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Airport hangar project continues to progress
By Lynn Hotaling
Local airport officials went ahead with a scheduled pre-bid conference for new hangars despite the uncertainty that has surrounded the Jackson County Airport Authority since county commissioners voted Jan. 12 to remove its chairman, Tom McClure.
A pre-bid conference for a planned 16-hangar complex at the 26-year-old facility was held Monday, and four or five potential bidders were on hand to go over the project with architects, said Jim Rowell, the authority's secretary-treasurer.
Asheville architects Pierce, Brinkley, Cease and Lee designed the three-building complex, and each component will be bid separately, Rowell said.
The authority was scheduled to meet Wednesday at 7 p.m. at the airport, Rowell said. That meeting was called by county attorney Paul Holt and is at the time designated in the authority by-laws.
According to Commissioner Eddie Madden, also an airport authority member, no member has the authority to call a meeting in the absence of a chairman, and Holt advised him that the best course of action would be to proceed with a meeting as set forth in the by-laws.
A number of irregularities have surfaced with regard to the authority, Madden said.
A meeting scheduled for last week (Jan. 19) was cancelled. Madden had indicated that Jackson County Clerk of Court Ann Melton would preside at that meeting and administer an oath to authority members.
According to Madden, authority by-laws state that all authority members must be sworn in and that he didn't know if any of the current members have been.
"What we may have to do is swear everyone in so there's no question," he said.
Another irregularity Madden mentioned was with regard to choosing members for the authority. By-laws state that in the event of a vacancy authority members are to submit two names to commissioners, who would then choose one. In the case of Gary Buchanan, the authority submitted a name but commissioners rejected that nomination and chose Buchanan.
The question of whether county commissioners can remove McClure remains unresolved.
"I don't know that they actually have the authority to remove me," McClure said last week. "The airport authority was created by the Legislature."
Jackson County's airport was administered by an airport commission until 1996-97 when the county moved to establish an authority, which assumed direct responsibility for operation of the airport.
In addition to Rowell, Madden and Buchanan, remaining authority members are Eldridge Painter and Chip Hall.
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