Customs in Boca

Thanks to some recent good luck, the Boca Raton Airport could have a customs facility as soon as the end of 2016 or early 2017.

The airport authority had approved the facility and made it a priority, but there was a question about part of the estimated $3 million for design and construction. The authority always was going to put up half. The airport’s executive director, Clara Bennett, told me that two grants from the Florida Department of Transportation now will provide the balance. The money had been in doubt, but Bennett said it suddenly became available.

When the facility opens, passengers coming from abroad won’t have to fly first to Palm Beach International Airport or Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. That likely won’t mean more flights at the Boca airport, but it will mean more convenience. That, in turn, will give the city one more advantage in corporate recruiting.

The Boca facility won’t need to be open 24/7. Bennett said she expects it will be more like “40 hours a week,” staffed by U.S. Customs and Border Patrol through an agreement with the airport authority, paid for with user fees and other income. Bennett cites a similarly-sized facility in Naples to estimate that Boca’s could be breaking even financially by the third year of operation.

The facility will be behind the Fairfield Inn and next to some existing hangars. The authority hopes to get final approval on plans from the city by November.

City vs. Airport

Progress on the customs facility might help to improve relations between the airport authority and the city. Interviewing people on both sides, I came away feeling like a mediator in a divorce proceeding.

At its goal-setting session in May, the Boca Raton City Council declared its wish to have more “collaboration” from the authority. To drive home the point, the council refused to reappoint two of the seven authority board members, a move that not long ago would have been nearly automatic. Instead, the council appointed Deputy City Manager George Brown and Councilman Robert Weinroth.

That move, coupled with the council’s criticism of the authority, unsettled some in the city who worried about council overreach. Did the city want more control? To take back the airport, which it gave up three decades ago? The council appoints five of the seven authority board members. The county commission picks the other two.

The authority itself has hardly been free of ethical and political accusations. In the 1990s, a board member sold insurance to the authority and a tenant. His replacement resigned after criticism that he was a political plant.

Council members mostly generalized about their gripes with the authority when they appointed Brown and Weinroth. When I asked Weinroth if he thought that the airport was being run badly, he said, “I would not make that conclusion.” In an interview, though, Mayor Susan Haynie laid out her case.

“There is a total lack of communication,” Haynie said. “We don’t hear from them.” She said the authority’s by-laws have “restricted communication.”

Haynie contends that the authority has gone beyond its “mission to operate an airport that helps the local business community.” She calls the authority “successful as landlords,” for leasing authority property on Airport Road just west of Florida Atlantic University, but questioned the most recent lease to the Tilted Kilt restaurant. With that action, Haynie said, the authority left no room for its own administration building, which will be off-site, on land leased from FAU and south of the Tech Runway.

Haynie’s comments puzzled Cheryl Budd, an executive at NCCI and the past authority board chairman. She recalled a “fabulous meeting” with Haynie that included Clara Bennett, the airport’s executive director. Haynie did want it made clear that she has “no issue” with Bennett, whom the authority board hired after deciding on the new administration building.

Weinroth called the new headquarters “a Taj Mahal building for eight to 12 people.” Budd called that decision good business. The authority will lease the 1.79-acre site, and the income from the Tilted Kilt lease—Bennett said it’s actually a sublease—will help pay for airport operations.

Still another issue is what council members consider airport authority bylaws that discourage outside contact by board members. The passage in question reads: “If it does not conflict with a member’s other duties, members may have discussions with third parties regarding the business of the airport or board.”

Weinroth said the wording prevents board members from “doing fact-finding on their own.” He and others have said the authority wants an attorney be present if board members speak with outside officials.

Budd said the passage “has generally been interpreted to mean that authority members may speak to anyone.” If board members have third-party contact about “issues under consideration,” Budd said, they are supposed to call the executive director to record the date and the name of the contact. “Little detail is requested,” Budd said. Any items that have been discussed publicly “may be discussed at any time with anyone without disclosure.” Budd said the bylaws “make no reference to necessity of attorneys being present during discussions with third parties.”

Like Budd, Bennett is “perplexed” by the council’s criticism. She has met twice with Haynie since coming from Fort Lauderdale Executive Airport. The authority’s rental income—from Cinemark, Boomer’s and the other tenants—is about $3.5 million a year. City from the council, Bennett said, “has had a positive impact on the airport.” When I asked Haynie about a city takeover, she responded, “We are not actively seeking one at this point.”

Randy Schultz was born in Hartford, Conn., and graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1974. He has lived in South Florida since then, and in Boca Raton since 1985. Schultz spent nearly 40 years in daily journalism at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, most recently as editorial page editor at the Post. His wife, Shelley, is director of The Learning Network at Pine Crest School. His son, an attorney, and daughter-in-law and three grandchildren also live in Boca Raton. His daughter is a veterinarian who lives in Baltimore.

Randy Schultz was born in Hartford, Conn., and graduated from the University of Tennessee in 1974. He has lived in South Florida since then, and in Boca Raton since 1985. Schultz spent nearly 40 years in daily journalism at the Miami Herald and Palm Beach Post, most recently as editorial page editor at the Post. His wife, Shelley, is director of The Learning Network at Pine Crest School. His son, an attorney, and daughter-in-law and three grandchildren also live in Boca Raton. His daughter is a veterinarian who lives in Baltimore.