Thumbnail photo courtesy of Andrew Goff
Four Del Norte County supervisors on Tuesday chose their former colleague, Gerry Hemmingsen, over Cal-Ore Life Flight employee Mark Weaver to serve on the Border Coast Regional Airport Authority’s governing body.
Their action ran counter to a 5-3 vote BCRAA commissioners took after multiple split decisions on Aug. 6 to appoint Weaver to Del Norte’s third seat on the joint powers authority with Hemmingsen serving as his alternate.
According to District 3 Supervisor Chris Howard, who sits on the BCRAA Board with District 1 representative Darrin Short, there currently isn’t a mechanism for the JPA’s public member to have an alternate.
Outgoing BCRAA member David Finigan, also a former supervisor, had recommended offering the role to Weaver first but he didn’t want to lose Hemmingsen, Howard said. At Tuesday’s Board of Supervisors meeting, Howard put Hemmingsen’s name forth for the county’s third seat on the Airport Authority JPA with District 5 Supervisor Dean Wilson seconding his motion.
Wilson, who will often fill in for his colleagues on the Airport Authority JPA when they’re absent, praised Finigan’s institutional knowledge of the Del Norte County Regional Airport’s development. Hemmingsen’s expertise when it comes to BCRAA is comparable, Wilson said.
“He also understands where we are as a county and what our responsibilities are financially to the burden of being part of the Airport Authority,” Wilson said. “He also understands the other members and why they were put onto that original board of BCRAA to represent their interests and to represent the community as a whole.”
District 2 Supervisor Valerie Starkey made a motion to nominate Weaver to the county’s third seat. That motion didn’t receive a second and was superseded by Howard’s motion to appoint Hemmingsen instead.
To Starkey, going against the BCRAA’s Aug. 6 vote has the potential to undermine the trust she and her colleagues put in the decisions the community’s other independent boards make. The Airport Authority appointed Weaver first, she said.
“We have these separate boards and we represent (the county) on these separate boards, but they’re independent and they make these decisions,” she said, adding that she had watched the BCRAA meeting on YouTube. “It would be very difficult for me to go against that final vote in selecting Mr. Weaver.”
The Border Coast Regional Airport Authority consists of eight commissioners representing Del Norte County, Crescent City, Curry County, the City of Brookings, Elk Valley Rancheria and the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation.
Though the other five member agencies have a single commissioner on the Airport Authority board, Del Norte County has three seats consisting of two county supervisors and a member of the public.
At the Aug. 6 BCRAA meeting, according to Howard, he and Short, as well as the representatives from the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation and Elk Valley Rancheria had initially voted in favor of Hemingsen replacing Finigan as the public member.
Representatives from Curry County, Brookings, Finigan himself and Crescent City Mayor Pro Tem Candace Tinkler had voted for Weaver instead, Howard said.
“In the end the member of the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation voted in favor of Finigan’s motion which would send it up here with the recommendation for Mark first, but not to lose Gerry, to have him play some kind of role, which we currently don’t have a mechanism for,” Howard said.
At the Airport Authority’s Aug. 6 meeting, however, the JPA’s attorney, Bob Black, noted that each commissioner representing a member agency is allowed an alternate to fill in during their absence. Black said he saw no reason why the public member shouldn’t be allowed an alternate.
Black also spoke to a question of whether Weaver’s status as a Cal-Ore Life Flight employee would constitute a conflict if he was to serve on the JPA Board — a concern District 4 Supervisor Joey Borges repeated on Tuesday.
At the Aug. 6 meeting, Black said that even though Weaver is employed by Cal-Ore Life Flight at the airport, it’s not a conflict that prevents him from serving on the BCRAA Board.
“It then becomes a situational analysis as to any given decision that is made by you as the commission,” Black said. “That decision could trigger a conflict which requires a recusal.”
On Tuesday, Starkey noted that the JPA states that the Airport Authority could have eight to 11 commissioners. She asked Howard what the appetite was for increasing the number of people serving on the Airport Authority.
Howard responded by saying that it’s not a good idea to have an even number of commissioners on any governing board because it often results in deadlocked decisions similar to what occurred on Aug. 6.
“Having an additional member to make it an odd number could potentially help resolve this issue,” Howard said.
After making the second motion to nominate Hemmingsen to the public-member seat, Howard called for addressing the number of commissioners on the Airport Authority board.
County Counsel Jacqueline Roberts noted that the JPA hadn’t been updated in many years.
“If the Board gives direction, my office can work with the admin and the airport director to see what we do going forward,” she said. “But, I mean, I’d even point out that the Tolowa (Dee-ni’ Nation) is referred to as the Smith River Rancheria in this.”
Hemmingsen represented Del Norte County District 4 from 2007 until he retired from the Board of Supervisors in January 2023. According to Howard, Hemmingsen is a founding member of the Border Coast Regional Airport Authority. According to Short, Hemmingsen is also a pilot and “is familiar with our airport.”
