And so and I think uh everybody from the public and the uh members were very um pleased and went came out of the room uh happy with what we accomplished.

So wonderful.

Thank you for that update.

I was intending to go and got distracted and didn't get to the meeting, so that's I got a pen from uh the mayor of Stewart, which I meant to use to sign with document yesterday, but I couldn't find it by okay.

That's pretty good.

All right, anything else for any anything else for the good of the order here today?

If not, we will adjourn at 2 30.

We are you do we want to vote on one?

Let's do a motion a second just to make sure that we're I'll move that we adjourned.

Okay, all those in favor signify by saying aye.

It's still 2 30.

Thanks, Scott.

Thank you, everybody.

Have a good day.

All right.

Good one, good one.