Thumbnail photo courtesy of Andrew Goff
Two weeks after they extended a line of credit to the Border Coast Regional Airport Authority, Del Norte County supervisors on Tuesday approved an airport authority budget its director said was balanced after “we trimmed and trimmed.”
BCRAA’s 2026-27 budget calls for projected revenues and expenditures of about $6.78 million, down from the $13.73 million the authority’s original 2025-26 budget called for and the $13.74 million that was in its revised budget.
Fewer grant-funded projects expected this fiscal year is the main reason for the difference, Airport Authority Director Sean Rosenthal told Redwood Voice Community News on Thursday. Those projects include rehabilitation of Runway 18-36 and the purchase of an airport fire rescue truck, both of which were paid for with Federal Aviation Administration dollars, he said.
“It’s those really large projects that make the airport budget fluctuate so,” he said. “Probably this would be one of the leaner years, but that’s, again, due to the fact that we have less projects than we did last year. The next one will be when we do Runway 12-30 in a few years.”
The line of credit the Board of Supervisors extended to the airport authority in 2025 helped the JPA pay expenses associated with the runway project, truck purchase and a wildlife safety fence project while waiting for reimbursement from the FAA.
At its May 26, 2026, the Del Norte County Board of Supervisors extended the deadline on the line of credit to June 30, 2027. The extension was due to the fencing project’s “ongoing coordination, reimbursement processing timelines and project closeout requirements” associated with the FAA grant, according to BCRAA Chairman David Finigan.
At the Board of Supervisors’ July 14 meeting, “additional BCRAA funding needs” prompted county supervisors to approve a $1.8 million line of credit to the airport authority with an expiration date of June 30, 2027.
The line of credit comes from county funding for capital projects, according to the agreement supervisors approved two weeks ago. The agreement states that up to $1 million is to be used for the FAA-grant funded project and an additional not-to-exceed $800,000 will go toward legal costs and payment gaps associated with the airport’s Alternate Essential Air Service subsidy.
The fence project is expected to be finished in September, Rosenthal told Redwood Voice. According to him, the county auditor-controller had recommended an additional line of credit for legal fees and BCRAA’s subsidy with the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The AEAS program is what allows Advanced Air to offer flights from Crescent City to Oakland and the Los Angeles area.
“The way our contract works with the airline, the (monthly) payments get higher and higher every year,” Rosenthal said. “The first year it started at $300,000 and it went between $400,000 and $500,000 and that’s been a trend with how our subsidy works.”
According to Rosenthal, there are two subsidy programs the U.S. DOT offers to 175 small communities across the country. Under the Essential Air Service program, DOT chooses the airline and pays them directly.
Under the Alternate Essential Air Service program, airports pay the airline directly and then submits a reimbursement form to the DOT.
BCRAA has been taking part in the AEAS program since about 2018 when it contracted with Smyrna, Tenn.-based Contour to provide commercial flights to Oakland. Rosenthal said the BCRAA made the right decision to opt in to the AEAS program since it allows the airport to choose the carrier it wants to work with.
The airport authority can elect to go back to using the traditional EAS program when its contract with Advanced Air comes up for renewal in 2028, Rosenthal said.
“I’m not really seeing any other option at this time,” he said, adding that the option will be up for discussion at a workshop in October.
By the last year of the BCRAA’s contract with Advanced Air, Rosenthal said he anticipates the annual payment to the airline to be about $5 million. He said it was between $3 and $4 million when the Hawthorne-based air carrier began flying into and out of Crescent City.
On Tuesday, District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard asked Rosenthal about payments the BCRAA makes to the county.
On Thursday, Rosenthal said Howard was speaking of a $2.8 million payment Del Norte County made to the airport authority in 2016. About $600,000 was to go to a previous loan and $2.2 million was to go toward the authority’s contribution to the grant that got the new terminal built, Rosenthal said.
However, he noted that the county’s $271,608 contribution hasn’t changed since 2007. Six member agencies, including Del Norte County, make up the Border Coast Regional Airport Authority. They include Crescent City, Elk Valley Rancheria, the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation, Curry County and the City of Brookings.
