FARMVILLE — Town council voted Wednesday night to hang up the municipal hangar’s career at the Farmville Regional Airport by tearing it down.

The decision was based on safety and liability concerns and includes formation of a committee of three council members and two pilots to consider how best to fill the looming hangar void.

The days of the hangar, condemned in 2008 but still in use, are literally numbered. Pilots with planes in the structure are being given 30 days notice to get them out. Four planes will be displaced by the decision, their owners needing to find alternate storage space, pilots said Wednesday night.

The decision, made after nearly an hour of discussion and debate, sometimes involving exchanges with pilots attending the meeting, came after Mayor Sydnor C. Newman, Jr. exercised his power of veto for only the second time in 16 years and then withdrew the veto when he became satisfied that the Town was serious about building new hangar space.

Mayor Newman’s veto momentarily overturned a unanimous vote to tear the hangar down. Had the veto stood, town council would have had to convene in five days to consider overturning the veto. After the mayor withdrew his veto, council re-voted and the decision to tear the hangar down was again unanimous.

Council member Dr. Edward I. Gordon had immediately questioned and challenged the mayor’s veto, arguing that it would maintain a liability, for which he was not going to accept personal responsibility, and delay construction of new and safe hangar space.

Dr. Gordon also told the mayor he believed Newman had a conflict. The mayor is a pilot and, as Dr. Gordon pointed out, the airport is named for the mayor—Newman Field.

The liability issue was a point of major concern. Town Attorney Donald C. Blessing told council members that because they knew a liability existed the Town’s vulnerability, should someone be injured or a plane damaged because of the hangar’s condition, was heightened.

The hangar’s roof was moved in the 1960s from the former airport just west of town to the present location in Cumberland and, after being left exposed to the weather, placed atop the hangar walls built at the regional airport over 40 years ago.

Town council took-off into the airport discussion before tackling its agenda items, at the suggestion of Town Manager Gerald Spates, who presented a detailed report on expenditures at the airport and the Town’s six-year plan for the facility (see next Wednesday’s Herald for a full story on that presentation).

Spates told council members that he had been told it would cost $150,000 to fix the hangar, still leaving the Town with an old building, while for the same cost a new hangar could be constructed.

“That was one of the things we’re looking at with that building,” Spates said, as the discussion began during council’s regular March meeting. “We can’t make a decision on what we’re going to put in there until we look at what it’s going to cost.”

Looking out at the pilots following his power point presentation on Town investment in the airport, Spates said, “I’ll be very honest with you and my recommendation to council on that building out there is that we tear the building down because it is a liability. We have been notified by the insurance company that looked at it that those doors are very dangerous. That it could decapitate somebody and quite frankly I don’t think I can recommend to council to allow that building to stay up.

“And we’re going to put something back (in its place). How quickly we put it back, I don’t know,” Spates said. “…There are several different options there. I’m just really concerned…I’m just worried about the liability on the part of the Town. My recommendation to council is that we tear the building down and give everybody 30 days notice, or 45 days notice to vacate the building and that we get a committee together, and we can get some people from the airport to meet with us and see what we can come up with. We’ve got a tremendous investment in that airport.”

A pilot in the audience told Spates that the airport community “welcomes the invitation” to participate in that discussion.

Town council was also told that pilots became concerned when there were rumors the hangar was going to be torn down without any replacement plans.

“Are we going to bring it up tonight whether to tear the building down?” asked Mayor Newman.

“I would like to ask council—I’m worried about liability,” Spates said, asking Blessing for advice, given the fact that the Town believes the building to be unsafe and knows it has been condemned for six years.

“My whole point is, what happens if that building (the municipal hangar) falls down?” Spates said. “It’s in bad shape.”

Mayor Newman asked, “If you take the building down do you have any idea that you can project when they will start construction of a new building?”

That is what the proposed committee would address, Spates replied.

“I can see we have to start with step one,” Dr. Gordon said, approaching his motion. “And step one is that we need to get that building down so I’d like to make a motion that we take the building down.”

Ward B’s Sally Thompson seconded the motion and Mayor Newman asked if there was any discussion about the motion.

Ward D council member Donald L. Hunter asked about a timeframe for tearing the hangar down.

Dr. Gordon amended his motion to give 30 days notice to pilots.

“All in favor of tearing the building down,” Mayor Newman said, calling for a vote that was unanimous.

“I’d like to veto that motion,” the mayor proclaimed immediately following the vote, “because I would like to go ahead and have a little bit more time to see what we can do (about a replacement hangar)…”

Dr. Gordon told the mayor “we’re going to go in a step-wise fashion. It’s up to you but by vetoing this we’re delaying what we’re going to be doing in the future. We want to get together with the pilots. We want to have another place. We want to get together and make everybody happy. But it’s still going to take that (the hangar) coming down. You have to take it down to put something up.”

“Step one is take it down,” Thompson said, with step two putting up a replacement.

“And we want to rapidly get into step two,” Dr. Gordon said. “I think that was clear today. By delaying this it’s creating more liability for the Town. I personally, if you’re going to veto it, will not accept any liability personally for this…We want to put up something new.”

Blessing, the Town’s legal counsel, then told council members that if the Town was not going to tear the building down he recommended they “try to do something to secure yourself from liability, such as requiring the building to be vacated and folks not be able to enter until the next decision has been made, whether it’s to tear it down or do something different, because as long as people are permitted to come and go…it’s a problem…probably a bigger problem now because we have knowledge and have not taken steps if we do not do anything to secure it to protect the users of the airport and people on the property from any potential…injury, from damage to their property or to themselves, or to even our folks (Town employees) going out there.”

Hunter pointed out that “it’s my understanding the building was condemned in 2008” and if the mayor vetoed the motion then, from a liability standpoint, he believed pilots would have to remove their planes immediately “because the liability is already there.”

Dr. Gordon then told Mayor Newman that “I just see this as a personal conflict of you, Mr. Mayor, in getting involved in a veto for an unrealistic reason…We want to get going on getting everybody a good hangar and keep us proud of what is there. By your vetoing it you are setting us backwards and increasing our liability. And I see a personal conflict, to begin with, so I’m not so sure your veto would stand, anyway, because of personal conflict, which I will make an issue of if you veto it because I think you are personally involved, it’s named after you and I think you’re doing a disservice to the town.”

After the mayor subsequently withdrew his veto, the motion was re-voted and passed unanimously.

Vice-mayor Armstead D. Reid then made a motion to form a committee, including the pilots, to address next steps.

Mayor Newman appointed council members, Tommy Pairet, Jamie Davis and Hunter, and pilots Morgan Dunnavant and Jim Wills.

Mayor Newman’s only other veto was on March 7, 2007, when he vetoed an appropriation to the YMCA.