So I wrote a letter 10 days prior to the board meeting outlining the points I intended to bring up, mostly because I knew the storage hangars topic would be controversial and I didn't want to blind-side anyone. I asked that it be forwarded to the board members. Instead, it got stapled to the back of the agenda and handed to half of the 12 people that showed up for the meeting. I did get to speak my mind, which turned into a heated conversation between me and the mayor with a few interjections by the head of the board (his brother) trying to lighten things up. The other nine watched with horror, as most hadn't had time to read my comments and had no idea why we were scrapping. I was sternly warned that I shouldn't be making waves or "I would realize how good I had it", and that if I wanted to belong to an airport that followed "all" the rules, I should go to Idaho Falls. They admitted that the hangars should be used for airplanes and a few would be coming open, but weren't going to enforce the aviation use rule. At first they tried to say they'd ignore my outside stuff as well, but the mayor chastised his brother for it, pounding the table and insisting they "should do the right thing" by applying a double principle of ignoring the hangar storage issue but enforcing the outside storage rules
Finally, to move along, the guy with two hangars full of junk motioned that the contents inside of a hangar would remain at the discretion of the owner. The guy with one storage hangar seconded the motion, everyone else sat silently digesting the prior ten minutes, motion carried and they moved on to the next item of business. Anyway, the moral of the story is: Don't get into it with the mayor of a small town, you'll lose even if the rules favor your side. They're a pretty good bunch overall but I won't be getting into any business deals with them after that embarrassing show.
