By Katie Northcott, News Director
At its meeting on Tuesday, April 14, the Tullahoma Airport Authority (TAA) voted unanimously to hire Thompson Burton PLLC, a law firm based in Nashville whose specializations include airport law.
According to TAA Chairman Karla Smith, the TAA had four applicants after a request for proposal was published. Smith, Assistant Airport Manager Gavin Dishon, City Administrator Jeff Damron, City Finance Director Sue Wilson, and City Deputy Finance Director Paige Jackson separately ranked the four applicants on a 100-point scale.
In the rankings, Thompson Burton scored 72 points higher than any of the other applicants with a score of 447 out of 500 possible points. According to City Attorney Brittany Hoskins, Thompson Burton also had the lowest price tag of all four applicants.
“From everything that we’ve looked at–and we’ve spent a lot of time hashing this out as a group–we felt pretty dadgum good about them,” Smith said.
Smith added that one of Thompson Burton’s attorneys, Margaret Martin, is from Tullahoma. Martin specializes in aviation law.
The TAA unanimously approved a recommendation that the city hire Thompson Burton. The proposal will come before the Board of Mayor and Aldermen for final approval. The TAA anticipates that the firm will take on a heavy load for about six months. After major issues are resolved, the TAA wishes to keep the firm on retainer.
“Our top priority with this group is to figure out how we can move forward collecting our rent. The biggest thing, of course, is having to redo the leases,” Smith said. “We’ve got issues. We’ve got to work on the CIP. We’ve got to work on making sure everything is fair.”
Smith said that the attorney would also look at adding reversionary clauses to lease agreements.
In January, the TAA voted to enact a moratorium on all hangar construction and new leases until the new lease guideline can be written and approved.
“That is one of the main reasons for our moratorium on new construction. We don’t know what is ahead of us, what we’ve not done, what we have done,” Smith said. “We’re starting over, moving forward, and doing everything by the book, which unfortunately hadn’t happened.”
Jeffrey Jackson, a representative from Curl Construction who attended the meeting, pushed back on Smith’s statement, stating that a developer had been allowed to build during the moratorium. Smith said that the developer, Lee Gilliam, was grandfathered in since he had his permits in place before the moratorium. Fire Marshal Nick Kimbro confirmed Smith’s statement.
Later, Jackson asked if the TAA had a plan to end the moratorium. Damron said that the moratorium would end when the attorney had assessed all of the leases and that it would be premature to give predictions on a timeline.
“We ordered a building, had the building delivered, tried to have it delivered to our spot on the airport and was denied access to our spot to our lease to put our building out there,” Jackson said. “So now we have this $400,000 building sitting off site that has already been invested in.”
Jackson asked why the TAA had decided to allow Gilliam’s development but not Curl Construction’s development.
“In your situation, the building was not completed in the timeframe it was supposed to be completed in,” Smith said. “It was grounds to terminate the lease because the building had not taken place in that two-year timeframe.”
Smith said that the TAA was waiting for a recommendation from an aviation attorney on how to handle the situation.
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