At its October 21 meeting, District Council gave staff the green light to proceed with public consultation on a draft business case study for the Muskoka Airport and transitioning its management to a Municipal Services Corporation (MSC).
“The Municipal Act allows municipalities to create a Municipal Services Corporation basically to provide any program or service that [a]municipality can provide,” Michael Murray of Murray Advisory Services, the consultant hired by the District to help the airport transition, told council.
It is anticipated that moving to an MSC model can help streamline decision-making and enable the corporation to carry out a variety of other revenue-generating activities, including increasing its debt financing capacity while containing the risk to the municipality related to the corporation’s activities and focusing on creating revenue.
“Right now, there’s sort of a two-step approval process. The airport board considers matters, and they come to District Council or committee and then council, so the process can be a little bit cumbersome, a little bit confusing for some of your stakeholders or businesses you’re trying to do business with,” Murray told councillors.
He noted that prior to adopting an MSC, the municipality must develop and adopt a business case study, consult with the public, and adopt and maintain policies related to the transfer of any assets to the MSC.
The draft business case study suggests creating a for-profit MSC with the District as the sole shareholder, who would appoint the board of directors. It is also recommended that the District retain ownership of the airport lands and lease them to the corporation. District staff would still provide administrative services, and the District would still be responsible for annual budget approvals, recognizing that the airport is a community asset and needs to remain in public ownership.
Councillor Heidi Lorenz cut to the chase and asked whether the creation of an MSC would be a step in the direction of keeping politics out of the airport. She said she sees the approach as a positive step, especially if it makes things more nimble, but she also wanted to know whether there is a caveat where the District can interfere if it does not like the direction in which the corporation is headed. Murray deferred the question about politics but said the District will continue to have oversight mechanisms in place like approving the airport’s budget and replacing the board. Murray said limitations on what the board can do is also spelled out in the Shareholder’s Declaration.
In response to the question about keeping politics out of the airport, District Chair Jeff Lehman said it’s not necessarily directly about the politics but the process. “I think it’s to take the council process and how lengthy that process is, out of the airport. By virtue of having a small board, a skills-based board that can meet as needed and has a much more nimble approval process than we do here going up through committee or through District Council. I think the thought is the Municipal Services Corporation Board will be able to act much faster and, I suppose, less politically in the sense that the members elected are there based on their skill sets around airports, and they’re very focused on the airport strategic plan as their overall goal rather than the broader considerations that we bring into our discussions here of course.”
Discussions ensued about how to consult with the public, the possible elimination of the airport subsidy, and questions about how the relationship between the airport MSC and the council would work. District staff are expected to announce public consultations in the future.
You can find the staff’s report HERE and Murray’s presentation HERE.
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The Real Person!
The Real Person!
why start now they have made a total mess of this facility from day one get a professional company and let the manage it
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
If the airport is not making money, then why do we own it? If tax dollars are being spent to subsidize it then it should be sold or repurposed. Tax dollars are meant to pay for infrastructure that serves everyone, not just a few. I want my tax dollars to go to hospitals and roads, not an airport that I have never used and probably never will.
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
Why bother?
“Consultation” at the District means ignoring many qualified and competent people who took the time and made the effort to educate councillors with delegations, emails, powerpoints and even in-flight videos.
For years.
Ignoring the competent in favour of the unskilled, unqualified and dangerously incompetent.
These councillors are very poor students.
The first part of a solution is recognizing there is a problem.
With “gross mismanagement” at the airport.
No one expects councillors to have aviation competence but, I believe, the general public expects them to listen to those that do.
Unlike an earlier enlightened council who paid attention, this council also ignored the latest and earlier consultant’s recommendations.
Instead they blindly approved the unqualified and documented, dangerously incompetent airport mismanagement plans to trash the safety and usability of our airport.
There have already been accidents.
It is documented that Transport Canada, the Transportation Safety Board, Environment Canada, Cessna (aircraft manufacturer), airline and local pilots have all thoroughly debunked the misinformation presented to council by the airport CEO and chair.
I know of two very experienced and competent pilots who applied to be on the board and were rejected.
Why doesn’t the board consist of mostly pilots?
The chair even admits he has no aviation competence. The CEO won’t admit it.
Closing a runway most often into the wind obviously means traffic goes down and reduces safety.
As councillors were told in a 2020 delegation: https://vimeo.com/711730946/ddea1bdc08
While nearby airports are thriving with activity.
Muskoka is not usable a lot of the time by many aircraft anymore.
Drastically cutting the services and infrastructure our residents and communities need— now and in the future.
Are they going to close a lane of a road because someone wants to build on top of it instead of beside it like everyone else?
Then wonder why few people use the road anymore?
$25!!! suggested fee to use the fridge at the airport for 12 hours.
I’m sure that will turn the massive losses around…
I think that new fee was a joke to see if councillors were paying attention.
What’s next? $25 to use the washroom?
The Real Person!
The Real Person!
A community airport is not just an asset to the immediate people flying in and out of it, be they on a scheduled service or a private flight.
A good airport “serves” all the community with more rapid access to the rest of the world.
It is an irreplaceable base for aerial services such as search and rescue, fire fighting, and new pilot training.
The benefits of these type of operations are not able to be directly quantified in a District dollars and cents ledger but accrue in multiple ways, some not immediately visible, to the community as a whole.
Not only this but as our community grows, and we cannot stop this from happening, there will be an ever growing demand for services only an airport can provide, such that one day Muskoka may have scheduled commercial service that actually make money for the provider and benefits our area. The recent Porter experiment was just that, an experiment and it turns out Muskoka was not quite a ready and profitable location at this time but that will change in the future.
Remember to keep the airport options open, and one of these options is a good more or less East – West runway, similar to the current North – South one. It need only be a short grass one today, but someday it will be needed and the option to improve it should be kept as a high priority. ( As in don’t build on the necessary land ).
Personally I thought most of these small community airports were best left in the Federal jurisdiction, rather than dumping them into the inexperienced hands of local councils as they serve a greater function than a local council’s bottom line and all need to be consistent in operation. This is just my thought.