Mahaska County Representative Rejoins Airport Board
An aerial view of the land that might be impacted by a new regional airport. (Oskaloosa News file photo)
Oskaloosa, Iowa – The South Central Regional Airport Agency held their quarterly meeting on Wednesday afternoon.
Mahaska County representative Joe Warrick rejoined the board. A move set in motion by Mahaska County Supervisors Chair Henry ‘Willie’ Van Weelden.
The first item on the agenda was the approval of the minutes from the February 27, 2018 meeting.
The second item on the agenda was the call to the public for their comments.
Mahaska County resident John Bandstra stepped forward, asking for written comments he presented to be included in the minutes of the meeting.
Bandstra has made such requests in prior meetings, and the comments were accepted into the meeting minutes. Board chair Jim Hansen informed Bandstra that a decision had been made to no longer include written comments in the meeting minutes. “But we will gladly hear your comments,” said Hansen.
“May I ask why,” said Bandstra.
“It’s just the decision that’s been made,” said Hansen. “You may submit them other ways. You can go to our website as many people do. Facebook or whatever you want to do.”
Bandstra then made his comments to the board saying, “At the recent SCRAA meeting with landowners and HDR representative Gerald Searly, stated that the proposed U.S. 63 Northwest Bypass of Oskaloosa was not part of the plan for rerouting traffic on 220th street. The SCRAA environmental assessment which lists Jerry Searly as a repairer of the document, had several pages referring to the U.S. 63 Northwest Bypass of Oskaloosa including maps and dedicating appendix G to the U.S. 63 Northwest Bypass of Oskaloosa. I bring this to your attention as no SCRAA board members were present at the landowners meeting. One member of the SCRAA staff was present. My question to you, the board members, if you allow HDR to misrepresent the facts, are you individually liable? Or are the Entities you represent liable for decisions based on misinformation being presented. What measures are in the contract for dealing with misinformation? For example, in the recent Mahaska County Supervisors candidate forum, Mahaska County Supervisor Van Weelden stated the U.S. 63 Northwest Bypass of Oskaloosa was a replacement for the current 220th Street. He referenced the SCRAA environmental assessment as his source of information. If the U.S. 63 Northwest Bypass of Oskaloosa is not part of the SCRAA environmental assessment why was it included in this document?
“Thank you,” said Hansen.
The next item on the agenda was to receive and file the South Central Regional Airport Agency’s audited financial statements for the fiscal year that ended June 30, 2017.
SCRAA staff member Mike Nardini pointed the board’s attention to pages three and four which shows the independent auditors report and breakdown and included which outlines management responsibilities for preparing financial statements.
“It’s important to know that we had, on June 30th, 2017, receivables of just over $52,000, we had an equal amount in accounts payable of just over $52,000. Very important to know, as far as the financial statements the agency does not have any cash accounts with us, so we just have receivables and payables,” said Nardini. “It’s very important to know if it’s planning studies. At June 30th, 2017 the total amount of planning studies was just under $514,000 for the agency on that as well. So under generally accepted accounting principles the cost of the planning studies is capitalized for it because it’s a necessary component to actually build a regional airport, so they would have been capitalizing. That’s why it shows up in our financial statements in the equity section.”
Nardini continued to outline the requirements, for both the federal government and state government, that the audit had to satisfy. The report also included a letter directly to the board stating if they had any difficulties with staff while performing the audit, to which none were stated or given.
The audit was received and filed by the SCRAA Board.
The next meeting will be in Pella, with a new start time of 5:30. No date for that meeting was set.
In a phone interview after the SCRAA meeting, Oskaloosa News asked Van Weelden about Warrick and who authorized the change.
Van Weelden said, “I think the court ruling was very clear that he probably shouldn’t have even been taken off of that board to begin with.”
Van Weelden stated that Warrick was removed by then Mahaska County Board Chairman Mark Doland. The board never voted on it. When we passed that resolution on a two to one vote, he took it upon himself to call Joe Warrick and tell him he was off the commission. We didn’t vote on it. I told Mr. Groenendyk, I said, ‘well I called Joe Warrick and he’s going to go to the meeting because we didn’t vote to take him off to begin with. Not the Board. I didn’t think we needed a motion to put him back on the board [SCRAA] because he never should have been removed.'”
