Mayor Responds To County Council Tabling Airport Authority Resolution
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David Slone-dslone@timesuniononline.com
Warsaw Mayor Joe Thallemer was hesitant to respond too much to the county council tabling the city-county airport authority resolution to 2024 Thursday night until he got more information from the council members.
“I’m just going to wait until I get all the information about what the intention of the council is,” he said in a brief interview Friday. “If they’re just kicking the can, that’s one thing, but if there’s a true possibility that this thing can occur in a year, I’m fine with that.”
During the Kosciusko County Council meeting Thursday, Councilman Dave Wolkins asked Airport Manager Nick King several questions and then commented he wasn’t too keen on the idea of an authority or creating another taxing entity. He then made a motion to table the airport authority until 2024, which was approved 4-2, with Councilwoman Kathleen Groninger abstaining.
In Wolkins’ comments, he said the airport was definitely an asset to the community and he wanted it to be successful, but they should look for other funding sources first for the airport needs.
“I’m sure there are” other funding sources, Thallemer said. “But, are they sustainable? A lot of questions still to be answered.”
He said he understood the tax environment and it wasn’t necessarily the best time to do the authority, but “it is what it is. Taxes are going to continue, so, like I said, let’s just wait and see if the council truly has an appetite to revisit it in a year. And if it’s going to make a difference, then I’m OK with it. I don’t know their motivations.”
People recently received their tax bills, with many people seeing their tax bills higher because of home assessments.
If the airport authority were to be approved, the highest tax rate allowed by state law for it would be 3.9 cents per $100 of assessed valuation, for most of the county’s property owners, though King and city officials said it may not even be half of that.
If the county council had approved the airport authority resolution, there also would have been a 30-day remonstrance period. If 456 signatures of registered county voters had then been collected within that month, and certified by the county clerk, the authority would then had gone to a voter referendum in a general election. That’s the only way the authority could have been put to a referendum.
Thallemer said there’s always been good communication between the city and the county and that continued with the airport authority.
“We talked a lot. I knew what the issues were,” he said. “I was a little surprised at the tabling, but not totally.”
Thallemer reiterated he didn’t know the motivation of the council, but there may be some benefit to waiting a year as far as the council’s acceptance of the airport authority.
“And if that’s the case, I’m fine with it. Would we have liked to gotten it done? Of course, but there is that question of a referendum. The bottom line is, this airport still serves this community and it serves everyone in this community, and we’re not going to take our foot off the gas as far as what we’ve been doing the last 62 years. Period. We’re going to keep doing everything we can, going after every grant, every nickel available,” he said.
The Warsaw Airport Board of Aviation Commissioners (BOAC) unanimously recommended at its February meeting to recommend to the Warsaw Common Council that the BOAC move to a city-county airport authority. The city council approved a resolution in favor of the authority at its March 20 meeting.
On April 6, King, along with city, business and state officials, gave a lengthy presentation on the airport and the authority, which was followed by public comments. No action or vote were taken by the county council at the April 6 meeting.
If the airport authority had been approved, it would have been governed by a six-member board, with three of those members appointed by the Warsaw mayor and three by the county commissioners. No more than four of the six members could be of the same political party, according to current state law.
The city and county councils would have had oversight over the authority’s annual budget.
