Chattanooga state-appointed airport board withdraws from lawsuit

A state-appointed airport board in Chattanooga voted Thursday to withdraw from a city lawsuit filed to avert a state takeover.

The Chattanooga Times Free Press reported that five of nine board members present at a meeting voted unanimously to pull out of a lawsuit in which the city of Chattanooga and the previous locally-appointed board sued to prevent a state-appointed board from taking over operations at the airport.

The locally-appointed Chattanooga airport board remains the only one recognized by the Federal Aviation Administration until it makes a final decision by July 27 or later, according to spokesperson Brooke Satterfield.

The legislature passed a bill this year giving the governor and Senate and House speakers the majority of appointments to airport boards that oversee the airports in Nashville, Memphis, Chattanooga, Knoxville and Tri-Cities. The legislation came after courts ruled a previous state effort to take over appointments to the Nashville airport authority was unconstitutional.

Three seats on the new Chattanooga board are vacant because city officials declined to make appointments, according to the report.

Cempa Community Care CEO Shannon Burger, who was selected to chair the new board, said afterward the decision to withdraw was designed to save the airport money on litigation since courts had put no hold on the new law.

The city-appointed Chattanooga and Nashville airport boards were to be vacated July 1 and replaced by state-appointed boards, based on the new law.

Metro Nashville is pursuing its lawsuit to maintain control over the airport, recently suing the Federal Aviation Administration in the U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in the District of Columbia, claiming its failure to act on Metro’s lawsuit was “arbitrary and capricious and contrary to the law.”

Metro Nashville’s state-appointed board voted recently to withdraw the Metro Nashville Airport Authority from the lawsuit filed by Metro Nashville and its Metro-appointed board in June.

The state board contends no court stopped the law from taking effect July 1, making it “presumptively constitutional and legally operational,” according to a filing in U.S. District Court.

Metro argued, though, that the new board has no authority because federal law prevents the Federal Aviation Administration from recognizing it until the legal dispute over changing “sponsorship” of the airport is resolved, according to Metro Nashville Legal Director Wally Dietz.