Vermont Legislature SmartTranscripts:

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And good afternoon. We're back in house transportation on Tuesday, February 10. And we've got an exciting topic this afternoon here at 03:00. Two years ago?

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: Two years ago? I think

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: it was, maybe a little bit before that. Two years ago on the T Bill, there was language authorizing the secretary to potentially sell the Caledonia State Airport. And now the agency is back for a request to some of that language. That's as much as I'm going to get into it. The rest I'm going to ask you, Trini, to give the committee. To be fair, we've got at least five new members that weren't here when we passed the language. So for the five of them, they didn't go through the piece and whatnot. So a little bit of background, a few minutes. We've got plenty of time, but some background on how we got to where we are today and then what we need. I know you're coming to ask for a petition will change to the T bill or an amendment to the T bill right now. But five of the members don't have any background on why we're here today. So if you could start with that and then take the rest of your presentation there, I would appreciate it. So Thank

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: you. So for the record, I'm Treaty Bursard, and I'm the Director of Intermodal Development for the Agency of Transportation. Worked with Peaceful of Youth over the years back in my public transit days. So a few years ago, we went through a plan, an aviation plan, where we look at all our airports, what they do, where they are, and realized we had some duplication in the Northeast Kingdom area. But we kept it. We left it in the plan thinking there's value to it. It's bringing stuff. We were approached by beta on the pieces of what they could do at an airport like that and the development they could bring. And we talked about some of our limitations and how quickly we could fund funding for runway repaving and whatnot and what the FAA looks at for it. It was very clear that we were years off from any of the improvements needed at the airport when we look at our priority model and we look at funding limitations in the region. So they came to us and said, would the state consider selling it? Kind of a novel idea. Let's explore that. And so we went through the process. We did some work on our own. Then we came to the legislature and had the conversations. And the decision was made to go for language, which allowed us to either go into a long term lease or to sell the airport and put it out. So we did that in August '3. We issued the RFP and they came back in. It took almost a year to work with the FAA on the evaluation that we had one response that was from CRAFT, which is made up of some of the members of data. And we looked at all the things that they wanted to do up there, how quick they could do it and what it would mean to the Northeast Kingdom. And it was an easy decision to come to. And the agency entered into a purchase and sales agreement with Craft in September '4. We thought the process from there would be rather quickly to get through the FAA as we looked at their rules. But little did we know we were going to have an administration change or reauthorization of the federal aviation bills. And what did they change? They changed the language on releasing an airport. And we're like And we're still sitting here today, and they keep saying, well, the language doesn't apply, but our guidance on how to implement it hasn't come out. So we are meeting with them again to try to find the path forward to allow this to transfer. In the meantime, there has been some property applauding the airport that is sold to the group that owns Craft. There is a house being constructed right now by this group on land abutting the airport that has a hangar underneath it. So the grand list in Lyndonville is growing, which was one of the things we anticipated would happen. They're in most of the schools up there, providing some STEM classes and interaction with after school programming. They're working with the college up there right now on teaching some classes and bringing in some of the skills that they need and actually driving a lot of interest in aviation and that whole field from the mechanic side to the pilot side to research and development. And so what we were kind of engaged in conversation when we came for the original language, we're seeing happen, even though we haven't quite got over the hurdle of getting the FAA to release the airport yet. So that's kind of the summary. We could go into more detail of some of those pieces if anybody wanted it. There's always questions. Know.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It's Representative Pouech has one already.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: You were saying some years back, the ZTrans was already looking at this import and questioning whether we continue to support it or how would we, or is it necessary or duplication?

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So when we do a system plan for the airports, we look at where they're all located and the distance between the airport and Coventry. The one here in Berlin and the Island Bond Airport made Coventry kind of a duplicative airport. It served a lot of the same people.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Would you say that's why Beta approached for that particular airport?

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I don't think so. When you go to release an airport from the FAA, there's the infamous buyback, right? The feds want the money they put into it back. And we were on the verge of looking at kind of moving the project along to do a runway reconstruction to do some apron work. So we hadn't invested millions of dollars in that airport yet like we had the others. And I think that's some of the attraction.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So the VNS buyback.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: VNS buyback. And they could do that work themselves at a quicker pace than we could.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Represent a case. What's so what? Craft has something to do with with what? Beta Technologies or something? Or Yeah. And then craft's owned by somebody else. It's owned by, like, Patricia McCoy and some other company that owns it. So we're not are we is there any international interest in this? Like, is it is there overseas?

