The Peachtree

City Airport Authority is offering to pay the city $16,972 to cover its

share of the shortfall in hotel-motel tax revenues for the recently concluded

fiscal year.

At its meeting

Wednesday night, the authority unanimously approved an agreement to transfer

the funds to the city. The agreement, which has not yet been considered

this year.

"This

will just go ahead and turn it over to the city," said airport authority

chairwoman Cathy Nelmes.

The authority

uses its portion of the hotel-motel tax for its capital improvement program.

In February,

the authority began putting money aside on a monthly basis just in case

the annual hotel-motel tax collections were short from the city's original

projections.

The authority

set aside a total of $28,000 by the end of the fiscal year, but the city

calculated its share of the shortfall was under $17,000.

Of the remaining

$11,028, the authority also voted to set aside $5,000 for a marketing

plan to help promote Falcon Field. The authority is working on developing

the plan to attract airport-related businesses to Falcon Field.

In other business,

the authority heard a request to reduce its airport access fee for businesses

located off airport property. Currently, the authority charges businesses

20 cents per square foot of its combined hangar and apron space for aircraft

storage.

Office space,

taxi ways and taxi lanes are not included in calculating the square footage

for the fee.

Mike Rossetti

of Jet Limo, which is adjacent to Falcon Field, argued that the fee is

too high, considering that his business would pay more in airport access

fees than he would in property taxes.

Rossetti said

the airport could lower the fee to a nominal level to attract more airport-related

businesses. He also argued that the off-airport access fee benefits the

businesses which are located on airport grounds.

"It's

not a level playing field," Rossetti said.

Nelmes disagreed

that the current fee is too high, but she said the authority could consider

deferring a portion of the fees over the business's first year to help

it get off the ground successfully.

Rossetti said

he would have to calculate whether such a plan would help his situation.

The fee structure

was changed two years ago from one that relied on the airport being paid

3 percent of the net income taken in by the business. But that was shelved

after the authority heard complaints that it required the businesses to

share their financial data with the airport.

The current

system is much easier to administrate, Nelmes added, but she also offered.

The Federal Aviation Administration requires the airport to charge some

type of off-airport access fee, she added.

The authority

is expected to discuss the matter in depth at its next meeting. Nelmes

said she was willing to study what other airports are charging for such

fees, but most airports which do so aren't similar to Falcon Field, she

said.

The authority

also discussed how it wants to proceed in seeking bids to have roof and

wall leaks at the terminal building repaired. Airport manager Jim Savage

said he called several companies to inspect the problems and propose solutions

that would be implemented by a separate contractor.

But Nelmes

said she wanted to make sure that the authority had a guarantee the repairs

would work, and using separate companies could cause a problem with that

since one could blame the other if the leaks still exist after the work

is complete.

The company

that would inspect the building would also be in charge of preparing the

request for proposals and overseeing the work of the second contractor

to make sure the recommended repairs are made, Savage said.

Nelmes inquired

whether the inspecting contractor would have a performance bond to guarantee

the work.

Savage said

he would get more information on the matter for the authority's next meeting.

The authority

also approved a $4,700 bid to repaint a portion of the building that houses

Peachtree Flight School and Enterprise car rental. The project includes

repainting the exterior of the building's office area after blasting away

old paint and priming those areas, Savage said.

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