Five would be a better number, members of the Vicksburg Municipal Airport board decided Thursday – voting to ask the Mayor and Aldermen to reduce the panel’s membership by two.

Kimble Slaton, board president, said he decided to make the motion after speaking with Dr. Mark Stanley, a physician appointed to the panel but who had been unable to attend the last six meetings.

&#8220We’re going to ask Stanley to resign and ask him to be on an advisory council,” Slaton said. Such a council would be made up of airport users.

The board, created in August, to guide renewed and improved operations of the city’s airport on U.S. 61 South, has struggled with absenteeism that has led to the cancellation of three meetings this year.

Slaton, Don Brown, Jay Kilroy, Bobby Burks and Donald Cross were at Thursday’s meeting. A decrease in the number of board members would reduce from four to three the number required for a quorum.

Mayor Laurence Leyens told board members in February they should create an advisory council, so pilots can give suggestions and feedback to board members. Stanley is the only pilot on the board.

Board members decided not to appoint any one to the advisory council, but to leave it open to anyone interested.

Secretary Jay Kilroy said he will send out copies of the board’s meeting minutes and other information to anyone who would like to receive it. Kilroy said to e-mail airport@vicksburg.org to get on the board’s mailing list.

While Vicksburg has owned the airport for more than 50 years, a previous administration voted to close it in 1998 in favor of Vicksburg Tallulah Regional, completed in 1993 and operated in partnership with three other local governments. Years of litigation followed that vote with plaintiffs operating the airport under court order and eventually winning a state grant for $650,000 worth of improvements. The case ended with a ruling the city does have the power to close the airport, but the Mayor and Aldermen have decided to keep it in operation as more convenient to industries south of the city.

Both airports are almost completely self-supporting.

In other business the airport board: