ESCANABA, Mich. (WZMQ) – After announcing his resignation on December 3, the manager of the Delta County Airport is urging the Airport Advisory Board to make changes for the future.
Among several reasons Manager Robert Ranstadler gave for resigning, he cited a “fundamental disagreement” with some Airport Advisory Board members on their purpose.
“I felt at times that I was on an island, and it’s a struggle in this position trying to get a lot of stuff done,” Ranstadler told the board. “I think a lot of our former managers felt that way too, which would explain our high turnover rate at the management position.”
At Ranstadler’s request, the Advisory Board formed a subcommittee to reevaluate its bylaws last month. The subcommittee reported back to the full board on Monday, but its two members felt nothing needed to be changed.
“The more specific you get in your bylaws to an organization, the more that that organization is tied to those bylaws,” said subcommittee member Brad Reed.
Ranstadler previously said he wanted the Advisory Board to play a more active role by going to the County Board of Commissioners to advocate for airport needs. Ranstadler has frequently appeared before the County Board himself, and Commissioners Kelli Van Ginhoven and Matt Jensen sit on the Airport Advisory Board as Commission representatives.
“Say we change ourselves to the point we’re not an advisory board and we’re that actual board, and we make a determination that it’s not with the County,” Reed said. “We have our two commissioners that are trying to tell us what those problems are going to be instead of having the full board of commissioners review what we recommend.”
“If the board wants the commissioners to handle issues, fine,” said Van Ginhoven. “If the board prefers the airport manager to handle issues, fine. If the board prefers the board chair to handle issues and report to the Commission, that’s fine. It just needs to be clearly defined.”
Reed argued that those roles are clearly defined in the Advisory Board’s bylaws. After some discussion, the Advisory Board voted to only add a missing agenda item to the bylaws and list the two commissioners as part of the board.
Ranstadler still believes change is needed to create continuity and direction for the next airport manager.
“A lot of these issues—salary concerns, adding additional staff, especially budgetary issues—it’s not something that an airport manager, no matter how qualified that person might be, can unilaterality solve on their own,” he said. “It requires weight and support and teamwork and a body to be broadcasting these concerns to the County Board… I feel that every time I’ve brought up those concerns, we all agreed here that they were unfortunate, but it was just kind of like, ‘That’s the way it is.’ If we don’t have a meaningful way to advocate for change or ask the County or the public for that change, then how are we going to accomplish it?”
When he announced his resignation, Ranstadler stated that he intended to continue working at the airport through February 7 if possible.
