Airport manager declines Tribune request for air service report

The manager of the Lewiston-Nez Perce County Regional Airport has declined a public records request from the Lewiston Tribune for recommendations from a firm hired to help the community save its commercial passenger flights.

The newspaper requested the information because it might shed light on the advice the airport was receiving in the months prior to an announcement that Horizon Air would end its Lewiston service in August.

The firm, Hubpoint Strategic Advisors, is based in Davidson, N.C., and was selected in August. It is being paid about $50,000 to help the Lewiston-Clarkston Valley craft its strategy for retaining and expanding air service.

At the end of March, Alaska Airlines, the parent company of Horizon Air, shared its plans to withdraw from Lewiston. Its flights to and from Seattle and Boise represent 60 percent of the commercial passenger traffic in Lewiston. Almost all of the remainder is through SkyWest, which goes to Salt Lake City.

In declining the Tribune's request, airport manager Stephanie Morgan cited a portion of Idaho law that exempts disclosure of trade secrets. But according to the Idaho Public Records Law Manual from the Idaho Attorney General's Office, "Agencies are prohibited from denying requests because a document contains both exempt and non-exempt information."

Morgan provided no documents in response to the Tribune's request submitted May 2. She instead referred the Tribune to a copy of a PowerPoint presentation from Hubpoint Strategic Advisors she shared at an airport board meeting in January, months before the records request had been submitted.

Her response was reviewed by attorney Tom Callery, who is serving as the airport board's legal counsel, Morgan said in an email relayed through Robin Turner, an airport employee and former airport manager who assists Morgan.

It is not clear how much of Hubpoint Strategic Advisors' work has been shared with present and former board members. Board members are allowed by Idaho law to review and discuss documents with trade secrets in executive sessions of meetings, according to the Idaho Open Meeting Law Manual.

"This is a matter that should be addressed by the newly reconstituted airport board," board member Jim Bennett said in an email.

"We will want the opportunity to review and discuss the strategic plan before its public release and to make sure that proprietary information is redacted," said Bennett, the only airport board member who responded to questions Wednesday.

"The community certainly needs to know what the plan for the airport is going forward. Please be patient," he said.

Idaho law gives public agencies three days to respond to records requests and allows them 10 more if they ask, according to the Idaho Public Records Manual. Morgan requested no extensions.

Hubpoint Strategic Advisors was helping the airport in the months that preceded the resignations of board members Jim Finley, Pat Nuxoll, Emmett McCormick and Bill McCann Jr.

Finley believes a more detailed version of the report exists than what was provided in the PowerPoint and said he pushed to see it when he was still on the board.

A summary may have been discussed in open session by the airport board in November or December where a handful of citizens and no reporters were present, Finley said.

Some information may have been distributed about the summary at the time, but it was collected after the meeting, Finley said.

"If it was discussed, it was discussed at a very high level and the board was told by Morgan she had been told by legal counsel it was confidential and not to discuss it anywhere openly outside of the room because ... other places that had discussed their studies had ended up losing their flights."

Nuxoll and McCann declined to comment. McCormick didn't respond to the Tribune.

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Williams may be contacted at ewilliam@lmtribune.com or (208) 848-2261.