Higher Hangar Rents in Hawthorne Draw Fire From Pilots

The Hawthorne Aircraft Owners and Pilot Assn. this week strongly criticized the City Council for increasing hangar rental fees at the airport and violating a 1985 agreement to set the fees.

In August, the Hawthorne City Council voted to increase numerous municipal fees--including hangar rental fees--to help balance the city’s budget deficit. Hangar fees at Hawthorne Municipal Airport, which had been raised in July to $210 per month, were raised again to $280 last month.

Emil Michaels, president of the 160-member pilots association, told the council Monday night that the city made an agreement with the pilots in 1985 to increase rental fees gradually from $125 per month to $200 over a four-year period and then tie future increases to the consumer price index. The four-year period ended in July, and the index increased the fee to $210.

Michaels, who was joined by about 20 members of the association in City Hall on Monday, told the council that the additional $70 increase violated the agreement and asked that it be rescinded. He said the association would discuss an increase with the city.

Councilwoman Ginny M. Lambert asked the staff members to meet with the association to study a fee increase that would be acceptable to both the city and the association. The City Council will reconsider the matter within the next month, City Manager Kenneth Jue said.

In an interview after the meeting, Airport Administrator Robert Trimborn acknowledged that the city had broken its agreement with the pilots association, but said the council needed to increase the hangar fees to help reduce the budget deficit.

To offset a $2.5-million deficit in the city’s 1989-90 budget and avert as many as 32 layoffs, the council voted last month to increase fees in numerous departments, including building, planning, engineering, police, airport and recreation.

City officials say the deficit is primarily due to a projected shortfall of $1.1 million in sales tax revenues and paramedic fees in the 1988-89 fiscal year. An equal shortfall is expected for 1989-90, the officials say.

The new fees will raise nearly $800,000 annually, with $50,000 coming from the new hangar rental fees, according to city officials. The remainder of the deficit will be made up by personnel cutbacks, new trash collection fees, the repayment of a city loan to build the Hawthorne Plaza shopping center and the collection of delinquent sales taxes from Northrop Corp.

Fees in the Middle Range

Trimborn said that even with the recent increase, hangar rental fees in Hawthorne are in the middle range for area airports. The monthly rental fees for hangars at 10 municipal airports are between $201 and $397, he said, citing a 1987 state Department of Transportation study.

Michaels said the fees at the Hawthorne airport, however, should be lower because the hangars are dilapidated and need substantial improvements.

Trimborn said the city had postponed repairing the hangars because of its financial problems.

Michaels said his group was concerned because the association was appointed in 1985 to be the city’s unofficial airport advisory committee, and the city did not notify the association before increasing the hangar fees.

“If there is something that should be discussed, we are all willing to talk,” said Chuck Walker, a member of the association and pilot for 26 years.

Trimborn said the city did not notify the association before increasing the fees because of the immediate need to approve the city budget and address the city’s financial problems.