Dear Editor:
As a former Chairman of the Yorkton Airport Authority I feel it necessary to correct you on some of your comments made in your editorial "Chamber offers study City should have done".
Before I proceed with comments on the above subject matter, let me first state that I wrote and sent you a letter several months back in which I tried to bring a small amount of light to the somewhat confusing stories that were floated around on how the Y.A.A. handled the Kambusters Car Club and the renewal of its (Car Club) use of the airport runway for racing. I am forced to believe that you deemed that as an unimportant issue as it never made the paper.
In any case I find your editorial as mentioned above, a little lacking in actual facts when it comes to what the previous members of the Y.A.A. Board members did or did not do.
Let me categorically state, the Y.A.A. studied many, many airports and their operations. The Board had in fact looked at all four airports mentioned as well and North Battleford, Swift Current, Prince Albert, Dauphin, Fort McMurray just to name a few. I personally looked very closely at the Lloydminster airport in later 2012, early 2013 as they were advertising to hire an Airport Superintendent/Manager. The hiring of an onsite Airport Manager was an item the Y.A.A. Board considered absolutely critical in order for the Yorkton Airport to move forward.
The current Y.A.A. (City Council) could very easily proceed with an increase of the fuel tax, which in my opinion would just be an increase in taxes to the current airport fixed operators as they are probably the biggest users of fuel sold at the airport. There would be a small increase from the fuel sold to aircraft transitioning through the Yorkton airport.
The Landing fees, Terminal Fees, Enplaning and deplaning fees are all very, very difficult to track and collect especially if there is not a (as the Chamber put it) CEO hired to look after the recording and collection of the fees.
In closing, the Y.A.A. Board members at the time had made numerous requests to City Administration and Council to include in their Budget deliberations the hiring of an onsite Airport Manager (CEO) for the Yorkton Regional Airport. As mentioned above, all members of the Y.A.A. Board were of the belief that the hiring of a paid onsite Manager was an integral and major step in order to move forward with the airport.
Sincerely
Keith D. Vaughan
