Owner of private airport seeks help from port authority

By Ed Runyan

Four nonunion port authority employees will see a 5 percent pay cut from April through December.

VIENNA — Michael Stanko, owner of Elser Metro Airport on Sharrott Road in North Lima, asked the Western Reserve Port Authority on Wednesday whether it can help him expand his business.

He asked port authority members whether the port authority, which runs the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport, could help him expand the runway at his airport or help him start a second maintenance operation at the Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport.

Stanko, who has owned the Elser airport since 1989, said the runway there is 4,000 feet long, which some aircraft owners say is too short for them to use.

Because his airport is private, it doesn’t qualify for financial help from the Federal Aviation Administration to increase the length of its runway, Stanko said. Paying for the extension himself would be too costly, he said.

A longer runway is needed to attract larger aircraft, he said. The airport can accommodate about 70 percent of corporate or privately owned aircraft now, Stanko said. With a 5,000-foot runway, it could capture business from the other 30 percent, he said.

He’s not looking to attract commercial aircraft, he noted.

The Youngstown-Warren Regional Airport has runways of 5,000 and 9,000 feet.

Stanko said he was advised to meet with the WRPA’s director of aviation, Steve Bowser, for further discussion.

Stanko said his expansion plans are in the preliminary stages.

In other business, Bowser said he and the port authority’s three other nonunion employees will be taking a 5 percent pay cut in 2009.

The reduction, effective April 1, will save about $6,000, he said.

Bowser said officials are asking the port authority’s six union employees to take a similar pay cut for 2009.

Their contract expired at the end of February, and the union and county are in negotiations for a new deal, Bowser said.

Reducing payroll was necessary because of a possible drop in hotel- motel taxes brought on by the national economic downtown and increased operational costs such as fuel and salt.

The port authority gets about half of its operating revenue from hotel-motel taxes.

The port authority’s budget, approved Wednesday, is $1,350,819, which is $15,414 higher than the $1,335,405 the port authority spent in 2008.

The budget anticipates revenues of $1,257,483, which is $91,206 less than the $1,348,689 received in 2008.

The port authority had a carryover balance of $93,336 at the start of the year.

runyan@vindy.com