Des Moines airport officials plan to meet in closed session next week to consider whether to take legal action after the National Guard Bureau missed the July 1 extended deadline to submit plans for the Iowa Air National Guard base in Des Moines.

 

The issue surrounds the military’s $1-a-year lease for 172 acres on the north end of the airport, an agreement that runs through 2060. The Federal Aviation Administration has told airport officials that they can no longer offer the military the nominal rent because the Guard removed the fighter jets that once were stationed there. The discount is only allowed when an aeronautical mission is present, and the current operations that involve intelligence reconnaissance, cyber security and remote drone operations don’t qualify, said Kevin Foley, airport executive director and general manager, citing FAA rulings.

 

The federal government had been covering firefighting expenses at the airport but stopped doing that when it pulled fighter jets from Des Moines last year, leaving the airport with more than $1 million in annual expenses.

 

Foley said the airport has been waiting for the federal government to decide how much land it needs and to present an appraisal that would help the parties negotiate a market-rate rent that could run into millions of dollars per year. The July 1 deadline was the end of a 90-day extension, the latest in a series of delays spanning a couple of years.

 

Now, the board on July 14 will be presented with several options: continue negotiations with no immediate formal action, terminate the lease, or set a new deadline. Foley declined to disclose his recommendation before the board’s closed meeting.

 

The lease called for the federal government to submit the documents in 90 days, Foley said. Documents show the discussions reach back to at least June 2012, when federal officials were noting the imminent departure of the fighter jets and noting the federal government would stop paying for firefighting at the Des Moines airport.

 

The National Guard Bureau is working on a site plan and an appraisal, but hasn’t presented that information to Foley. It is considering options that could include moving U.S. Army helicopters from Boone to the Des Moines airport, which would qualify the Guard for the $1-a-year rent on the 20 acres or so that mission would need. But the airport would charge a negotiated market rate for any remaining land in the lease, Foley said.

 

Col. Greg Hapgood, spokesman for the Iowa National Guard, said the decisions are being made at the FAA and U.S. Air Force headquarters. A key question is whether officials at FAA headquarters will ultimately rule that the remote drone operations qualify as a “aeronautical mission” that would qualify for the discounted lease rate, Hapgood added. It is an important question because Guard bases in other states face the same issue, he added.

 

The delays led to a testy exchange between airport board members and Iowa Air National Guard brass at a meeting several months ago. Foley has said he does not see why airport users should subsidize a federal military operation.

 

Asked if he thought the National Guard Bureau was negotiating in good faith, Foley said things have improved in recent weeks even as he heard nothing officially. “There hasn’t been good faith in the past,” Foley said. “We used up two years in which the airport tried to bring resolution. We compromised. Now I think we have good faith, because they are working on a site plan and an appraisal.”

 

At one point, the airport offered the government a rate of 35 cents per square foot — half the usual rate — for whatever land it chose to keep in the lease, but got no response from federal officials.

 

Des Moines airport officials have been told for years that the Guard was likely to free up the 40 to 50 acres once used by the fighter jets for other airport operations. “We have been told that repeatedly,” Foley said.

 

The airport is looking to consolidate general aviation on the north side of the airport as part of a $420 million expansion that would include a $312 million terminal.

 

The last of the military planes that had been serviced by the 132nd Wing at the Des Moines base left in October.

 

Foley said the airport could terminate the lease and sue to evict the Guard. The Guard could sue the airport to challenge its move to change the lease.

 

“I don’t see either of those things happening,” Foley said. He added that he has learned that the Guard’s money for its remodeling at the Des Moines base would be in jeopardy if the federal government loses its lease at the airport.

 

Foley has repeatedly said he isn’t trying to get rid of the Guard base. He is trying to avoid violating FAA rules on lease rates, and he wants to be able to use for other purposes any land the military doesn’t need.

 

Foley said the airport now is out of hangar space and would like to add some in the area now occupied by the Guard.