Economic development director tasked with restoring airport fuel

Linn County Commission told making aviation fuel available core to reestablishing airport. (Journal file photo)

Journal staff report

MOUND CITY – Last year when former Linn County commissioner Danny McCullough served on the commission with current commissioners Jim Johnson and Jason Hightower, the decision was made to extract the county from the airport business.

Based largely on the cost of repair and upkeep of the fueling tank and pump at the airport, the decision was made to cease selling aviation-grade fuel at the Linn County Airport southeast of Pleasanton. 

The commission learned that the lights that the county had purchased with a grant were never installed because they were not appropriate for this airport because it was not long enough and many of the lights that were along the runway were not working.

People who had purchased lots to build hangers and other structures got caught up in roughly 40% inflation land prices during the COVID pandemic, and those people discovered they could no longer build on those lots without facing real estate taxes that had mushroomed.

At the same time the county has been faced with paying higher property taxes on the airport property because it was annexed into Pleasanton. 

But the election of Alison Hamilton as District 2 commissioner flipped the switch. Hamilton has been pushing to develop the airport, and one of the first steps is setting up sales of aviation fuel again.

At the commission meeting on Monday, June 23, Hamilton asked county Economic Development Director Chasity Ware, who has been assigned to manage the airport, to check on getting a fire extinguisher near the fuel pump fixed. She asked Ware to get with county Fire Chief Randy Hegwald and find out if the county is required to have one there.

Hamilton asked Ware to find out how Rice and Marshall counties are funding their airports, whether it is through federal funds.

Hamilton said that said she wasn’t sure but she thought that because of the lot split situation, Linn County could not get federal funding. She said that the county needed to figure out how to get money for the airport.

Hamilton asked how the county could correct the situation from selling the lots. She questioned whether the county could reach out to the individuals that the lots were sold to and buy back those lots. 

Ware said she did not think that the county was going to want to pay the prices that the landowners wanted for the lots now.

“They were sold at a very easy, nice amount, and they are not going to be able to be purchased back for that same amount," Ware said. “I think that was the thought and processes that we could just turn around and buy them right back for what they paid for them. But. from what I’m understanding from one gentleman, that is not going to be the case.”

Hamilton asked what the benefit was of putting the fuel back at the airport.

Ware said that the downfall of not having fuel there was that airplanes are flying from Oklahoma and Texas, headed north, and this is a spot right in the middle, but they cannot fuel up here. 

Ware explained that because the county doesn’t have fuel there, they can’t even just stop and fuel up and continue on. She said that she understood that once their fuel tanks got to a certain point they were required to fill up, because if they don’t and something happens they are in major trouble. 

By the county not having any fuel there, one it is not getting any income anyway because the fuel tank’s not working but two, the county is not being a service to the air traffic, she said.                                                                                                                  

“It’s going to take some money to spend money to make some money,” said Ware. “It’s going to have to start in small increments, I’m sure.”

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