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Council Discusses Recent Federal Raid At Century Helicopter Business
January 23, 2008
The Century Town Council’s most heated discussion Tuesday night centered around the recent problems at Van Nevel Helicopters in the town’s industrial park
Van Nevel Helicopters was the focus of a federal raid January 9 when the U.S. Office of Transportation raided the business and seized the records of the business and its owner, Georges Van Nevel.
“He’s in a bind,” Mayor Freddie McCall, Sr. said. “He’s got major problems with the FAA (Federal Aviation Administration).”
“They didn’t shut him down,” McCall told the council. “They didn’t find anything wrong.”
City Clerk Dorothy Sims reported that Van Nevel is currently scheduled to make two payments per month for use of the town’s building in the industrial park. He is currently behind four months, or eight payments, she said, At $3,257.61 per payment. That would put the company $26,060.88 behind in payments to the town.
“How far are we going to let him get behind before we do something,” council member Henry Hawkins said. “We are going to have to put a stop to it somewhere.” He suggested that the council would not let other persons get that far behind on lease payments to the town before the town took eviction actions.
“We’ve got to have policies and procedures, and we have none,” Hawkins said. “I think he needs to go.”
“You don’t know anything about business, young man,” former mayor Benny Barnes (pictured above) told Hawkins from the audience. Barnes is the current director of the Century Chamber of Commerce. He was silenced by Council President Ann Brooks, who told him comments from the audience during the council’s regular meeting must be directed only at the council president.
McCall told the council that now that he is mayor he is in a position to know when the company misses a payment to the town.
“He deserves the opportunity to work it out,” Brooks said.
The mayor reported that the town owns the building outright; the building does not cost Century any money each month. The council took no action Tuesday on the Van Nevel Helicopter company.
During the public forum portion of the meeting, Barnes once again addressed the council.
“I am very concerned about jobs here, or the lack of them,” Barnes said. He said he hoped the council would continue to be lenient toward Van Nevel because despite repeated inspections by the FAA, Van Nevel had not been found to do anything wrong.
The raid at Van Nevel was first reported by North Escambia.com on January 9. For that story and pictures, click here. In that story, NorthEscambia.com reported:
“Van Nevel is suspected of improperly refurbishing helicopters and helicopter parts, selling unapproved aircraft parts, performing improper repairs on helicopters and misleading the aviation community by false advertisements,” according to federal documents from the Office of Transportation obtained by NorthEscambia.com.
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