Article online about Skydive Arizona's issue with the city of Eloy
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peggs82 0
"I'm going to put a for sale sign up on my property. I don't even need to, I get calls everyday," he said during the second executive session. "I can sell 100 acres for $10 million right now and I can build a whole lot better skydive center than I have now."
He said a new runway would be about $250,000, and the buildings he needs could be replaced for $2 million.
"And then I'll sue them and get my money back."
I absolutely love that statement. I hope he could do that.
The only shame in all of this is for the citizens of that city. I hope they all find out about this and scream loud enough someone in city hall hears them
He said a new runway would be about $250,000, and the buildings he needs could be replaced for $2 million.
"And then I'll sue them and get my money back."
I absolutely love that statement. I hope he could do that.
The only shame in all of this is for the citizens of that city. I hope they all find out about this and scream loud enough someone in city hall hears them
slug 1
Quote"I'm going to put a for sale sign up on my property. I don't even need to, I get calls everyday," he said during the second executive session. "I can sell 100 acres for $10 million right now and I can build a whole lot better skydive center than I have now."
He said a new runway would be about $250,000, and the buildings he needs could be replaced for $2 million.
"And then I'll sue them and get my money back."
I absolutely love that statement. I hope he could do that.
The only shame in all of this is for the citizens of that city. I hope they all find out about this and scream loud enough someone in city hall hears them
The citizens and bussinesses in Quincy couldn't keep their elected officals from incouraging the WFFC to move.
But the WFFC still exists in another place and the same thing will happen with Mr Hills operation it will be bigger and better than Eloy (Just like Eloy is better than coolidge was) if he chooses to stay in the skydiving business.
On a very positive note there even may be enough team rooms for all the teams competing in the future nationals. So everyone can compete on a level playing field.
R.I.P.
The Taint.
------------------------------
Controlled and Deliberate.....
Betsy sometimes the biggest extortionist in town is sitting behind the Mayor's desk.
No suprises there....politicians will never say they have enough money until they have run off every decent business around.
This has happened in so many places it is just sick and the losers are every constituent, citizen, business owner, and vistor to the area.
No suprises there....politicians will never say they have enough money until they have run off every decent business around.
This has happened in so many places it is just sick and the losers are every constituent, citizen, business owner, and vistor to the area.
Mr17Hz 1
QuoteHow will they move the tunnel?
Moving the tunnel would be a lot easier than most might anticipate. Tunnel costs involve licensing to skyventure, matterials for contruction, and assembly. He's already purchase the licensing (although may need to work out a deal for relocation based on regional exclusivity agreements) and the equipment. It all had to arrive on trucks, so it can all be moved on trucks. It all seems a very minor issue when compaired to the cost of moving to (or building) a new airport.
Matt Christenson
[email protected]
http://www.RealDropzone.com - A new breed of dropzone manifest software.
[email protected]
http://www.RealDropzone.com - A new breed of dropzone manifest software.
slug 1
QuoteQuoteBetsy sometimes the biggest extortionist in town is sitting behind the Mayor's desk.
No suprises there....politicians will never say they have enough money until they have run off every decent business around.
This has happened in so many places it is just sick and the losers are every constituent, citizen, business owner, and vistor to the area.
Wonder how much income the city, chamber of commerce, makes from the prison industry. If the DZ is a little fish the city may have other plans for the airport.
![[:/]](/uploads/emoticons/dry.png "[:/]"){kind=small}
The lawyers alway win
R.I.P.
R.I.P.
How will they move the tunnel?
Quote
The tunnel? who cares about the tunnel, how will they move the Bent Prop?History does not long entrust the care of freedom to the weak or the timid.
--Dwight D. Eisenhower
BillyVance 34
QuoteHow will they move the tunnel?
Quote
The tunnel? who cares about the tunnel, how will they move the Bent Prop?
Photograph it extensively, inside and out. Take it apart, label each part on the back as to where it goes, load 'em up, transport to new location, reassemble as it was.
That is, if it can't be jacked up in one piece on a flat-bed or house transport vehicle..."Mediocre people don't like high achievers, and high achievers don't like mediocre people." - SIX TIME National Champion coach Nick Saban
cpoxon 0
Quote
Bryan Burke does
QuoteEloy airport economy could crash
I read the recent story on airport fees (Eloy Enterprise, 12 October 2006) with dismay. There is a lot more to the proposed fee of $6,000 a month for Skydive Arizona to operate than most people - including the Eloy City Council - seem to realize. I urge the area papers to give this matter more exposure so the citizens can see that an economic disaster, if not a real crime, is about to take place at the Eloy Airport.
