County approves 5-year airport lease

    Murphy – The Cherokee County Board of Commissioners agreed Monday night to proceed with a five-year lease to extend Gaylord Trull’s management of Western Carolina Regional Airport.
    The county has been trying to come to terms on the lease since the previous one-year deal expired two months ago. They had a closed-session discussion about the topic at their Sept. 16 meeting and took no action at the time.
    The airport is in Andrews, which is represented by Commissioner Cal Stiles. He asked that the discussion be held in public, but his motion did not receive a second. Commissioners discussed it in closed session again Monday before voting to post the lease for 30 days, as required by law.
    “I feel like if it is a true lease, the operator of the facility needs to own the fuel,” Stiles said of his main issue with the situation. “I’m fine with structuring the lease the same as for as the money, but I think he should own it.”
    Even though it is for five years, the lease has a 60-day out clause for both parties.
    The lease indicates that maintenance items costing more than $250 will still be the responsibility of the county.
    Stiles added that the county is also paying the power, phone and internet bills at the airport.
    Commissioner C.B. McKinnon said this setup at the airport is as good as the county can expect.
    “We used to lose about $40,000 a year, now we’re losing less doing it the way we’re doing it,” McKinnon said. “If we can reduce our losses, that’s money in the bank.”
    There were several major capital expenses at the airport in the 2017-18 fiscal year, and the airport lost $32,020.64 even if those are backed out, according to county records. It also lost an average of $54,649 over those four years.
    In the 2018-19 fiscal year, the airport suffered a loss of just $25,092.87.
    Commission Chairman Gary “Hippie” Westmoreland said at the Sept. 3 meeting that fuel sales were up “two-and-half times” since Trull took over the facility. However, the numbers do not bear that out.
    Trull took over in October 2018, when sales of AV gas were down slightly from the 2017-18 to 2018-19 fiscal years (16,845 gallons to 16,488). During Trull’s first 10 months as the operator, AV gas sales were up a little more than 1,000 gallons (13,966 versus 12,819 in the previous year’s same month).
    In jet fuel, sales were down from the 2017-18 to 2018-19 fiscal year by more than 7,000 gallons (30,880 to 23,119). During Trull’s operation time for which figures are available, the sales are down by almost half (28,345 to 14,928).
    The county buys the fuel and splits the profits from sales 50-50 with Trull. When the inventory is checked each month, any difference between the receipts and the gallons used that is under 150 gallons (up from 50 gallons) will also have the loss split evenly between the two parties.
    Anything above that will be presented to the commissioners to decide what to do.
    “I want him to succeed,” Stiles said. “I think the airport provides an important service, but I want to protect the taxpayers also.”
    McKinnon praised Trull’s work at the airport over the last 14 months.
    “Gaylund has done a great job out there reducing labor costs and bringing airplanes back to the facility,” he said. “No one else is going to do this for as little money as there is in it. He’s taken this on as a hobby in retirement because he likes it up there, and we can’t push more money onto him and have him still want to do it.”
    McKinnon also said the airport has not been as big an issue in the last year.
    “The controversy is gone up there,” he said. “I am not getting calls every week now about the airport. I would love it if it made money, but it’s always lost money. We’re just trying to keep it going and reduce what we lose.”