Christian Maurer is running for the Santa Ynez Valley Airport Authority board of directors after fellow airport authority members nominated him by petition and the agency rescheduled its elections, following some debate about the airport’s voting bylaws.
“I thought it would be interesting to get more involved with day-to-day decision-making and future planning,” Maurer said. “By and large, it’s a great airport, but I think I can bring a different perspective, and I represent a demographic I’m not sure is represented.”
The airport authority is made up of 260 members and is led by a team of nine directors—four are users who have planes or lease hangars, and five are non-users who don’t have a direct stake in the airport. Maurer is running for one of the two non-user seats up for this year’s election, and he said he’s hoping to represent a younger demographic and increase community engagement.
“There’s an opportunity to communicate better with our membership and improve informational assets that we provide,” he said. “I think it’s easy to let things slip without an engaged membership behind you, I think that’s why we had this issue around the election.”
In the future, Maurer said he’d like to help facilitate adding more hangars, a mechanical shop, a small flight museum, and interactive elements for children.
“It’s good for us to have long-term ideas and cut through them with the circumstances we are working with and the resources we have,” he said.
Santa Ynez Airport pilot Robert Perry said he signed the petition to nominate Maurer because he said he wants to have a new voice on the board.
“I go to every meeting and listen to what’s going on, and I see them [the board] paddling this canoe in one direction and the others in the other direction,” Perry said. “They aren’t solving anything; they are just going around in circles.”
He hopes that Maurer can provide a viewpoint that will help the board have a vision for airport infrastructure improvements, and improve outreach to its members—which is what started issues with the election in the first place, Perry said.
In September, the board of directors voted to cancel this year’s election after they received no new candidate applications, but Perry said that’s because no one was notified that an election season was coming up.
“The authority does not communicate effectively with its membership and does not publicize the fact that there are elections,” he said. “When I found out no one had applied, I sent out a notice to the entire membership that if you wish to run, there are seats open.”
Maurer’s petition was filed 36 hours before the ballot deadline and he’s now included on the membership’s emailed ballots, which need to be submitted prior to the board’s rescheduled Nov. 3 meeting at 6 p.m., when new candidates will be announced.
“I just want to see the airport work well. I have not seen the authority work diligently to help it thrive,” Perry said.
The Sun reached out to board President Jourdi de Werd for comment, but he couldn’t be reached before the paper’s deadline.
This article appears in Oct 27 – Nov 3, 2022.