Fifteen years ago I did some of the construction work when Skydive Arizona moved to Eloy. Once or twice a day I had to set down my tools to pump $30 worth of fuel into a plane passing through. The airport was virtually dead. Then Skydive Arizona opened for business. Along with thousands of other skydivers, I've been coming back every year. Since I help out during some of the big skydiving events, I'm pretty familiar with the operation and I know owner Larry Hill well. Furthermore, I work with skydiving businesses in several other states.
I'm used to seeing cities try to drive small, marginal businesses off their airports or impose stifling fees on the successful ones. But when I learned that Eloy was planning to slap a whopping $72,000 annual use charge on Skydive Arizona it came as a shock - and made me wonder what was going on. Why would the City of Eloy vote to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs?
It is no secret that the skydiving center pumps a tremendous amount of money into the area economy. Last year, along with associated businesses, they paid employees and contractors around $2,000,000 and put another $225,000 in property and sales taxes into the government's hands. Several thousand skydivers a year visit the facility, and they spread a lot of money around. Casa Grande benefits as much from the purchases made by skydivers as Eloy does from the tax revenue.
It is also no secret that the business has operated for fifteen years on an understanding with the City that it could use the runways for free in exchange for that economic benefit. During that time Skydive Arizona has paid over a million dollars worth of fuel taxes into the federal fund that paid for most of the recent airport improvements, so "free" is a relative term. Until James McFellin became the Eloy City Manager, the arrangement was seen by both the city and the skydiving business as a win - win situation.
Suddenly the City Manager came to the conclusion that use of the Eloy Airport by Skydive Arizona was worth several thousand dollars a month, and if the new fee stands, Larry Hill plans to move his business elsewhere. How did this come about? The manager claimed that the airport was running at a loss and that the users had to make up the difference. If it is that simple, the airport budget and management plan should tell the story. And what a story they tell!
Mr. McFellin hired a transportation consultant who has admitted publicly that the "consultation" was to say exactly what Mr. McFellin wanted - and I guess he wanted a lot of money. That "consultant" looked at eleven airports in Arizona to determine what a reasonable fee for airport use would be. The trouble with his research is that he looked at airports where people actually get something for their money. All of the eleven airports studied have much larger runways than Eloy, most of them at least twice the size. Eight have modern terminals. All but two have control towers and secured fields. All but one has at least one airline, and all of them have computer weather service and rentals cars. All of them have lights that work. In other words, they don't have anything in common with the Eloy Airport, which lacks every one of those amenities!
Just in case you don't believe me, I have enclosed a copy of the study's cover page and the "selected airports" table. I'm a little astonished that the author was bold enough to claim that Eloy compares to someplace with a 12,000 foot runway, emergency vehicles, functional navigation aids, rental cars, airlines, terminals, weather services, police, and complete fencing. Those might be worth a few thousand dollars a month - to a business that needs them, which skydiving does not.
Mr. McFellin's "pay their fair share" argument is obviously malarkey, so something else must going on. I turned a few more pages of the study for a look at the airport budget numbers that were cited to justify the huge rate increases, thinking they might reveal something interesting. Boy, do they ever!
Let's look at the airport budget for Fiscal Year 2005-06 as shown in the study. Revenues were $73,636.04. Expenses were $181,450. What? $181,000? Given the humble nature of the Eloy Airport, something seems wrong with this picture. Let's look closer at the expense list, a copy of which I enclose.
$75,400 was a grant match for improvements and a lease/purchase expense for land. That's easily covered by the annual taxes Skydive Arizona pays already, and it's an expense the City will not have every year. The rest of the budget is for annual upkeep costs. Believe it or not, employee costs, vehicle, building, grounds, and equipment maintenance, and other expenses added up to $94,500. $60,300 of that was for the employees.
I'm sure the tenants of the run-down hangars would be shocked to learn that it costs $94,000 to mow the weeds three or four times a year, which is about the extent of the City's attention to the airport.
The insurance ($6000) and utilities ($3,500) might be accurate, but the rest of the expenses appear to be very heavily rounded up. Then there's $2,500 for "Travel and Training." Since the airport has no staff, maybe that was meant to be "Travel and Dining" for the Airport Manager, who happens to also be - surprise - the City Manager!
