Right Rudder Aviation Lease Termination Update #4

The Citrus County BOCC voted yesterday 4-1 to uphold the lease termination of Right Rudder Aviation. The requires that Right Rudder vacate the airport property by June 30th.

Watch the video or read the transcription of it below to get the full details.

Short Version
To terminate a lease, the county is required to send a default letter to notify Right Rudder of failure to meet the lease requirements and provide 30 days to fix.

1) 141 Certification: County says Right Rudder needs 141 and needs to maintain it. Right Rudder claims the contract states they only needed to obtain it, not keep it. County sent default letter.

2) Subleases: County claims Right Rudder is required to get subleases approved by county. Right Rudder claims they have the right to manage the leases per their contract, but provided them regardless. Also provided them as early as March 2024 to no objection by the county until late 2024. Default letter sent November 2024

3) Management Issues: Commissioners claims Right Rudder is not doing a good job managing the airport and has received complaints about not answering phones. This is the first time this has come up in anything. No public records to support. Regardless, no default letter sent.

4) Security Issues: Commissioners claims Right Rudder is not properly securing the airport and many people have access to key codes for gate. Right Rudder claims that they are required to provide that access and the contract states the county can allow anyone to enter the property without Right Rudder approval. Again, not public records exist regarding this and no default letter sent.

5) Airbnb Issue: Commissioners claims Right Rudder was in violation of the lease for renting out an RV on Airbnb a few years ago. Someone ended up getting sick. Commissioners also mentioned this is a security risk. Right Rudder no longer offers the Airbnb and has not for a few years. No letter of default sent.

6) Private Event Issue: Commissioners cited an incident that occurred during a private event on the airport property in October 2023. They claim they did not know the event was taking place. Right Rudder notified the county at least twice (September 2023 and October 2023) and the county did not state they had any issues with hosting the event. No default letter sent.

7) Losing Business: Commissioners claim that Right Rudder drove off a large private business. Right Rudder has the right to lease out hangars/space at the airport according to their contract. As such, they should be able to determine who leases a space. No default letter sent.

8) Losing a business partner: Commissioners expressed problems with Right Rudder losing a business partner. As part of the RFQ, Right Rudder stated they would work with Eagle Vistas to provide services for the airport. The contract is only signed by Right Rudder. No default letter sent.

9) Want to see financials: Commissioner expressed they wanted to get the financials of the business running the airport. This is not in the current lease. Not sure why they feel they need to see the private financial data and yearly revenue from the FBO partner. County also leaked confidential financial information in the agenda packet that violated state records laws.

Full Transcription

**Important to note. This is a transcription of the video. The text references documents that are shared on the video but are not shown in the text. See video for those documents. There may be words/sentence structure that may be off as well. This is a transcription of the video and may not get everything perfect. Watch the video for full context**

Hey everyone, Curtiss Bryant here. It's Tuesday morning here in Crystal River. Yesterday, if you guys didn't see, the Citrus County Board of County Commissioners voted 4-1 to uphold the lease termination with Rright Rudder Aviation. We've been following this since the beginning when we first got the call from Andy. So I want to kind of update you guys on yesterday's meeting and what happened there. So let's jump into that. Here we go.

As I mentioned, yesterday they voted 4-1 to terminate. The four "yes" votes were Commissioner Bays, Barek, Davis, and Finnegan. The one "no" was Commissioner Kinnard. They voted 4-1 to ratify that termination letter. Now something to note with all of this, going forward, we're going to talk about some of the things that they mentioned in the meeting on why they cancelled his lease or upheld that termination letter. It's important to realize that in the lease, they have to do certain things to be able to terminate the lease early. One of those things is notifying him within 30 days, or giving him a 30-day notice to say "hey, these are the issues you have at the airport that we're contesting, and we have 30 days now to fix those issues going forward". They have to notify him to fix those issues, give him 30 days to address those.

Now let's jump into the issues that they mentioned yesterday at the meeting for reasons why they wanted to uphold the termination letter:

1. The 141 certificate. That was sent in a letter, so there's documentation there that they are contesting that.
2. The subleases. They were contesting the subleases that he's renting out the facilities there, leasing out hangars. They did send a letter for that one, so those are the two letters that they sent out.
3. Other issues that they mentioned:
   • No one was there to answer the phones.
   • Security with the airport gate codes.
   • An Airbnb issue.
   • Event issues, mentioning the Blessings Ball in 2023.
   • A large flight business was run off, which is Mesa Airlines.
   • Losing a business partner, which is Eagle Vistas.
   • They want to see the business financials.

We'll jump into each of these individually and kind of discuss some of those things.

The first thing is the 141 issue. If you're following along with this, there are emails that went from Todd Reagan, who is the aviation person in the county, to the aviation attorney, Chris Wilson, saying that they (the county) were notified that Right Rudder let the 141 lapse. These are emails saying that the lawyers are going to send the review. Please review this letter. Thank you for the follow-up. The review looks good. Go ahead and send it to Right Rudder Aviation as soon as possible. This is the default letter that was dated March 31st, 2025. So the county is noticing him on defaulting with the 141 certificate.