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: No. You could

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: you'd have

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: to look up who the actual owners of Craft are, but I don't think it's other companies.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: All right.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: There you go.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Some of the parties that are involved in beta.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: All right. Okay.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yep. No, there's no international Not yet. They might go to Canada once in a while, but out of international, I mean.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative Wells?

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: What was that original purchase and sales agreement price a couple years ago?

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: About 500,000.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: If you can't buy, you're more than willing to lease, or you have a preference to buy or to sell it?

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Yeah, I don't want to buy

[Senator Brian Collamore]: it. Just

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: to be clear. Preference is for them to own it. For obvious reasons, if you're gonna invest millions of dollars into a facility, you kinda like to own it not have a lease that can end at some point and you're negotiating with a different party. I think that's the main one. But I think think there's some advantages to them owning it too when they look at their business structure and what they've got going on. If we own it and lease it, we're still tied into a lot of the federal regulations. So non aviation stuff, they kind of don't are very limited what we can do. If they own it, they can do some of that. Some of the work they're doing is with Kingdom Trails and looking at, could they do some hangars with some living space in them where people could come in and then go use the trails and do that kind of stuff. We would be limited on we're non residential as a public entity. We've got some of those limitations that don't meet their business plan.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Thanks. Are you gonna get into the language here? I mean, I kind of went ahead and I see we're extending how long, so we had a couple of years to sell it. Now we're asking for more, but there is one piece taken out that it won't continue to get as public. So you'll talk about that.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Once we have access to put it up there. We'll definitely, you're good. But we're looking at background questions still at this point.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: So Mr. Chair, what I would say is given the number of folks at the table who have not been exposed to this language before, when we do get to the language, I'll have trainees start

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: at the top and walk through it.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Because maybe they'll be the entire piece there.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: Represent what? Yeah, just curious. Okay, so there's a purchase and sale agreement for $500,000 in place. And how many acres is the brickwork? We

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: guessed in the 50 to 60 because I don't have any other documents with me to look at it. If the sale, assuming the sale goes through, does that half $1,000,000

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: go to the federal government or

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: does that come back into the agency? It has to be invested in the aviation program. It'll be invested in the Okay, other thanks. Thank you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Any more background that you want, please? Sorry. McCoy, you're good.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Sorry to miss that. This $500,000 is pretty cheap.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: We actually had it appraised. Oh, you did? And the appraisal came in a little bit higher, but not much. It came in at 6 something. $6.20, rings a bell in that range. And then it was The condition of the airport is what dragged it down some. And then the fact that they got to stay open to the public. That was a requirement. And we'll get into the language change. But they're in the purchase and sales agreement in the language, they have to stay open to the public. And so there's a certain standard of care that has to take place and there's certain things that they have to do still. Okay, so it's with the it. Okay.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Representative Burke?

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: So you followed all the procedures and then where this was completely finalized, all changed now? I mean, what's the

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Some of it has on us. In reauthorization, there was some language change around releasing an airport at the federal level. And they have a guide coming out, and it's been over a year and we haven't seen it yet. So we're trying to get it through on the old language still. And we're hoping that we can get the right audience that will realize this. It's certainly great. And they added for you and for the curfew. Yes. Yes. We thought it was gonna be an easy one. Yeah. Wrong answer.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: So you can through the investigation working on this too.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: We've we've been down a lot of roads trying to get this up. We're still working it. We're hopeful.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: All set. Representative Keyser, you're up.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: So Beta is a relatively new company to us. And you've reviewed their, or the agency has reviewed their income statement, their balance sheet, and their debt structure?

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So we're not selling it to Beta. We're selling it to Kraft, which is a sub Some of the same investors in Beta own Kraft, and we go through all their financials and looked at it. And we also looked at whether they had staff with the skills to operate the airport to meet those needs, and we're comfortable with they do.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: Have they operated an airport before?