The projected budget for the next five years is even more interesting, forecasting a yearly deficit of $227,264! Yet the costs of maintenance and repair stay the same, as do insurance and utilities. So does the land purchase and grant match. What could possibly drive the cost of operating the airport up by 60% in one year when there are no plans to make any improvements to the facilities or do better maintenance?
Well, the budget for employees (and here the report specifically says "including the airport manager") goes from $60,300 to $135,000! That's more than double the 2006 budget, which already strains credibility to the limit since city employees rarely visit the airport and apparently don't know or don't care that the navigation beacon (the biggest, most obvious light on the airport) has been broken for months.
The two other items that increase are vehicle fuel/oil, going from a modest $250 to an unbelievable $20,000! I know gas prices have gone up, but not that much. Oh, one other item goes up, from $2,500 to $3,000. That's the travel and training budget. Maybe the Airport Manage wants to put a few lobsters on the menu.
Here's another striking thing about the budget numbers. Those that remain unchanged are numbers that are public record: Insurance, grants tied to federal and state funding, etc. The ones that change are discretionary numbers that the City Manager controls. Where does the money really go? Where would the new fees go? All the evidence suggests the City Manager is doctoring the books to raise money at the airport that will then be diverted elsewhere, just as it appears is being done now on a smaller scale. The fake budget is necessary because it is flat out illegal to divert money generated by the airport to the city's general fund, or any other city expense for that matter. It has to be spent at the airport.
The numbers are right here in black and white. I wouldn't have believed them either, until I saw the study. Here's another weird thing about the study's numbers. The initial proposed fee for Skydive Arizona's use of the airport wasn't $6,000 a month. It was $15,000! That would be an astounding $180,000 a year from Skydive Arizona, and other businesses on the airport would have to kick in another $68,000 above their current rates. I guess even McFellin realized that was a little too bold. Supposing the fees didn't instantly drive every business away, there is still the fact that hiding $70,000 is a lot easier than hiding a quarter of a million dollars. Imagine how much "gas" the city would have to buy to hide that much money! Why, it would take at least three fictional airport managers to conceal it all!
It's enough to make one cry. First, the City Council spent money for a totally bogus airport study, which delivered exactly what the City Manager asked for and offered no alternate proposals. (If you look at the entire study, the first 18 pages are large print, double spaced explanations of how the airport needs to bring in several hundred thousand dollars a year for imaginary expenses. The final half is copies of a lot of Federal Aviation Administration documents on airport management and fees, added to bulk up the study and give it an official look. I wonder how much the City paid for that!) Then, they bought the story that the airport is running at a loss, apparently because they never even glanced at the budget figures or checked to see if they were remotely realistic. Finally, they voted to do one of two very bad things: either drive a successful business out of town or commit a crime, depending on whether Larry Hill packs up and leaves or pays the fee.
Why the City Council can't see they are being used by an unscrupulous bureaucrat is a mystery. The Airport Study is an insult to the intelligence of anyone who reads it, but apparently McFellin calculated correctly that almost no one would. I urge the press to take that trouble for them, talk to the players involved, and report honestly to the people. By the way, this is the third scheme (that I know of) Mr. McFellin has come up with to try to squeeze money out of Larry Hill. The first two were proven to be illegal and were dropped. It's getting to be an ugly pattern. If he succeeds this time and Larry Hill moves on, the City of Eloy (not to mention all the businesses in Eloy, Arizona City, and Casa Grande patronized by skydivers) will lose - big time.
Bryan Burke, Bellingham, WA
Skydiving Fatalities - Cease not to learn 'til thou cease to live
Excellent article. Like I said before, SDAZ has their act together. I'd be very suprised if the city manager gets away with this 3rd attempt at extortion.
We are all engines of karma
Airgump 1
Enclosed is the mayor's e-mail address. I think a good way of getting the point acrossed to the "powers that be" is to fill the mayor's in-box to capacity with e-mails from people all over the world that make the pilgramage to the "Mecca" of skydiving and include a gentle reminder of how much of our money goes to the local economy.
[email protected]
blue ones,
gump
[email protected]
blue ones,
gump
Spamming the mayor's e-mail sounds counter-productive to me.
Send more letters to the editor:
Send more letters to the editor:
QuoteTo reach any of the Casa Grande Valley Newspaper Inc. publications...
Casa Grande Valley Newspapers Inc.
P.O. Box 15002
Casa Grande, AZ 85230-5002
Phone: 520-836-7461 or 800-821-1746
Fax: 520-836-0343
Email: [email protected]
Please do not e-mail resumes!
