Did Sutter County miss out on $15 million of free airport dollars?
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Grand jury found Sutter County missed $15 million in potential FAA airport funding.
- Grant eligibility hindered by noncompliant airport tenants like a shelter, gun range.
- Officials dispute funding estimates, cite limited airport size and project scope.
Sutter County’s latest grand jury found that over the past 10 years officials have missed out on $15 million in federal funding for the county’s small regional airport that could have gone toward maintenance and improvement projects.
In a report filed this summer, jurors wrote that the Sutter County Airport “has been underutilized and underdeveloped for more than 10 years while the County ignores significant federal funding opportunities to grow the Airport at no cost to local taxpayers.”
County officials have not yet filed a formal response to the grand jury’s findings, but in interviews with The Bee, they acknowledged the grant-funding issue while disagreeing with the $15 million amount in question.
Still, the broader point stands: The county is hamstrung when it comes to applying for federal airport grants.
The airport received five federal grants from 2004 through 2012, according to the grand jury, but the county’s last bid for federal funding in 2016 was unsuccessful.
That’s all to say, restoring the pipeline from the Federal Aviation Administration to the Sutter County Airport is complicated.
“It’s not as simple as just saying, ‘Oh, we’ll resolve this and get it done,’” said Steve Smith, county administrator.
The airport belongs to the county but is run by Sutter Buttes Regional Aviation Association, a nonprofit of volunteers — many of whom are pilots — who are optimistic the airport will receive grant funding again.
“We need to get back on track,” said Joe Borzelleri, the group’s founder and president. “The years are passing us by and we’re missing out.”
The matter comes down to maintaining grant requirements, which for the Sutter County Airport is slowed down by two unusual hiccups: an animal shelter and shooting range.
How it works
The airport is eligible for $150,000 annually in entitlement dollars, which the FAA earmarks for airports each year. To get the money, airports have to apply. They also have to comply with a series of requirements, which is where the problem lies.
If unused, the entitlement dollars roll over, maxing out at $600,000 available to a given airport. Airports may also apply for separate discretionary grants from the FAA. Those are competitive and require the applicant to pay for a 10% stake of the project it pitches.
The jurors reasoned that leveraging the $150,000 entitlement to seek additional discretionary grants could net $1.5 million in funding from the FAA each year.
Were that to happen each of the past 10 years, that’s $15 million the county could have received.
But county officials disagree with that finding.
“It’s my opinion that that’s not accurate,” said Neal Hay, Sutter County development services director.
Discretionary grants are competitive and more difficult to win for a smaller airport like Sutter County’s, he said. Also, he added, the last time the county assessed capital improvements for the airport they were estimated at about $2 million.
“The county would never have a reason to seek $15 million for improvements,” he said, “so that was a very inflated number.”
What’s the problem?
The airport is small even by regional airport standards.
The airfield and runway are tightly packed into the narrow property that’s sandwiched between the Feather River and a business district on Garden Highway in Yuba City. It has one airstrip — just over 3,000 feet long — and is used for relatively small aircraft, like crop dusters and biplanes.
“It’s too little to do much and it’s not enough room to grow,” said Sutter County Supervisor Mike Ziegenmeyer. “That’s what I personally believe.”
The Yuba County Airport across the Feather River has a longer airstrip and can accommodate some larger planes, such as small jets, that Sutter County’s airport cannot.
But over the years other facilities have found a home on airport grounds. The animal shelter shared by Sutter County, Yuba City and Live Oak is based on airport property, as is a shooting range used by Twin Cities Gun Club.
There are also two baseball fields and a small school, AeroSTEM Academy Charter School.
FAA grants require that facilities on airport grounds meet certain criteria, which county officials have interpreted to mean that the animal shelter and shooting range are out of compliance, disqualifying the county from securing airport grants.
“They could have demanded all that money back and we could be writing a million dollar check back to the FAA and folks would be upset we had done that,” Smith said.
To annex those properties, Hay said, requires a lengthy and potentially costly process.
“At this point the county’s reviewing the grand jury’s report and considering next steps because there are certainly consequences to the community and users who are using the facilities on the airport,” Hay said.
Finding a solution
The Sutter Buttes Regional Aviation Association, a mostly volunteer group including pilots who use the airport, has run its operations since 2014, and recently reached a second 10-year deal with the county.
For the county, outsourcing the airport maintenance and operations is more affordable than paying county employees to perform that work. For the pilots, lower overhead keeps hangar rentals and other costs down.
Airport operations are mostly self-sufficient through revenue brought in by the airport, but any FAA grants it receives must pass through the county.
The last major project at the airport, more than 10 years ago, involved installing new lighting systems, such as runway lights, and cost about $700,000, Borzelleri said.
The asphalt taxiways and ramp are due for a new seal, he added, and the runway needs cracks sealed. Those are more medium-size projects eligible for the annual entitlement dollars.
About five to seven years from now, the airport may require a new asphalt overlay of the runway, which Borzelleri said would be unaffordable for the nonprofit without outside funds.
“The million-dollar — the multimillion-dollar — projects, we can’t handle that without the grant money,” he said.
Borzerelli said that his nonprofit, the county and FAA need to work out a solution. The county’s FAA district office in San Francisco has seen turnover throughout the years, making communication more difficult, he added.
“All three of us need to get together,” Borzerelli said. “There is a solution for that, we just need to work it out.”
