County Threatens Eviction of Tallmantz From Airport Unless Company Pays Up
The county has threatened to evict Tallmantz Aviation Inc. from John Wayne Airport unless Tallmantz pays more than $347,000 that the county said the company owes in back rent and other charges.
Tallmantz--a venerable county company with a 27-year history in local aviation--maintains corporate and private airplanes and sells parts and fuel.
The company began in the early 1960s as stunt fliers for the film industry then branched into maintenance and selling fuel. Paul Mantz and Frank Tallman, the two founding partners, were both killed in separate plane crashes.
In a bid to expand, the new owners bought other companies and their leases on land and buildings at the airport. But now, airport officials said, Tallmantz is behind on the rent for all that property. Tallmantz has not paid a $313,000 lump sum owed since its leases were renegotiated in October, according to officials.
Letter Hand-Delivered
In a Dec. 1 letter hand-delivered to company offices, Airport Manager George A. Rebella threatened that the county would “begin termination of your leases and licenses” if Tallmantz does not pay by next Thursday.
“I thought we had all this taken care of,” said Charles C. Seven, a real estate broker who with several partners bought Tallmantz in 1985. Now president of the company, Seven said he has bought out his partners and owns 95% of the stock.
In a written statement Thursday, Seven blamed “an error in billing by the county” and “an error in accounting by Tallmantz” for the conflict.
The dispute is a “misunderstanding,” and Tallmantz has “taken steps to resolve the situation,” Seven wrote.
His statement received a frosty response from an airport spokeswoman. “Our comment is that we hope it does get taken care of because it’s disruptive to both his organization and ours,” Kathie Rutherford said.
The airport’s other fixed-base operators--as companies like Tallmantz are called--have paid their rent, said Daniel J. Didier, a deputy county counsel who handles legal matters at the airport.
According to Didier and other officials, until this year Tallmantz and some other businesses at the airport were operating on 25-year leases signed in the late 1960s and due to expire in the early 1990s.
By the 1980s, however, county officials said the rents had become far too low, given the value of airport land. Under the old Tallmantz lease obtained by the company’s former management, the airport did not even require Tallmantz to pay for one of its aircraft parking spaces, according to an airport official.
In October the county renegotiated the Tallmantz leases--which were to expire in 1993--and increased rents in the new 25-year leases.
20 Years of Equity
Also under the old leases, any buildings constructed on the land became county property when the lease expired. Since the county had accrued about 20 years’ worth of equity in the hangars and other buildings constructed on the Tallmantz land, the county demanded that Tallmantz buy back its interest in the buildings.
In the Dec. 1 letter, Rebella said Tallmantz reneged on an agreement to pay $313,000 for the buildings by Oct. 25. He also said the company had not paid an unknown amount in fees on fuel it is pumping and had not paid the new, higher fees on aircraft parking areas it licenses.
Most of the Tallmantz buildings and land are in the southeast section of the airport.
