Okaloosa County BOCC — July 21, 2015 — Final Presentation for the Proposed Conveyance of Federal Land for VPS Airport

Proposed Conveyance of Federal Land for VPS Airport Presented to the Board of County Commissioners 1 July 21, 2015  Background • At the May 19, 2015 BCC meeting, the Board voted 4-1 directing staff to: 1) research any reversion provisions running with the land that may prevent the conveyance of land the County leases on Eglin Air Force Base; and 2) present the purpose and need for requesting the conveyance and the process for attainment. • Following the Board’s directive, staff: • 1) researched relevant deeds and found no applicable reversion provision; and • 2) prepared the following presentation to make the business case for conveyance. Staff recommends that the Board through a resolution approve and authorize the Chairman of the Board and Staff to request a conveyance pursuant to United States Code USC Title 49 › Subtitle VII › Part B › Chapter 471 › Subchapter I › § 47125, which allows the Federal Government to transfer property interest in land or airspace to public agencies for the development and operation of a public use airport. 2 Warranty Deed Research  Original parcel was leased to the U.S. from May 24, 1935 to October 30, 1936  It was subsequently donated fee simple, free of all encumbrances and fully warranted the title (DB29 pages 297-298)  Legal description plotted on the following slide shows the parcel’s relationship to the airport parcel  There is no reversion language in the deed  Even if there were, it would not apply to the 130.83 acres of the current airport parcel located outside the original parcel, as depicted. 3 Deed Parcel Exhibit 4 Choctawhatchee National Forest  Congress transferred 340,890 acres to the United States War Department on June 27, 1940. (No warrant or deed of transfer was recorded)  The transfer provided that the land may be restored to national forest status by the President, when no longer needed for military purposes  Not applicable to the conveyance  The requested conveyance does not propose to alter the Air Force’s operational needs, but does enhance the public’s interest by the continued operation as an economically viable “joint-use” facility that also benefits and supports Eglin AFB’s military mission  The scale of the airport-use parcel proposed to be requested through conveyance is plotted to illustrate its diminutive footprint in relation to the total Eglin reservation 5 Scale of EAFB Reservation vis-à-vis Conveyance Parcel 6 Justification for Conveyance  VPS competes for airline service and passengers in a small and very crowded market served by three other airports PNS, ECP and MOB  Strategic financial analysis of operating revenue and cost trends indicates that VPS is competitively vulnerable to the loss of air service to competing airports  Eliminating the airport’s perpetual annually increasing land lease obligation would make VPS considerably more competitive and resilient  The airport is contending with unrealized growth forecasts, rising operating costs, intense competition for fewer airlines against airports with much richer incentives and the prevalent airline industry business model of “capacity discipline”  The US Airline Industry has profoundly changed…….four legacy airlines - Delta, American, United and Southwest Airlines have survived the post-deregulation bankruptcies, mergers and consolidations……Only the first three serve VPS……  The loss of any single airline will result in much higher opera