The Vermont Senate advanced legislation Friday that would allow the state Agency of Transportation to sell or lease the Caledonia County State airport — only about a week after the proposal, which has met little opposition, was made public.
Senators included authorization to offload the small Lyndon airport in their version of this year’s omnibus transportation bill, to which they’ve now given preliminary approval. H.479 would clear the state to spend nearly $860 million on transportation projects such as roadway paving, bridge repairs, public buses and electric vehicle infrastructure.
Sen. Russ Ingalls, an Essex Republican whose district includes Lyndon, told colleagues Friday that local airport users have been “cautiously optimistic” about the potential sale, likely to a private entity.
Beta Technologies, the South Burlington-based electric aircraft manufacturer, has told transportation officials that it’s interested in buying the facility.
“People are recognizing (what) something like this — especially with the possibility of one of the companies that might be interested in it — could possibly bring to the area as far as economic growth and opportunity,” Ingalls said, referring to Beta.
Caledonia’s airport logs an average of five or six flights a day, said Chris Raymond, the airport’s operations and maintenance director, at a meeting Monday in the airport’s terminal building to discuss the proposed sale. The facility has a dozen privately owned hangars and one that’s owned by the state.
H.479 would require the state government to consult with Lyndon officials before releasing a request for proposals from potential buyers or lessees, as well as before signing a final sale or lease agreement. The state would have until May 2026 to strike a deal.
The bill also requires that the state accept only “a fair market value offer” for the airport. Transportation Secretary Joe Flynn maintained in response to questions from local pilots Monday that the state would seriously consider proposals from any company, not just Beta.
Beta executives, including chief executive officer Kyle Clark, visited the Caledonia airport last year and expressed admiration for the local aviation community, several pilots said Monday. The pilots sought assurances that they would continue to be able to enjoy and operate at the airport without funding from the state and federal governments.
“We just want to know that we have a place to kind of keep that going and encourage folks in the area who want to fly that they come and do that here,” Toby Schine, who is helping to start a flight school at the airport, said after Monday’s meeting.
The bill states that any sale or lease agreement would maintain public access at the airport as well as honor the existing leases there. It also requires any agreement to “ensure that there are investments in the Airport to address current deficiencies and necessary repairs,” according to the text of the amendment passed Friday.
Some pilots said this week that they’ve been frustrated by a lack of state investment at their airport in recent decades, bemoaning the condition of the facility’s main runway. The transportation agency says the airport needs up to $14 million worth of renovations.
But the airport is unlikely to be a priority for state or federal investment anytime soon, agency officials have said, in part because of its relatively low use compared to other small airports in Vermont. Flynn has argued that a private company, such as Beta, could make critical improvements more quickly than the state. But the agency has not publicly shared what those investments would be, or what Beta intends to use the facility for.
A Beta spokesperson declined to provide details on the company’s plans Friday.
Several members of the Senate and House transportation committees said this week that they would rather the state keep control of the airport by leasing it, instead of selling it entirely. Sen. Thomas Chittenden, D-Chittenden Southeast, voiced support for signing a 99-year lease with a tenant, so that if the airport took on a larger role in Vermont’s transportation network at some point in the future, the state would still own it.
H.479 also provides that the state would be first in line to buy the airport from whoever takes it over, should that organization no longer want or be able to maintain it.
“I hope there’s some way that perhaps the (airport’s) real value in the long term can be looked at — and that taxpayers can have a huge asset that might, potentially, be more valuable in the future,” said Rep. Matthew Walker, R-Swanton, who sits on the House Transportation Committee, during a hearing Wednesday morning about the airport.
Justin Smith, municipal administrator for the town of Lyndon and village of Lyndonville, indicated to the House and Senate transportation committees Wednesday that local officials support selling the airport to a private entity so that the property could be added to the town’s tax base, which officials think could encourage new economic growth.
But a lease is “not something that we see as a deal breaker,” Smith told the House Transportation Committee. “I am confident that the state has the best intentions of keeping us included and taking our input seriously.”
Speaking during the Senate Transportation Committee hearing Wednesday, Sen. Jane Kitchell, D-Caledonia, said she had heard frustration from some constituents in Newbury that the Senate was being more responsive to the town of Lyndon — and any concerns it has with plans for a state-owned facility — than to their town, where the Scott administration has proposed a secure youth treatment and detention center.
Newbury residents voted 601-56 on Town Meeting Day to formally express their opposition to the plan, which has become entangled in permitting and legal processes.
“They feel very strongly that different towns are being responded to differently by this body,” Kitchell told her colleagues.
H.479 still needs a final green light from senators, after which it would head back to the House for review.
