STEPHENVILLE, N.L. — It's barely one month into the new year and the Stephenville Airport Corporation is requesting half of the cash the town is willing to provide in support of the facility in 2020.
In its budget brought down in December, Stephenville town council capped its support of the airport at $200,000 for the coming year.
Last week, the council approved providing $100,000, at the corporation's request.
Coun. Maurice Hynes, who is council's liaison on the airport corporation, said the board is aware of the budgeted amount. He said the amount requested is to solely allow Joe Sheen, chair of the Stephenville Airport Corporation, to write cheques for money owed to local creditors, which Hynes reported is in the amount of about $99,000.
After explaining that, Hynes left the council chambers and did not participate in discussion as Mayor Tom Rose felt the councillor may be in a conflict of interest where he is serving on the airport board.
Coun. Mike Tobin said, with half the budgeted amount gone so early in the new year, the remaining $100,000 will hardly sustain the airport. Unless some other funding source for the airport is found, said Tobin, it’s not going to be the most pleasant thing for council if the airport ends up having to close.
Rose said, when the state of emergency took place in St. John’s recently and people had to be sent to Halifax by air ambulance, Stephenville airport showed its value once again.
“The airport is critically important when St. John’s airport is open or closed,” he said.
Rose said he will work for a new business structure to get Stephenville airport back on track and that the airport corporation has a plan ready to go.
“A new business model is about getting domestic traffic back on the go. We need to get people on and off this island,” he said.
Rose added its time for the provincial government to pony up and support Stephenville airport.
Stephenville airport manager Brenda Martin said Stephenville Airport plays an important role in supporting acute health care for west coast residents. One day last week, she noted, a morning air ambulance flight to St. John's that carried patients from two road ambulances was followed by an afternoon air ambulance flight that took patients from four ambulances.
She said patients requiring a higher level of medical care or emergency care must be quickly transported. She said the additional time to transport patients by ground ambulance to St. John’s, or a runway elsewhere, could be life-threatening for some patients in if Stephenville Airport was not operational.
Meanwhile, Coun. Mark Felix, who is chair of the Stephenville town council's finance committee and couldn't attend the council meeting, said he would likely have voted against the motion had he been there.
"My concern is the airport corporation still don't have what I call a viable business plan in place," he said.
Felix wants to see a business plan where daily service would be in place, but so far he hasn't seen any contracts or even a notice of intent to provide such a service.
He said another reason he likely wouldn't have voted in favour of the grant is that it was only going to pay off creditors. While he agrees paying local creditors is important, he would rather see the town's money used to leverage money from other sources.
Felix doesn't believe there is any substance to the business plan the airport corporation has put forward so far. He said it seems they just dusted off their old plan and added some documents, but nothing that would make the plan viable.
Tourism, Culture, Industry and Innovation Minister Bernard Davis was not available for an interview as of deadline. A statement provided by his department said for many years, the provincial government has supported the Stephenville Airport Corporation for years, including providing a $900,000 loan guarantee in recent years.
Davis and department officials met with representatives from the Town of Stephenville late last year to discuss the town's concerns. The department's statement said government supporting economic development activity in the Stephenville area remains a priority, as it does in all regions throughout the province.
