Collingwood councillors met as the strategic initiatives committee on Tuesday to discuss the sale of the airport in camera.
They came back to an open meeting where they had a recorded vote to authorize the chief administrative officer to finalize the negotiations for the sale of the airport.
Deputy Mayor Brian Saunderson, Couns. Mike Edwards, Tim Fryer and Cam Ecclestone voted in favour of finalizing the negotiations, while Couns. Deb Doherty and Kevin Lloyd voted against.
Mayor Sandra Cooper declared a conflict of interest in the matter and did not participate in the discussion or the subsequent vote.
CAO Fareed Amin said the negotiation is “getting down to short strokes.”
Council voted to start negotiation with the highest-ranked bidder at a June 25 meeting. Tonight’s meeting was to go over some of the items brought up by the bidder in a “counter-proposal.”
Amin said he needed council to weigh in on some of those items.
“We’re hoping we can conclude this in a few weeks,” said Amin.
This decision and an accompanying staff report will go to council for the next meeting, July 23. The staff report was yet publicly available following the July 17 meeting.
The Collingwood Regional Airport is owned by the Town of Collingwood, but located in Clearview Township. Until recently, surrounding municipalities of Clearview Township and Wasaga Beach helped fund the airport’s operational costs, but have since stopped contributing to the annual budget.
The airport is situated on 392 acres of land on the Sixth Line. The facilities include a town-owned maintenance building and a public terminal with a restaurant.
The town announced in September last year it planned to work toward the sale of the airport. In February of this year, a report went to council detailing the five phases of the sale process.
Clearview Township placed a bid to buy the airport at that time.
The bid process was closed and there are no public details on who else submitted a bid or who is the top-ranked bidder in the process, and the town and consultants have been in negotiations with them since a council motion to proceed was made June 25.
The bidding and sale process has been overseen by consultant Ernst and Young, at a price tag of $93,850.
