By Katie Northcott, News Director
At the Tullahoma Board of Mayor and Aldermen (BOMA) meeting on Monday, Feb. 23, Alderman Kurt Glick asked then-City Administrator Jason Quick to give a report about the Tullahoma Regional Airport.
Quick resigned just three days later. Find reporting on Quick’s resignation here.
The item initially appeared on the agenda as “an information item from Alderman Glick and City Administrator Jason Quick to share information obtained regarding FAA Federal Funding Requirements.” Glick made a motion to add a report about the airport to the item at the beginning of the meeting.
Alderman Matthew Bird objected to this addition, saying that members of the Tullahoma Airport Authority (TAA) might have elected to come to the meeting if they had known the report would be given. Glick’s motion passed 4-2 (Bird and Mayor Lynn Sebourn opposed).
Glick began the report on the airport by sharing advice obtained from Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) attorney David Hernandez regarding payment for a fuel spill cleanup that occurred in October. Find reporting on the BOMA’s decision on how to pay for the cleanup here.
The BOMA had previously been unsure whether the airport could directly pay for the spill cleanup due to FAA restrictions on how airports may spend money. Glick said that in Hernandez’s opinion, the fuel spill cleanup may fall under airport-related items that Tullahoma Regional Airport can pay for.
This may mean that the City of Tullahoma could loan the cleanup money to the airport with the expectation that the airport would eventually pay back the city’s loan. The main problem with that plan is that the airport is currently not profitable.
City Attorney Brittany Hoskins advised the BOMA to explore retaining an FAA attorney to look at an itemized breakdown of the cleanup bill. She warned that the FAA could assess fines against the airport if it was found spending funds improperly.
After the FAA discussion, Quick moved into his report. He addressed a citizen comment made at a previous BOMA meeting. Quick was absent from the meeting where the comment was made.
At the Feb. 9 meeting of the BOMA, Tullahoma resident Mat Bennett said Quick had rejected the TAA’s recommendation for an Airport Manager.
“Since [TAA approved the recommendation] one singular person, the city manager Jason Quick, has decided that he is going to reject our recommendation and possibly install his own pick instead,” Bennett said in his comment. “Our group understands aviation and the running of an airport, and for some of us, their livelihood depends on it. I hope [the BOMA] will trust our recommendation.”
Find more reporting on Bennett’s comment and Quick’s statement to Peterson Media Group here.
Quick started to address Bennett’s reference to a lawsuit connected to his time as principal of Tullahoma High School. Sebourn interrupted Quick, saying the lawsuit issue was unrelated to airport business.
Find reporting on the lawsuit here.
Quick skipped his comments about the lawsuit and began to state his reasons why he would not support the TAA’s recommended Airport Manager hire. He said he had technically not rejected the TAA’s recommendation as he had not received a written recommendation from the TAA. He had merely told the TAA Chairman that he would reject the recommendation when it came to him.
Quick said after becoming aware of who the TAA intended to recommend, he had become concerned about the TAA’s hiring process and launched his own investigation into their hiring procedure by calling three of the other Airport Manager candidates. During this investigation, Quick found that the TAA failed to follow the city’s hiring policy.
Sebourn again interrupted Quick’s report to establish that according to its contract to the city, the TAA was not bound by the city’s hiring processes. Sebourn’s comments resulted in a discussion involving some aldermen, Quick, Hoskins, and City Attorney Stephen Worsham.
Hoskins ultimately advised that the BOMA avoid discussing the TAA’s potential airport recommendation as the recommendation had not officially been made and further discussion could give the TAA grounds to pursue a lawsuit against the BOMA. Hoskins said once the recommendation was made by the TAA and approved or rejected by the City Administrator, it would come before the BOMA for a vote. She said that would be the appropriate time to discuss potential candidates.
A couple other airport related items appeared on the agenda. First, a motion to take measures to expand the pool of eligible TAA members failed with a 3-3 vote (Sebourn, Bird, and Alderman Sernobia McGee in favor). Second, Broc Compton was appointed to the Airport Authority with a 6-0-0-1 vote (Alderman Busch Thoma absent).