Casa Grande Dispatch
Newsroom contact information:
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520-836-7461 or email: [email protected]
Letters to the Editor cannot be submitted via email due to the fact that they must be signed by the writer.
"Buttons aren't toys." - Trillian
Ken
Ken
Maybe a "spend not one red cent in town" campaign at the Christmas boogie is in order.
squirrel 0
QuoteQuoteHow will they move the tunnel?
Quote
The tunnel? who cares about the tunnel, how will they move the Bent Prop?
Photograph it extensively, inside and out. Take it apart, label each part on the back as to where it goes, load 'em up, transport to new location, reassemble as it was.
That is, if it can't be jacked up in one piece on a flat-bed or house transport vehicle...
Call in the "Mega Movers"....oh, and I have 5 acres to put it on...
________________________________
Where is Darwin when you need him?
QuoteMaybe a "spend not one red cent in town" campaign at the Christmas boogie is in order.
This is actually one of the better Ideas I have heard. Leave the Eloy local businesses without the customers the center brings in. Heck, put an ad in the paper explaining how it's unfortunate they had to bear the brunt of it, but that they should be prepared for life without Skydive Arizona, which will happen unless they contact their city council and mayor's office.
Folks, like it or not, governments are in the business of making money. Like any government or other person lookign for money, they look to the deepest pockets around. Enter Larry Hill.
The beneficial thing is that Larry Hill is in the position to be able to fight it. If he loses this battle, he moves and has the resources to be able to win the war. He'll do fine probably anywhere he goes, and Eloy will suffer the consequences. Well, Eloy elected the City Council "As ye have sown, so also shall ye reap."
My wife is hotter than your wife.
jakee 1,254
Hmm, it would be great to see a rebuttle of that by the city council.
As it stands though, Brians letter is pretty damning!
As it stands though, Brians letter is pretty damning!
Do you want to have an ideagasm?
Ashtanga 0
Is it Al Grammado doing this? Isn't he the Mayor of Eloy or something of that nature?
QuoteMaybe a "spend not one red cent in town" campaign at the Christmas boogie is in order.
Great idea, but how far are skydivers willing to drive to stay in a hotel that won't support the city of Eloy? Or how far are they willing to drive for their beer, so as to not support the liquor store?
I wonder where the suppliers are located that provide the liquor or food for the Bent Prop?
May your trails be crooked, winding, lonesome, dangerous, leading to the most amazing view. May your mountains rise into and above the clouds. - Edward Abbey
Quoteon two previous occasions the consulting firm and the city manager gave false information to the council about projects related to the Eloy Airport. The falsely stated that the FAA would not approve the SkyVenture wind tunnel or allow aircraft to operate on the airport taxiway while the runway improvements were underway.
Don't people go to prison for doing things like that ?
Whether its in Eloy or the other end of the state, I don't really care.
Eloy itself isn't really much of a 'resort' anyway..
I really wouldn't like to see what would happen to it without the money SDA brings in.
But whatever happens, I'll go where I have to, to spend my money.. it doesn't bother me.
I'll give you a hand to dismantle the tunnel too.
Who is the number one business for the record by the way ? (if SDA is the second).
-- Hope you don't die. --
I'm fucking winning
sundevil777 93
QuoteMaybe a "spend not one red cent in town" campaign at the Christmas boogie is in order.
How about giving several copies of an informational flyer on the subject to every jumper, then ask them to give a copy to every merchant they encounter.
Instead of punishing the innocent business owners, with them not even knowing why they have less activity, they will be motivated to apply pressure from all directions on the corrupt politicians.
I wonder what local newspapers done with this story? Even though it is not as juicy as a scandal in the big city, I would think a Phoenix of Tucson paper would love to sink their teeth into such an obvious case of wrongdoing.
People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am
PhreeZone 15
Have the jumpers put reciepts fro mall the local businesses in a jar. Take the jar to the next meeting and dump them out showing just how much money is going to be lost from just one event.
Yesterday is history
And tomorrow is a mystery
Parachutemanuals.com
And tomorrow is a mystery
Parachutemanuals.com
sundevil777 93
That's a good one, again without punishing the local businesses.
However the politicians may not care/already know, but the local businesses may be unaware of what is brewing for their future.
However the politicians may not care/already know, but the local businesses may be unaware of what is brewing for their future.
People are sick and tired of being told that ordinary and decent people are fed up in this country with being sick and tired. I’m certainly not, and I’m sick and tired of being told that I am
This is a pure power politics play by the city manager. SDAZ has their act together.
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