Mike Ellis – The Carroll County Airport Commission voted to reinstate a lease for Larkin Floyd, two years after previous commissioners revoked the lease and increased Floyd’s payment from $450 per year to nearly $5,000.
County Judge Sam Barr will have to approve the new lease before it takes effect, but the present commissioners took a clear stand on the issue. “There’s not much we can do to repair the past, but we can make sure and avoid those same mistakes in the future,” commissioner Sandy Martin said. Her comments came after commissioners heard some history from Floyd and from two former CCAC members, Tony Pike and Dave Teigen.
Pike explained some of the airport’s early history saying airport and local economic development officials courted Floyd to help establish the airport. State and federal agencies that award funding to airports use traffic counts as a gauge, and Floyd’s businesses dramatically increased the number of takeoffs and landings at the airport, which Pike said had been “a very sleepy place” with “no hope of receiving any money.”
In 1985, the CCAC gave Floyd favorable lease terms because he paid for buildings and pavement that would revert to the airport at the end of his lease. After more construction in 1989, the lease was extended to 2024. His investments would constitute Floyd’s entire payment through the term of the lease. Floyd explained that in 2005, he voluntarily renegotiated his lease because the airport needed capital for projects.
The new lease would require Floyd to pay $450 once a year, through 2024. Floyd said he had forgotten the annual payment once before, and CCAC promised to send him a bill thereafter. However, when he forgot to pay in 2012 and 2013, the CCAC found language in Floyd’s contract that allowed them to terminate his lease. The airport manager at the time, Sheila Evans, did not send Floyd a bill or call him on the phone.
Floyd attributed her failure to notify him not to negligence, but as part of a personal vendetta in which she enlisted former CCAC chairman Lonnie Clark and other commissioners. Most of those who served on the commission in 2014 resigned after the quorum court sharply cut funding for the airport for the 2015 budget. Most of the airport’s budget was restored once a new chairman took over.
Teigen said he served as CCAC chairman when Floyd’s lease came into question, and he stepped down as chairman but remained on the commission. “I’m embarrassed to say I was chairman when this started,” he said. “In my opinion, the commission made a huge error, and did something that was not morally or ethically correct.”
Teigen showed that Evans’s job description called for her to “collect all debts and fees… in a timely fashion.” Floyd missed two payments, he said, “but one phone call would have avoided a lot of trouble.” Teigen said the CCAC’s actions during that period drew “a lot of bad press and set back progress years and years.”
None of the commissioners at the table had served during this period, and they asked about what Teigen called “a lot of animosity between the old manager and chairman and everyone else.” Current chair Chase Tresler asked Teigen directly, “Did she (Evans) really do that?” and Teigen replied simply, “Yes.” Commissioners then voted unanimously to recommend the new lease for the county judge’s signature.
Commissioners also heard that the runway rehab project is still on schedule for mid- to late June, depending on weather.