A long-standing agreement between the Sedona Airport and the Sedona Fire District to lease a communications tower on Airport Mesa for $1 per year is coming to end. In its stead, the airport is seeking a 10-year contract with a more-than-symbolic fee — something in the ballpark of $1,750 per month.
Officials for the airport and fire district both characterized the old agreement as a relic of a bygone era in Sedona when city business was done in a more informal way. Ed Rose, general manager for the Sedona Airport, called the old deal a “good ol’ boys thing,” while SFD Governing Board President Dave Soto described it as a “gentlemen’s agreement.”
Under the deal, which expired in September but has been temporarily extended, the airport leased the tower to SFD in exchange for the fire district’s emergency services to the airport — and $1.
The new deal, which Rose plans to submit for approval next month, is likely to be less chummy than the old one. This time around, Rose said, the airport is looking to recoup $210,000 over the 10-year life of the contract.
SFD has used the tower for decades to house radio and microwave equipment used by first responders to communicate. The fire district also rents space on its towers, including the airport tower, to private communications companies — to offset the costs of maintaining its communications system, according to SFD Fire Chief Jon Trautwein.
Last year, the SFD received roughly $200,000 in “communications rents” from its various towers, which Trautwein described as “cost recovery” on the $1 million the district spends annually to maintain its communication system. The $200,000 made in communications rent is a small portion of the district’s $17.6 million in revenue last year.
SFD’s subleasing of tower space appeared to irk some Sedona-Oak Creek Airport Authority board members at recent meetings, when the board voted to temporarily extend the existing lease while negotiations continued.
One board member even described SFD’s subleasing of tower space as an act of “bad faith.”
But SFD’s use of the tower to generate communications rent was openly acknowledged by an SFD official in a December 2010 Sedona Red Rock News story, when the lease was last renewed.
Terry Schleizer, then-SFD regional communications center manager, told the NEWS in 2010 that the tower “brings in some revenue to the district …. For example, Verizon used to have equipment on that tower — they don’t anymore — and also a paging company used to have equipment on that tower.”
Trautweinsaid Commspeed currently has equipment on the airport tower.
The old agreement doesn’t have any language in it about subleasing, either for or against.
The new lease negotiations are coming at a time when the airport is seeking funds for long overdue maintenance projects, including the replacement of an aging fuel tank farm at a cost of $2.1 million — for which Federal Aviation Administration grants are not available.
Rose said that while the airport needed to recoup more than $1 a year from the leased tower, the airport is giving SFD a “break,” because “they are not paying full boat” in the deal that is taking shape.
Any deal that Trautwein and Rose work out needs board approval, but Rose envisions a deal where SFD pays a flat monthly fee to the airport and is allowed to do “cost recovery” with the tower.
“I just ask to be informed about it,” Rose said.
