A lifelong aviation enthusiast who joined&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;in 2007, Curt came to&nbsp;the publication&nbsp;from the broadcast industry where he was a national science and technology television reporter and producer. He writes on the FBO field, aviation finance, and sustainable aviation and occasionally contributes to&nbsp;AIN&nbsp;sister publication&nbsp;Business Jet Traveler. Curt was a member of the AINtv reporting staff that won the 2008 Aerospace Journalist of the Year award for Best Airshow Daily. That same year, he was a finalist for another AJOYA award. He earned an AJOYA for Best Business Aviation Submission in 2018 and was a finalist in that category in 2021. He received the National Air Transportation Association’s&nbsp; Aviation Journalist Award in 2012 and won a Pegasus Sapphire Business Aviation Award for outstanding journalism in 2021.
Before joining AIN, Curt worked with&nbsp;Consumer Reports’ television division, CRTV, and for several local television news staffs. An honors graduate of the State University of New York at Stony Brook, he earned a master’s degree in broadcast journalism from Boston University in 1995. Curt lives in New York State with his wife and two young sons.

Senior Editor

Curt Epstein

When it was granted a 35-year lease to establish a new FBO at California’s Jacqueline Cochrane Regional Airport in 2015, charter and maintenance provider Desert Jet had little idea that the effort would result in a fight over an eviction notice. But that is the situation the company has been facing since April.

 


According to company founder and CEO Denise Wilson, the landlord, Riverside County and the Riverside County Economic Development Agency, filed an unlawful detaining procedure earlier this year against Desert Jet for failure to complete its FBO in the allotted period of time. Yet, she told AIN, progress was delayed solely as a result of hurdles that the county had put in place, virtually from the time the ink dried on the lease documents.

 


Even the lease offering itself, which came after years of applications, was oddly skewed. “We asked for a construction period to finish our project that was exactly the same as all of the other tenants on the airport, which is basically a four-year construction period,” said Wilson. “They would not give that to us.” Instead, in October 2015, the county offered her a non-negotiable “take it or leave it” option of one year to finish construction. Wilson, who had operated her jet charter business there since 2007 and opened an FAA Part 145 repair station in 2013, accepted it, despite a county representative telling her the county was facing pressure from her future competitors not to proceed with the deal.

 


Almost immediately, the then airport manager contacted Wilson with a problem that had been pointed out by one of the three competing FBOs at the airport. They were concerned that the construction project would force some taxiing aircraft to traverse a drainage swale on the airport property, on land that wasn’t even in Desert Jet Center’s leasehold. Until that point, the airport’s solution had been to simply cover the swale with heavy metal plates, which aircraft, including Desert Jet’s own charter fleet, crossed over without incident.

 


“The airport manager came to me and said if I wanted to be able to avoid delays…I needed to hire civil engineers and hire a contractor to correct this issue to the county’s satisfaction,” Wilson said, adding that despite her protests, she was told “this is a safety issue, we cannot go on with your project until this is done.” Indeed, the county’s planning department refused to approve Desert Jet’s site plan until the matter was remedied.

 


For the next several months, plans for the swale were bounced from the engineer, to the contractor, to the airport manager, to the county planning office, and back, each time with rejections and corrections, until Wilson finally demanded a meeting at the airport with all the parties involved. When the contractor issued a quote of $70,000, far above what the airport manager was willing to spend, the matter was swiftly ended with the decision to leave the metal plates in place. Desert Jet finally was given permission to submit its plans.

 


The next hurdle the company encountered was due to a dispute between the county and local utility companies Coachella Valley Water District and the Imperial Irrigation District over easements records. This prevented them from giving Desert Jet the information it needed for sewer and water hookups, according to Wilson. In early August 2016, the matter was resolved between the parties enough to provide the company with the data it required. The clock on the construction deadline continued to tick.

 


Desert Jet (Booths C6910, N2108) had already completed three of the four sub-phases in Phase I of its project, including the construction of a fuel farm with approach roads and containment area, grading the entire property, bringing in utilities, and establishing a temporary modular structure to begin offering FBO services. It also then ordered the steel for the terminal, which arrived in November. In all, the company had spent $1.6 million. According to the lease, the original deadline for construction had passed, but with all the delays, the company expected some leniency.

 


“I wasn’t concerned about it, because I saw that with every other construction project that got delayed outside of the control of the FBOs and tenants, that the county freely gave them construction-period extensions,” said Wilson. The company requested an extension from the county, which was granted, but the county didn't notify the company until January. The county’s legal representatives did not return AIN’s calls seeking further information about its decision.

 


Exacerbating the situation has been the revolving door for airport managers. Five people held the job between 2011 and November 2016, since which time the facility has been without a manager. According to Wilson, under its current structure, the position involves supervision of five airports, located up to three hours apart, plus managing the county’s annual airshow. TRM itself is located 150 miles from the county seat of Riverside.

 


“The problem with no airport manager is there’s nobody at the county that you can call and talk to,” explained Wilson. “I’ve tried to go through each board supervisor. They won’t take a meeting with me. Nobody in the county will take my phone calls or agree to meet with me.”

 


With the knowledge that the terminal facility would require nine months to complete, the company stopped construction until it could settle matters with the county and receive assurances to continue. The FBO continues to operate, and Wilson noted fuel sales at the airport increased by 12 percent since it opened.

 


Yet in April of this year, the eviction notice was served, despite no one from the county speaking with Wilson. She countered with an FAA Part 16 complaint against the county economic development agency, which has yet to be processed, and obtained depositions on the matter from several county representatives. On September 20, the county rescinded its detainer action, but sent Wilson a certified letter a week later stating that the company had 30 days to complete its construction or face new eviction proceedings. In response Wilson filed a federal 1983 complaint alleging her civil rights were violated by the county’s actions. She hopes to bring the county representatives to the negotiating table to talk, yet all her lawyer receives is the response of “she didn’t finish within her construction period.”

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