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Some of their staff has. Some of the folks that will So be on their staff

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: they've hired people to run

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: it that have run an airport before? They've identified people they will hire to run it. Yes.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: So they haven't

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: hired it. No, that's fine. No, I get it. Do we know the business relationship between Kraft and Beta? In other words, what I'm concerned about is the cross I'm going to lose this phrase, but is there the cross indemnification between their debt? Indemnification.

[Senator Brian Collamore]: Thank you.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: They're two separate entities, but I don't know if there's cross indemnified.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: But if you do such a thing and one fails, then the other one has the obligation, and if it doesn't have the substance to do it, then the deal is done.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So if something happens to craft, the airport reverts to the state.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: It does.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: That's part of the deal. And if they decide just to sell it and they're not going under, we have the right of first refusal. Okay. Now,

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: anyway, you ought to put something in about we buy it back for what we sold it for.

[Mollie S. Burke (Member)]: I don't care.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Except they're going to invest millions of dollars in it. That's little hard to If

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: they fail, it's a suck investment. I have real issues with a nascent investment group, with a nascent company that has been involved in the Epstein files that want to I would prefer a lease, frankly, but I defer to the experts, but that's my insurance.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Representative? I

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Being a lot of public, I don't remember when, what years are they are publicly traded. Now do anybody remember? It's just

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: But it's not beta that's gonna hold it. Right? It's this other Correct. One of the individuals that's craft is the one building. So

[Unidentified Committee Member]: the individuals from Pratt, what's the connection to Beta?

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: They're both part of the ownership of data. They don't sound like they're probably right. But they are. Yeah. Okay.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So there is the connection. Yeah. Okay.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: Represent Casey. Who is Craft? What what is it? What what are they what's their claim to fame? What's their are they just a holding company? They're Holding company. And they're from where? All over the place? Or they

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: No. It's it's two members of Beta.

[James "Jim" Casey (Member)]: That's all it is, it's two members of Kraft.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Debating with everyone. We authorized the agency to go ahead and explore the sale. I guess we would as a committee, will continue to ask tons of questions and that's great, but we did expect that they would do their due diligence and have a level of legal representation for the background piece and whatnot, which we're not necessarily qualified to do or not. But it is a unique situation in that the expiration date is coming up and it has to come back through the committee. So if there's more background questions either now or as we go forward, please feel free to continue to ask them. I guess now we're kind of moving on to, but we will see what exactly was the original language and then we'll see what the changes are and then we'll ask at one point what members of the committee want, what more they want to hear. So, Pouech, I'll jump

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Maybe I'm wrong, you said we authorize them to explore, I mean we authorize them to sell. Or

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: venture long term lease.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay, that could be.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Within a limited timeframe. Yes, within a limited timeframe, and we're coming up to that, correct? Yes. Okay. So

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: I take it there was only one person to come forward with an offer, who was running For down the golf

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: some reason nobody wants to own an airport. That's why the state does I guess.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: It was golf course, it would be something different.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I'm gonna walk you through the language?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: That would be great. That's what's next, I think. But we'll take questions still as we go.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So the language that we received back in 'twenty three authorized us to issue an RFP for the lease or purchase of the airport. That's what we did. We issued that in on August 2. The next paragraph talked about what would be included, which was the business plan. Their plans for investment in not only the airport, but the surrounding community, which is some of what I touched on and reaching out to the institutions and whatnot. They've done an exceptional job of that, even though they haven't purchased it yet.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: So just a procedural question. How was this marketed? Was a real estate firm obtained to market this? Or was this just AOT calling up one particular interested buyer. Then I'm just wondering if was this put out there? Are we going to get pushback from the Fed saying, hey, you didn't even put this out to market. This was like an arm's length transaction on us.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: We put it out the way we do. We do all our other bids. It was out on the state's bidding It was on B TRAN's site.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: So I was just curious about that.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: The feds have approved everything we've done to date. We just can't get over this one hurdle of what it takes to release it. And so actually, was with the lawyers just before I came here on it. And I think we might have found a loophole in the federal statute, which we're going to push it. We're going see if we can exploit that to get it done. Yeah, it's been challenging.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Before you do, even if the sail were to go through, doesn't the FAA have some or does have no interaction with a privately owned airport? It must have some level of interaction and control over an airport that flying planes in and out of the airspace. Have some level of activity involvement that's still there.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Like licensing?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: How does that I mean, I'm not saying that you admit, but I presume they're not the release thing doesn't mean that they're not involved in in an airport operation in some way, I would assume.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So the FAA has regulations that pilots have to follow and that controls a lot of the operate, like how they operate in and out of airports. And they have certain standards that airports have to meet. This one will be, when it's all done, will be privately approved public access. And that gives them a standard they have to meet for that. And in this case, the feds were involved in some of the efforts of it for clearing sight lines and whatnot. And there would be certain pieces that will follow the airport that were there and certain requirements. But all these airports, if they're going to be open for the public, have to go through an annual evaluation to make sure their trees aren't growing up in the way and they can see the runway, different things like that. So there's certain safety standards they have to meet still.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: Franklin Pouech and the names

