Plans at Petaluma Aiport take off

Ron Mangon’s vision of opening a school to train Chinese airplane mechanics at the Petaluma Municipal Airport has finally received clearance to land. All it took was a year of deliberation by the Petaluma Airport Commission and the City Council, and reignited a debate over the commercial use of city-owned airport space that dates back to some of the airport’s founders.

Mangon, owner of Mangon Aircraft Inc., won approval to use a city-owned hangar at the airport to open his mechanic school in partnership with Ningxia Shenma General Aviation in central China. Ningxia specializes in light aircraft and drones, and Mangon agreed to accept and train Ningxia’s mechanics in Petaluma.

Mangon plans to set up a 10-year commitment with Ningxia during which 26 Chinese mechanics would come to Petaluma and, over nine months, learn small aircraft repair and maintenance.

“When I get the space, the Chinese will supply funds for the creation of the maintenance program,” he said. “But I’ve had to put everything with them on hold because I’ve been trying to get this lease for - wow - it’s been a year now.”

The hangar is 22,500 square feet, roughly three times the size of Mangon’s current place. In order to open his new mechanic school, the commission required Mangon to operate his business from a legitimate building, instead of the construction trailer he transformed into a makeshift facility while deliberations for the lease continued.

But using a city-owned hangar for a commercial business has become somewhat of a controversial subject at the commission.

“Usually, the way it works with fixed-based operators like flight schools and mechanic shops, the city would lease the land to the business, but it is the responsibility of the business to create and maintain their facilities,” said Dan St. John, Petaluma’s director of public works.

The commission found that the language in Mangon’s lease needed revision as it originally stated the hangar’s only use is to store aircraft.

The commission and Mangon agreed to change the language earlier this year.

In an airport commission meeting on Dec. 4, Chairwoman Kristin Winter commented on the lost revenue from leaving the hangar vacant.

“For some reason, the city legal department cannot see its way clear to modify Mangon Aircraft’s existing lease to expand its operations to hangar 18B, which is a vacant city hangar,” she said. “The fact that we are going on eight months, at $1,500 per month means that $12,000 is not going into the airport account.”

The total revenue lost from the hangar lease is now up to $16,000.

Gary Schoenlein, a representative of Aeroventure, which operates a flight school at the Petaluma airport, took exception to the approval of Mangon’s lease. Schoenlein is the son-in-law of Dan and Marion Hodge, who helped establish and build the Petaluma Airport in the 1980s.

“I think it’s unfair that the commission is allowing Ron (Mangon) to operate under a different set of rules as us,” he said. “In the 80s, Dan and Marion wanted to operate their own flight school out of a city hangar. The commission said no. They told them it would be unfair to link city property to a private business because that would incite competition between the city and other private enterprises.”

Schoenlein added that while he welcomes competitors in the mechanic and flight school fields, he believes this deal between Mangon and the commission would be a breach of ethics.

At the April 2 airport commission meeting, Dan Smith, who began serving on the commission in 1978 and advised consecutive commissions after his 8-year term expired, defended the lease agreement.

“This letter that Gary Schoenlein sent explaining that Dan and Marion were denied city space is absolutely untrue,” he said “When they wanted to move their flight school before their facilities were built, we hosted their business in a city hangar on the commercial side of the airport.”

(Contact William Rohrs at william.rohrs@argus couri er.com.)