I found this in a search of the Albuquerque Journal Web site. This was published a couple of months before the order to stay off airport property.
Pilot unhappy with city taking over fuel sales
By Kevin Wilson / Clovis News Journal, N.M. (TNS)
Monday, August 8th, 2016 at 8:29am
ALBUQUERQUE, N.M. — Some pilots housing planes at Clovis Municipal Airport plan to buy their fuel elsewhere next week — not out of necessity, but because they’re upset that the city of Clovis is effectively taking over fuel sales from a private business.
The city plans to take over fuel operations from Blue Sky Aviation, with Monday the final day of a 60-day termination notice sent by the city on June 9.
The letter, sent from City Attorney David Richards, notes that Clovis Municipal Airport and the city have exclusive rights to sell fuel there.
“The city administration has chosen to exercise its exclusive … privilege to assume full control of these services 60 days from the date of this letter,” the letter reads. “This action is being instituted, in part, because of out of compliance equipment (tanks, self-service pump, and fuel trucks), service issues and achievement of self-sustainability for the airport.”
The letter notes the city also has an interest in purchasing Blue Sky’s building, along with any equipment “in current compliance with all applicable standards.”
City Manager Larry Fry directed questions on the matter to Richards. To Richards’ knowledge, the city does have employees trained to dispense fuel, and a pair of new fuel trucks housed at the airport are under lease.
Robert Thorn of Clovis, who has had a plane hangar at the airport since 2010, said he believes the city’s concerns are overblown and it just wants to profit off of the infrastructure and customer base Blue Sky built.
“My first concern,” Thorn said, “is that the city is coming in and taking a private business’ main source of income away from them, and then offers to buy the building from them after revoking its main way to make money. If I was one of the businesses on the airport, I’d be very concerned.”
Thorn added that it’s suspicious the city doesn’t have the money to build hangars with a wait list of 28, but has no problem finding money to purchase Blue Sky. He sent an email to the city commission and Mayor David Lansford on Monday requesting an investigation, and said Friday he hadn’t heard back from anybody.
An attempt to contact Blue Sky owner Ronald Byrd was unsuccessful. On Friday afternoon, Blue Sky Manager Carlos Arias said, “I’m going to show up to work and continue to serve our pilots,” and otherwise declined comment on the matter.
The commission had a pair of executive sessions Thursday — the first on property acquisition or disposal or personnel matters and the second on threatened litigation.
Richards said only the second executive session covered the airport, noting, “No legal action has been initiated; there is no tort claim.”