[Senator Brian Collamore]: of the report

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: said there's like one last hurdle. I'm just wondering, it doesn't have anything to do with naming the report, does it?

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: Oh, gee, Chris. How

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: friendly.

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: So you

[Unidentified Committee Member]: mentioned that it has a yearly inspection. Is the state responsible for that annual inspection? Are they responsible to let the state know or the federal government know that they have passed the inspection? Or if they need to, like if there's tree clearing to be safe, are they letting the FAA do that, or us? The

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: the data from the inspection goes up to the FAA. Okay. And then they come back and tell us, tell the owner. So they can tell us on our airports too, you got these issues, you got a clear Correct. They'll do the same

[Unidentified Committee Member]: thing on the to the private boat. It's a public and it has to be open to the public. The state will not be involved in getting it out of that yearly date for maintenance.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: We won't have to do the maintenance either.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Okay. Well, know we don't anticipate anything, so just be aware that there's maintenance that should be passed on go.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: We don't, and we don't on the other ones. Vermont has other airports that are privately held and open to the public. We do help them sometimes with their inspections to complete them, but

[Unidentified Committee Member]: we don't. We're not responsible for the results of that. So that's been of been more That's been hard for me. Okay. Thank you. Okay.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So the next paragraph talked about us needing the necessary approval of the FAA. See, you hadn't put this in here, we would have sold it by now.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: Need approval anyway.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: Thank you for the schooling. I

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: know. And then the next talks about all of the things that we have to sign up, leases, licenses, different things that are there for power lines, for whatever are there, the lease agreements that folks have that have hangers there now will be turned over and they've agreed to honor those and work with those folks to stay there. They actually have an aggressive plan to increase it. And then item two on that talks about investing in the airport to address deficiencies. This is the runway, the apron changes, those things that they were have agreed to do. And we're gonna ensure that the airport continues to be a public use airport and that the public has access for aviation use. This item four went in, there was a lot of conversation about it being like an insurance for the public access. The NIPS is a national plan. It actually stands for the National Plan for Integrated Airport Systems. And this is basically a database where airports that want to go into it, they meet certain standards for public access in exchange they're eligible for federal funds to do some of their projects. Private owned airports are eligible for their funds. Majority of them don't take them because they get all the strings and all the process that goes with it. And they quickly realize that sometimes they don't offset each other with the investment they get. This is one of the pieces that the FAA is hung up on right now with us. And I will tell you the way that they can get around this is to just go to a nipious unclassified status, which basically says, yeah, we're in there, but we're just not gonna participate. And so they just sit off to the side, which has no benefit to anybody either. But that's the only way they can meet this requirement in the language.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: I guess it's going to be a public air quote. All this stuff remains open to the topic. What would this do that they couldn't do if they weren't in this National Plan of Integrated Airfront System?

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: The only thing that this gains them is access to federal funding to do their projects if they stay in there. But as a private owned airport, it's harder for them to meet the requirements of NIFEAS to even remain eligible. And then they have a lot of all the strings we have to meet with our projects, they would have to meet with theirs.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So without this, then they won't be able to qualify for federal funding. Correct. But the paragraph above says, continue to be a public use act airport. How is that defined? I'm not saying they would, but you know, if they didn't do anything to help the public, you know, does that define they gotta have certain stand is it defined somewhere a public airport,

[Unidentified Committee Member]: you know,

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: has as a minimum these things?

