On July 8, at 6 PM, Chairman of the Perry County Airport and Industrial Authority Donald J. Bennett, Sr., held a public meeting to address recent financial concerns. Chief among those concerns is a $300,000 lawsuit for alleged nonpayment for work done to Vaiden Air Field (A08) after contractors claim they completed said work. Other board members were present, including: Bill Williams, Col. Ryan Link, and Lionel Hinton.
In his opening statements, Bennett addressed media coverage of the recent developments, saying, “Recently there’s been some reports in the newspaper, as well as on the radio, and I think some of the information was inconsistent with some of the facts.”
Following this, Bennett opened with the Federal Aviation Authority’s (FAA) receipt of a Notification of Apparent Noncompliance and Request for Corrective Action on October 30, 2020. This occurred, he said, when then Treasurer, Bill Williams, informed the FAA of ongoing financial issues, as well as noncompliance at Vaiden Field.
“He notified them we had financial issues. We weren’t able to pay back a loan that was taken out,” said Bennett when presenting the notice. Bennett continued, “In that notification it also was identified that there was equipment that was purchased by the board with grant funds.”
Bennett then addressed Bill Williams for clarification, to which Williams responded, “They called me and asked me the question, and I told them what I knew.” Williams continued, “From what I knew, and I got this from the bank,” he then referred to both Conrad Taylor and Guy Davis, of Marion Community Bank, formerly Marion Bank & Trust. “All the money, all the grant money, was put into one general account, and they were using that one general account to operate the airport,” said Williams.
Bennett then referenced the notice from the FAA, which was addressed to then-Chairman Preston Sanders, that on September 2, 2020, Williams contacted the Jackson Airport Authority’s office to seek assistance in paying back a loan initiated on April 20, 2010 with Marion Bank & Trust. “That loan is approximately now due at, it was $840,000 at that time, accruing 4.75 percent interest,” said Bennett. Bennett then indicated that that $840,000 amount was due to the PCAIA paying back the loan’s interest, but not the principal.
After Bennett joined the board in November of 2020, the board submitted a Corrective Action Plan to the FAA. On January 28, 2021, FAA responded to the corrective action plan, with Bennett saying, “The FAA response notification to the Authority Corrective Action Plan said,” then Bennett continued, paraphrasing the response by FAA, “We understand your position. An audit needs to be done. The encumbrance needs to be removed. Although you did the other things, everything needs to be corrected before we van even consider removing the situation with the lock on the payments.”
The main issue, he said, involved removing an encumbrance on the airport property, which left the PCAIA in violation of a deed with FAA after the 2010 loan was taken out with the airport property being used as collateral. Bennett then stressed that many meetings took place to try and remove the encumbrance on the property. Bennett then referenced his announcement to the community of his appointment as Chairman of the Board on Facebook, through the group What’s Happening in Marion, of which he is a content administrator.
Bennett addressed the May 29, 2021 announcement that PCAIA filed for Chapter 9 bankruptcy, which Bennett’s slide referred to as “Chapter 9 Reorganization.” He then said, “We were forced into an action because no one wanted to move off of their stance.” Bennett indicated that FAA had halted AIP grants, thus halting the airport’s revenue stream. Bennett then emphasized, “Someone made a statement that we had filed for bankruptcy twice. That’s not correct. We filed one time. We filed a motion to have that Chapter 9 dismissed, because we were getting some understanding of where we were going with the Chapter 9. The Chapter 9 did not fit with what we had applied for. It could have possibly been a Chapter 11, but not a Chapter 9.”
Bennett went on to explain that the PCAIA had discussions with Marion Community Bank over its finances, as well as a local management company. Bennett then cited some factors for the air field’s noncompliance, including growth around the fuel farms, a lack of visible numbering in the field, some light outages, and a wind sock which was not installed, as laid out in a December 21, 2021 notice from ALDOT’s Aeronautics Bureau. S.A. Graham Company, Inc., as well as Wiregrass Construction Company, Inc., were tasked with completing the numbering system. Bennett then explained, “When we were not able to pay them, they said, ‘If we can’t get paid, we’re walking off the job.’ Don’t blame them one bit, I’m not going to work for free when I expect to get paid either.” Bennett then indicated that the board was trying to bring elements of the air field up to standard after S.A. Graham and Wiregrass left the job.
Bennett addressed a February 23, 2021 correspondence with Steve Hicks of the FAA in regards to a meeting between Bennett, Colonel Edwin Passmore (then Secretary and Treasurer of PCAIA), Attorney Hayes Brown (representation for PCAIA), Sam Givhan (Marion Bank Board President), Guy Davis (CEO of Marion Bank), and Attorney Robert Walthall (counsel for Marion Bank). At the meeting, the group discussed removing the encumbrance.
Bennett referenced the FAA, saying, “The response was ‘We cannot remove the encumbrance, because we would have nothing to hold you to making those payments to us.’” Bennett clarified that Marion Bank, “Used the right of offset, and the money that we had in our account that was issued from the FAA to Volkert—to pay them—a portion of that funds was taken.”
This, he said, brings Vaiden to its current issue of both securing future funding from the FAA, and not receiving AIP grant monies as a form of revenue for the airport. On March 12, 2021, FAA notified PCAIA, per Marion Bank’s right to offset AIP funds to apply to outstanding debts, that the FAA would withhold new AIP grants alongside payments on existing grants until all noncompliance issues were resolved.
As Bennett said, “We’re not getting any money. AIP Program has been shut off. The funds are shut off. So S.A. Graham and Wiregrass and Volker, they don’t go after the FAA. They come to the person they had the contract with, which is us. We are responsible to file for whatever we need to do.”
Bennett then referred to a Mutual Release of Asserted Claims, under an Order approving Mutual Agreement of the Parties, which included Wiregrass, S.A. Graham, and PCAIA, alongside Marion Bank. Grant funds in the agreement were paid to the plaintiffs in the amount of $686,280.75.
Bill Williams referred to the 2010 Marion Bank loan, in the amount of $1.2 million, which went towards THangers, the fuel system, and work on the runway.
Williams went on to explain the $150,000 AIP Operation grant, saying, “The board decided to borrow the money so they could save that $150,000 a year to use it for something else, and then they said ‘After our three years we’ll go in for grant money for the fuel system and the hangers, and we’ll pay it with the grant money we get.” Bennett then asked Williams who was president of the board at that time, to which Williams confirmed it was the late Preston Sanders.
Williams then said, “I don’t want to talk bad about dead people. I really hate calling names, but I will tell you, in my personal opinion, it was [former board member] John Martin who was the one who led us down this road. And I told John several times that he was making big mistakes, but that was why they did it.” Williams continued to say that even though the board at the time was aiming to provide fuel sales to the military, Vaiden was not eligible for such sales since there was no DLA contract with the air field. Williams said, “But there were people that came in here that led them to believe, if you put this fuel system in, the military’s gonna come buy all this fuel.”
