Hollister Council approves 30-year lease for Cal Fire's new base

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

Hollister Council approves 30-year lease for Cal Fire's new base

A Cal Fire plane drops retardant on the Summit Fire last year in the Santa Cruz Mountains. The new lease deal approved by council members Monday could keep the agency in Hollister for another three or four decades. Photo by: Free Lance file photo

By Kollin Kosmicki
The Hollister City Council on Monday night approved a 30-year lease agreement with Cal Fire so it can build a new air-attack base at the airport in a move ending a decade of negotiations with the state while likely keeping the agency here for the long term.

Council members approved the lease deal in a 4-1 vote, with Councilman Victor Gomez dissenting.

The new agreement calls for the 30-year term, a 10-year extension option for Cal Fire, annual base rent of about $80,000 and a Consumer Price Index-correlated increase every five years that is capped at 15 percent each adjustment period.

It does not kick in until Cal Fire completes the new air-attack base on nine acres near the current facility, while there is no required deadline in the lease attached to the state's construction or occupation of the base.

City Manager Clint Quilter said that portion of the deal was "important to them (the state)" but that it was "not that important to us." He said that's because the city has options to increase the current lease's rent or terminate it altogether as ways to "force them into a decision" on the new base.

"If it comes to having to force them into a decision whether to have that vacant or not vacant, we have the ability to do that," he said.

The council's airport advisory commission had noted the lacking time frame and other concerns in its deliberations over the lease deal. Commissioners also had expressed concerns with the CPI cap and a provision in the deal allowing much larger, federal aircraft to land there when needed.

Councilman Gomez today said he opposed the agreement because airport advisory commissioners had raised valid enough concerns to have the city "go back to the negotiating table" with Cal Fire. He pointed out how council members appoint airport commissioners to advise them on such matters.

"We were pretty much telling our airport advisory commission, 'Thank you for your input, but no thank you,'" Gomez said.

Source: Hollister Free Lance

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Tuesday, April 7, 2009