DENMARK TOWNSHIP —  Local aircraft owners say the Ashtabula County Airport is unfriendly toward business and driving away customers, even as the authority prepares to spend $70,000 to develop a marketing and business plan.

Tony Debevc, an Ashtabula/ Lake county business owner who has kept his personal aircraft at the airport since the 1970s, said Board President Dwight Bowden and former president Dave Price, a board member, have become lightning rods for controversy at the county-owned facility. John Williams, president of Titan Aircraft in Austinburg agrees and said the men have run the airport into the ground while costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Debevc said the authority operates as a Gestapo that carefully selects members who will march to the president’s orders. The county commissioners appoint members to the nine-seat board, which has one vacancy.

“It’s time for a complete change of the board,” Debevc said.

Commissioner Peggy Carlo said she has heard complaints about how the airport is run, including that it is a “dictatorship” and that the authority “is forgetting who the airport belongs to.”

“There is a lot of grumbling out there,” she said.

Board President Daniel Claypool said he has been asked to set up a meeting among commissioners, the authority and concerned parties to talk about county airport operations. He said he wants to hear both sides of the issue before passing judgment.

Bowden, who was traveling outside the area Tuesday afternoon, said he was unaware of the call for his resignation but said if commissioners approach him about it, he will “take it under consideration.”

The harsh comments from users follow an incident on July 4, when an aerobatics pilot, Rob Holland, used a hangar at the airport to make a repair to his $300,000 aircraft with assistance from Williams’ employees. The airport was closed when Holland arrived, and Williams provided the access code to the hangar without the authority’s prior consent of the authority. Bowden said Holland’s presence was unauthorized and alerted the county prosecutor and sheriff to the incident.

Commissioner Joseph Moroski compared it to a citizen entering and using the garage at the Sheriff’s Department or Engineer’s Office simply because he is a taxpayer.

Holland paid the authority for the use of the hangar and purchased fuel from the facility. Until four days earlier, Titan had leased the hangar from the authority and, therefore, had the access code.

Ashtabula businessman Tom Miller leased a hangar at the airport for the past 20 years, but in June he pulled out and now keeps his aircraft at the Geauga County facility. He said a dispute over lease language drove his decision. After he left, no one from the Ashtabula County Airport contacted him to see what could be done to retain his business.

“They are not very user-friendly,” Miller said.

Joe Rich, a flight instructor who keeps his aircraft in one of the airport hangars, said he’s paying $222 a month, plus a $32 electric bill, and that the same hangar would be around $153 in Erie. He said he’d move his airplane from the county airport if there were another local option. Rich also criticized the airport’s lack of services for transient pilots, who often need a ride to a hotel or a place to eat.

“I’ve probably been in a hundred airports, and I’ve never had this poor of service as what I’ve had at our own airport,” Rich said.

The county airport is not staffed on weekends, when most recreational flying occurs. Recreational pilots say the lack of services is costing the county revenue and the unfriendly attitude of the authority is driving away business even as the authority is telling the commissioners it will need at least $100,000 from taxpayers this year.

Price said the authority must keep a close watch on expenses and can’t afford to staff the airport on weekends or after hours. Transient pilots can access a computer and a snack area by dialing a number and requesting an access code.

“We don’t have enough business on the weekends to support having people here,” Price said.