Officials Call Board Meeting a Maneuver to Avoid Panels : Camarillo: Supervisors’ planned discussion of two airport issues is called ‘end run’ around aviation advisory committees.

Angry Camarillo officials are charging that a special meeting scheduled for Thursday on operations at Camarillo Airport represents an “end run” around a 20-year-old agreement between Ventura County and the city.

City officials said the public meeting, called by the Board of Supervisors, ignores a long-standing agreement that major issues regarding the airport’s operation first be considered by the Camarillo Airport Authority and the Ventura County Aviation Advisory Commission.

Supervisor John K. Flynn scheduled the meeting to discuss two ideas proposed by county staff: merging the Department of Airports into the Public Works Department, and eliminating the post of county airports administrator.

Last month, the supervisors directed staff to cancel interviews with applicants for the top airports post, vacant since the departure of Marshall A. MacKinen late last year. The airport administrator oversees all operations at Camarillo and Oxnard airports.

Camarillo City Councilman David M. Smith, who is on the Airport Authority, said he thought the supervisors’ disregard for the long-kept procedure amounts to an “end run” around the Airport Authority and the advisory commission.

“It would appear that there was an attempt to slide this past us,” Smith said. “I expect elected bodies to abide by their agreements. I’m very upset about this.”

Camarillo Mayor Ken Gose--at the City Council’s unanimous direction--sent Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Vicky Howard a letter asking that the meeting be postponed and that the notion of doing away with the county airport administrator’s job be rejected.

Gose said he believes Flynn did not intend to slight Camarillo officials.

“I would have to think it’s a mistake,” Gose said. “I don’t think John would do something like that purposely.”

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Flynn, however, said he was unsure of the terms of the agreement between the city and the county regarding airport issues and said he will have to check the language of the agreement.

Flynn added that he saw no reason to cancel the meeting.

“The whole point is to take a look at these ideas,” Flynn said. “After we look at them and talk about them, we will of course send them back before the two advisory bodies. This was not intended as any kind of method to duck these groups.”

Supervisor Maggie Kildee also dismissed the idea that the county was trying to avoid the advisory groups.

“We just called the meeting so as to discuss the possibilities,” she said.

Should the two facilities be merged into the county’s Public Works Department, between $180,000 and $220,000 would be saved in personnel and overhead costs, county officials said.

But the savings would not alleviate the county’s budget crisis: The county is forbidden by law to tap into any of the revenues generated by the airports. Should the merger idea be approved by the board, Flynn said the county would funnel the savings into airport improvements.

But some observers feel that the proposed merger is a ploy by the county to replace airport staff with public works personnel who would be paid from airport revenues, thus reducing overall county payroll costs.

“This doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out what they’re trying to do,” said Wally Boeck, a member of the Aviation Advisory Commission. “If this goes through, you will end up with badly managed airports by people who have little experience in aviation.”

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Ventura County Public Works Director Arthur Goulet first presented the merger proposal in a memo in March, 1993. That document identifies several airport staff positions that could be eliminated by the merger. If the county decided to eliminate the airport administrator’s position alone, officials said the savings in salary and benefits would be nearly $90,000.

The meeting will start at 1 p.m. Thursday in the third-floor conference room of the Hall of Administration at the County Government Center in Ventura.