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Doesn't list those like assets. A public use airport means anybody can use it. It's open to the public to use for aviation purposes, which was the intent when we got the paragraph above it. So you could get your pilot's license, not have your hangar at that airport be passing through. It would be a transient and land there and use the facilities. Right. But to allow the public to land there and get gas or beat somebody, they

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: gotta have certain lighting or some radio or, you know, where is it that says, or could I just put in a big long runway and say, it's public, anybody can use it. I mean, are there standards? And does this ensure that they meet those minimum? Because we wanted it to continue to be a

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: public airport. So you can apply to the T board and get what they call a restricted landing area. And you too can have a runway in your backyard. And we don't require anything other than that there's no trees sitting in the way when you take off our land. That's about it. And that can be public.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: So then there's nothing really saying, hey, if it's public, you have to have a restroom. Right. Or somebody to help you move your airplane around or fuel or there's nothing like that. Okay. It doesn't mean they wouldn't do that. Right.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Okay.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Being a member of this national plan of integrated airport systems, would they require what representative Pouech just asked for? Okay.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Would there be any impact to the current tenants if this is not in there? Everything that we committed or have asked to be committed that they would have and do today, they would continue to be able to do even if this airport is not in this system, it doesn't impact the tenants that are currently there?

[Unidentified Committee Member]: There's no impact.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: Representative Wells, is anything else to add? And just a comment, it sounds like this is the only way that California State Airport is gonna get this massive influx of funds to improve their old facility. About the only option isn't it or the quickest option?

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: It's by far the quickest option. Yeah. And there's a lot of development there that the state would never do. I think when you look at the economic benefit to the Northeast Kingdom for this to sell and be allowed to implement the whole business plan, it's massive. Sell it. Brian. Brian.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: Senator, we'd

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: love to hear from you.

[Senator Brian Collamore]: Senator Rutland, that's Extensburg, one of the people that helped put this deal together in the early stages, along with Senator Nick Mazza and the Senate Transportation Committee, in talks with the group that wanted to come here, it wasn't just the airport they were interested in, it was the area, it was the schools that they had, the Kingdom Trails, the Ski Academy, the Academy in itself, St. J. Academy, the London Institute, all the schools around there, the road structure that was coming through there as far as where they were, it was just a good spot for them to be there. If anybody's been to Beta and seen all the young kids going through there with their clipboards and the computers and all of that stuff, It was the workforce that they were looking for as well, and they wanted to get because the institute, the academy, or international schools bringing students in from all over the world, they were really interested in that. So it wasn't the airport, yes, as a bonus to them, because that's the business that they're in, but it was the community that they wanted to be in more than anything, and that's what they wanted to invest in as much as anything when we spoke with them. And I can tell you talk is cheap, but they're already doing it, they're already there, they're already, you know, as a trainee had said, they already had a $4,500,000 investment going up that's raising the grand list of the airport, and so that is the bonus part of this is that we weren't just chosen Cottamero Airport, we were chosen because of the infrastructure of the public that was there, which works good for us, so I just thought it would be important to buy out of that.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: Thank you very much.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: Thought you had a

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: loophole to get around. I didn't explain that. It's the sale itself, not around Bonipheus. Bonipheus, we just would eliminate that requirement. And the challenge of that is there, some of the feedback we got from the FAA was, well, how are you going to meet this in a meaningful way? And we're like, well, the word meaningful isn't in the language. And so we've been playing that whole game and we just feel like if we just remove this from the conversation, we might get further with them. Seems to be kind of their thing they're hanging on to some almost.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: So just by deleting them with the wall, we're not going to add anything else to the language you're in. Okay. And then, because these airports don't have to follow this.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Your airport has certain things they have in it that goes into the database of what these airports are. So if you look nationally, there's about 19,000 airports in the country, and maybe a third of all are amnibious. And so a lot of your private held loans choose not to be because of the flexibility it gives them and what they can do. So

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: the request for this is from the agency to try to help facilitate with the FAA, it's not a request from the buyer.

