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Ed Riley is named to Airport Authority
By Lynn Hotaling
With little discussion, county officials Tuesday (Feb. 15) chose Canada firefighter Ed Riley to be the sixth member of the Jackson County Airport Authority.
Commissioner Brian McMahan nominated Riley from the seven names submitted by members of the authority. Commissioner Roberta Crawford seconded the motion, and the vote was unanimous.
The vacancy was created by Jackson County Commissioners’ Jan. 12 decision to remove authority Chairman Tom McClure from his post.
McClure, who has not attended the last two Authority meetings, was also one of the seven individuals whose names were submitted to commissioners.
After McClure raised the question of whether commissioners could legally remove him, local officials, on the advice of county attorney Paul Holt, determined that certain procedural violations were serious enough that none of the current appointments were valid.
During a special Jan. 31 commissioners’ meeting, five members – Gary Buchanan, Chip Hall, Commissioner Eddie Madden, Eldridge Painter and Jim Rowell – were unanimously re-appointed. Those five were advised that they needed to be sworn in by the Jackson County Clerk of Court and asked to select at least two candidates to fill McClure’s slot.
The group met Feb. 9 at the airport. Rowell was absent, but the other four members proposed seven names, choosing to submit every name mentioned to commissioners. In addition to Riley and McClure, authority members selected Dennis Wilkey, Alston Macon, John Wittekind, Gary Boyer and Dorothy Gamble.
In other business, authority members by consensus decided to wait until a sixth member was named before electing a chairman, vice chairman and secretary-treasurer, the three officers specified in its by-laws.
Also by consensus, Buchanan was asked to preside during the Feb. 9 meeting, and the group agreed to ask Rowell, who had been secretary-treasurer, to continue to serve on an interim basis.
Instead of transmitting just the seven names to commissioners, Rowell provided a word-for-word transcription of a tape that was made during last week’s meeting. In addition, Rowell sent commissioners a letter stating his view that there is no vacancy on the Authority because commissioners had no jurisdiction to remove McClure.
“It is my position that no vacancy exists ... since the ‘removal’ of Authority Chairman Tom McClure in January by the Jackson County Board of commissioners is not within the purview of the board of commissioners,” Rowell’s letter stated.
In the letter Rowell also said he thinks that the two meetings (Jan. 26 and Feb. 9) held since commissioners’ Jan. 12 action against McClure are invalid.
Rowell attached a letter from David Lawrence of the Institute of Government in Chapel Hill that offers the opinion that commissioners cannot remove McClure without cause.
“There is no provision in the (legislative) act for removal of members by any person or body once a member has been appointed,” states Lawrence’s Jan. 27 letter to McClure.
Rowell’s letter also contends that Buchanan’s membership on the authority is in question since his name was not submitted to commissioners as a potential member as authority bylaws require.
Commissioners made no mention of Rowell’s letter during the discussion that surrounded Riley’s appointment to the Airport Authority.
Jackson County’s airport was administered by an airport commission until 1996-97 when the county moved to establish an independent authority, which assumed direct responsibility for operation of the airport.
Plans are currently in place to add a 16-hangar complex to the 26-year-old facility. Estimated cost for the project is $1.2 million.
The Airport Authority is scheduled to meet at 7 p.m. Wednesday, Feb. 23, at the airport.
Herald reporter Derek Hodges contributed to this report.
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