A meeting of the four local government partners of Vicksburg Tallulah Regional Airport scheduled for Wednesday has been canceled, airport and executive officials said late Friday.

Though the facility remains open for mostly private air traffic, postponement of the meeting cast further doubt on where the facility at Mound will receive funding past this fiscal year.

VTR general manager Randy Woods said e-mails sent to VTR offices this week from Benny Terrell, the Vicksburg appointee to the airport’s five-member advisory board and its chairman, confirmed Mayor Laurence Leyens had asked the meeting be canceled based on conversations with Tallulah Mayor Eddie Beckwith.

Instead, Beckwith said, he will talk with aviation officials with the Louisiana Department of Transportation and Development this week about the 25-year pact between the airport’s owners, set to expire Dec. 12.

“I will notify all the owners at that time,” Beckwith said. 

Leyens, who had criticized the direction of the regional airport 18 months ago when the partners last met, said the request was a reaction to recent actions by VTR to direct board counsel Edwin Moberley to rewrite the current agreement without first consulting the controlling entities.

“The board has its own agenda,” Leyens said. “We need to have a meeting so we can discuss the economic impact to all the owners and make some decisions.”

News of the canceled session is the latest in a string of developments since grant funding was restored to Vicksburg Municipal Airport on U.S. 61 South in December 2007.

In the past few weeks, Leyens and both aldermen voted to remove the city from its VTR obligation and voiced a desire to shorten the agreement to 10 years, which FAA officials have indicated is inconsistent with grant eligibility rules stipulating 20-year agreements.

Control of spending and operations was removed from the Vicksburg airport’s advisory board, while keeping its members available for input. A 20-year plan is under study by Birmingham-based Excel Aviation Consulting Service, which was hired by the city earlier this month to help find a full-time manager and secure federal grants, among other goals.

More than $1.5 million in grants are in place to upgrade the airport, built in 1950. The bulk of it is Katrina-related disaster recovery money awarded in April, aimed at remodeling the terminal and building a new fire station. This week, another $262,206 was announced to allow the city to cut trees and brush on 19 acres just north of the 5,000-foot runway to expand landing and takeoff space.

Meanwhile, about $4 million is being spent at VTR as part of a continuing upgrade. This phase is adding a parallel taxiway and instrument landing system. Almost all the financing on that project will be federally-funded, with a 5-percent match by LDOTD.

Vicksburg became a one-fourth partner with Madison Parish, Tallulah and Warren County in 1983 to build VTR at Mound, using a $6 million FAA grant. When VTR opened in 1993, it replaced Vicksburg Municipal as the FAA designated airport for the area. The federal agency maintained that position until a one-paragraph letter arrived at City Hall, announcing Vicksburg Municipal was again eligible for grants.

Each partner has paid about $30,000 in annual subsidies to fund non-capital, basic operations at VTR. Its advisory board is made up of members appointed by each of the four owners, plus one position that rotates between Warren County and Madison Parish.

Legal battles in the late 1990s between industrialists who favor Vicksburg Muncipal staved off its closing, which loomed again with a 2002 Mississippi Supreme Court ruling allowing the city to do so. The city decided to keep it open, establishing an advisory board in 2005 which, until this month, oversaw its budget.

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Contact Danny Barrett Jr. at dbarrett@vicksburgpost.com.