[Senator Brian Collamore]: Correct.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: At least the origin of it.

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: And this doesn't stop the buyer from doing this in the future.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: They're coming in the Nipius? No. They could still do it if they chose to.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: the rest of the language gave us the option to do a purchase. It had talks about the purchase and sales agreement. It talks about the lease and limiting it so they couldn't just assign the lease to somebody else without any say. It required us to get a fair market value offer and then to work with the town of Linden, which we did on not only did they evaluate the RFP before it went out, they evaluated the purchase and sales agreement once we could get it clear from the lawyers that everybody could talk to it about it. We're asking for an eighteen month extension. Hopefully not because we need it, but we also didn't think we'd be back here three years ago when we

[Unidentified Committee Member]: got the English

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: language. And as we all know, there might be a little volatility at the federal level right now and trying to get some approvals. So we just added a little bit of time on there to make sure we hopefully get it this time.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Is there any public statement, meeting, or letter or piece from the town of Leone that you're aware of that they commented on this agreement or that they're That's right.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: They commented on the original agreement?

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: On the original person's sale agreement, yes. Was there any that you're aware

[Phil Pouech (Ranking Member)]: of? The

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: only comments we keep getting from them is, why isn't it done yet? But we did meet with them twice, and we walked through all the stuff. I would have to look and see if they actually gave us a formal letter or a vote. I don't think they did a vote because it was a legal document that wasn't out for the public. They allowed it to be released to the town manager who met with the board in executive session. But I can go back in the file and see what we got. But we've worked a lot with them.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Or we may reach out to them if they wanted to issue a statement on it or not. They are specifically mentioned. That's their review and comment. So I'm curious if they did maintain official or public review and comment. Representative Thieser?

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: If I could go a little farther, and this may be completely out of Bailiwick, but that's fine. I'd want to get it on the record. If this goes through, the state would receive $500,000 that needs to be dedicated to other airports in the state.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: So any revenues that you generate off a report has to go back into aviation.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Right.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Okay. So

[Chris Keyser (Member)]: is there any thought by the agency about how this was going to be done?

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: We have not gotten to that yet on what it would be used for. We have a long list of capital projects. Yes, you do. So my guess is if you would just go to the next one in line and keep moving on it.

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: Okay. Thank you.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Well, then this relationship with Craft, it was to be then would be managed by the current air aviation director moving forward with the agency. Is that the intention of who would manage this relationship in the future? Or is it just part of the airport interaction and whatnot? In other words?

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: The management would crack

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: Does

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: this fall under Evan Robinson after this deal gets done? Is he still would he be their main

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: Yeah, that's what happened.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I'd love for that to happen. I've actually played a pretty forward role with Beta and a lot of the work they're doing in Vermont at our other airports and projects they're looking at there. But I would imagine between Evan and I, we would both be in touch with them.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: And how'd you pick eighteen months? I'm sorry. Is that enough? Is that too little? I know. How'd you pick eighteen months?

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Well, it takes three months to get into the Federal Register. And then there's the thirty days it has to be out. And then in the comments, they have another three months to do it. So we figured that seven of the months right there, if anybody comments on it. And then we figured the rest of the time was sort of what we needed to work through with the lawyers at the federal level to get this released. And then there's cushion in there. We'll be hopefully meeting, sitting down with the leadership of the FAA in the next few weeks on this topic. Let's see if we can make some forward progress. Their process requires us to go to the regional level and to do a certain amount of steps with them before we take and take it up to somebody in the DC area. We have done the regional piece, and we get back the same answer each time.

[Unidentified Committee Member]: The same answer would be the NIPS thing.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: The same answer comes back to they bring that up. They also bring up the reauthorization, but they're claiming that a section of reauthorization makes it so that you can't release an airport from the federal systems. And we disagree with that. And as a matter of fact, some of what we were looking at today was the language, some of the language, and this is probably getting way into the weeds on it, but the language that they're citing is for surplus property that was transferred from the federal government down to somebody for So we go way back when the state took in a lot of these airports in the late sixties, probably. I think '68 is when we took this one on. Some of these airports were started during the war, and they just signed them over to different municipalities at one of them. NAC was one of those. We don't think Caledonia was. And so what we're doing right now is we're gonna try to hoping that we're right, that it wasn't one. And then that whole section that they keep quoting doesn't apply is what we're gonna try to sell. But we're gonna try to sell it to somebody on the national level. See, that's sort of the summary of it. I could send you a really good reading if you want.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Any other questions or comments

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: to anybody? I guess my only comment is, why do we, should we even have a date in there? Mean, it's under contract. Could we just structure it that you'll play this out and go and play some, given that it's the same contract? I mean, don't know, I'm not a wordsmith, but just getting rid of the time prior to November 2027. Our concern, I think back in the day is, you know, we just sort

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: of wanted to know who

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: it was at the time. We know who the party is. Know, and just structure it that way. But if you do go back to somebody new, then you need our permission again. But as far as this current party, you just get rid of Damien's best hobby. Okay.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: We'll

[Kenneth "Ken" Wells (Member)]: get Damien to just come up with someone who has just curtailed around his current contract.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So we could potentially do that. Are there other questions or concerns, right? Maybe I'll rephrase it, or we can talk about it a little bit in committee discussion after our witness is here or if there's not more questions for the witness. Some of the things I guess I would ask, is there additional testimony that anybody else wants to hear? Is there any other piece that you may wanna piece may wanna bring in and whatnot. I did make a note as an example related to the town and the tenants and then what's the impact of section four if anybody else, we usually ask our alleged counsel these kind of things and then we might ask for testimony from other areas or we might not. And I'm not sure that I want to become an expert on FAA release of airports. Then now there's a question of do we need a date? Are there any other questions that people may or may not want to hear about?

[Senator Brian Collamore]: I just want to add to the chair about the town. Christian Johnson's on the board, chair board, they're very ecstatic and the stakeholders of the airport that are there now using the airport are very ecstatic as well, they want to see improvements and they've been very vocal about that and they feel that this group moving forward has the resources to bring this up to the what they would say state of the art airport. So I would not want to take away from your ability to bring in whoever you'd like to talk with, but just with speaking with the town and some of the meetings that we attended earlier, this can't happen soon enough for them, they're very excited and they're excited to the community as well.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Thank you very much. And that would beg me to question that it's still got until May 1 whether we get the T bill done before then or not, right? Was it May 30 or Whether it gets here or not, that part is still We're not holding it up right now.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: If we hear

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: past May 1, the T bill, not gonna be a problem.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: Even if go to the Federal Register today, we can't get it done by May 1.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: So we're not holding it up. But if it drops out for that month or two, that's not going be a problem. The T bill ended up being effective July 1, or it need to be upon passage, or is that at all a concern? That's just a technicality because we're not going be done by May 1.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: We're not going to stop moving it forward.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: I did see a hand come up, Representative White.

[Candice White (Member)]: I appreciate the Senator's sharing how the town of Linden feels. This sounds like it would be a really good thing for this area of Vermont. I do agree with the chair that it would probably make sense to just invite someone from the town of Linden in just to be on the record saying what we think they already feel. Aside from, it does feel like 50 acres for 500,000 sounds like a song, jiggling to a company that's gone public and doing quite well. That's my only concern. It sounds like that's already been negotiated. But otherwise, it sounds like a great economic opportunity for the area. I'm in favor of the changes.

[Trini Brassard (Director of Intermodal Development, Vermont Agency of Transportation)]: I will just say that I've been involved, I've been in state government for thirty five plus years, and I started my career in the agency and public transit in the days when it was a little rugged. And most of the things I've worked on have been very controversial. This one hasn't. It's been a love fest about how do we get it done. So I think it's a great project. And it has just a huge opportunity for the folks up there. Which is why I don't understand why I'm sitting here, because I don't sit and love best projects.

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: Okay. So we're going to Thank you very much for coming in and presenting it, for bringing into language. Senator, thank you for your input. We very much appreciate it. Thank you

[Senator Brian Collamore]: for all that you do. I appreciate

[Matt Walker (Chair)]: it very much. Thank you. We are adjourned for the afternoon.