The attorney's from Right Rudder challenged this portion of it. They do admit that they had the 141 certificates. They do admit that the 141 certificate has since expired, so they no longer have it. The lawyers for Right Rudder Aviation sent a letter back saying that basically their lease agreement says that they were to obtain the 141 certificate within 18 months. It does not say that they have to maintain the 141 certificates. So their challenge is that... we had it. We didn't use it. It wasn't profitable for us. We no longer have to carry it because your lease does not require us to maintain the 141 certificate. Unlike the Crystal River Airport, it does give more information about their lease that they have to do certain things with the 141. But Right Rudder does not have that in their lease.

The second issue that they ran into that the county had sent in the letter for termination, is the subleases. This is that letter that went out saying they're in violation of Article 11, talking about that the county has to be notified of any subleases of the property, and the county has to approve of said subleases before they are executed.

The county is saying that they have to be notified that Andy or Right Rudder is leasing out the hangar spaces, and they have to approve those leases with the county. This letter is sent on November 4th. This first document, email, etc that I could find in all the public records requests that I did. This is the first time that I've seen that an issue with the subleases has been mentioned. Now maybe they talked about it on the phone, things like that, but I have not obviously seen any transcripts of phone records. This is the first email that I have found in public records talking about the subleases with the county on November 4th. There is a reply back saying that Todd was surprised by the sublease issue. As far as he knows, he doesn't have any subleases available for him to review. Chris is saying that he's able to send a cease and desist letter.

Now the interesting thing with this is this was brought up in November, like we mentioned. This is a screenshot of a text message from Alonda McCarty to Rebecca Bays. In this, she took a screenshot of Right Rudder Aviation's Facebook page. They were advertising hangar space for a commercial jet, I think it was. This text was sent, the text message below this was November 14th. Around the same time frame of the sublease letter, the November time frame is when this was sent to Rebecca Bays from Alonda. Maybe coincidentally, she sends this and then Todd also has issues with it. Or perhaps Alonda alerted Todd. There are some other messages and things like that not related to this. But in any case, this was sent out.

I just thought it was interesting in the timing of the challenging of the leases. On December 5th, Alonda texted Rebecca that she met with staff. Steve, I think was Steve Howard and Carlton is Todd's boss there in the county. This was a text "I met with Stephen and Carlton yesterday". This would have been December 4th that she had made that meeting with them. This text message was sent to Rebecca on December 5th. Now interesting here, early morning, December 5th, two individuals supposedly talked to Todd according to an email from Todd to Chris. One of them was Right Rudder Aviation. The other individual had inquired about parking a helicopter for which Andy quoted a rate of $199. However, they declined that offer.

Interesting thing here to note is that Alonda owns a company that specializes in helicopters that fly and trim trees. The text message said that she had met with staff the day before. This email from Todd then goes out to Chris, the aviation attorney, the next day... the day Rebecca Bays gets that text message from Alonda. Again, coincidentally, perhaps, but I think that Alonda had talked to Todd (or staff) because she is the one that runs a helicopter business. And then December 5th, this letter was advised to be sent to Right Rudder, again talking about their violation of Article 11 of the lease. This is the information that Todd is forwarding to the attorney to send to Andy for this.

Todd sent a follow up on December 10th. "Now that I have three people telling me there's renting space at the FBO hangar, wouldn't that be cease and desist? At least should be a notice of compliance. So I want to get your take on it."

Chris emails Todd back saying here are the documents for review. They could terminate the letter, terminate the contract. They could send Right Rudder notice of default. They opted to do the notice of default and Todd authorizes Chris to send that default letter.

The letter goes out to the attorneys for Right Rudder Aviation. They reply back questioning why they were receiving that letter. It says here in their lease, scope of services, section B, management of specified airport facilities, section F, lease premises under three, "FBO will manage and lease the hangars".

Right Rudder Aviation is challenging this letter saying that they have the right to manage and lease those hangars as noted in exhibit 1A. And we'll jump into that here in a second. Now March 7th comes along. I haven't seen any emails from that January response from the attorneys. Now we're in March. Chris goes back to Todd and says "Right Rudder says they're not in default of failure to obtain consents".

Now they're doing a fishing expedition. "Is there any reason why we can't keep digging? Any evidence the sublease has not been consented to? An aircraft that doesn't match the hangar lease"? Now they're looking for ways to get out of this lease or to say that he's in violation of the lease.

On March 5th, they're going back and forth again talking about the lease. This is the second letter to them from the attorneys. This is Right Rudder's attorneys sending back to the county. Again, challenging the section here talking about that they have the right to be able to do that. "In any event, my client wishes to resolve this and they have emerged between the county in that spirit without consenting to any allegations that my client has defaulted on the FBO lease. Please be advised that my client agrees to provide you copies of the leases no later than the close of March 12th".

What they're saying here is that they're not consenting that they violated the lease. They are saying that in spite of that, we are going to provide the leases anyway.

Here are the email attachments that go out to the county. The first one was sent on the March 13th date. These are some of the contracts that they have available there. There's a whole list of them. I didn't put them all in there.

Now important to go back to the lease agreement. This is where the attorneys for Right Rudder are challenging the county. Lease premises. This is in their lease. "Lease premises includes those facilities where the FBO will have use and enjoyment under the terms of a traditional lease. The following are the premises that will be included in the FBO's use. The FBO will manage and lease the hangars as noted on Exhibit 1A".

The contract is giving them the ability to manage and lease those hangar units. This is the map that was included. This is Exhibit 1A. You'll notice up here box hangars. So they have permission to lease those hangars. They have the dome hangar over here to lease out. These T hangars they can lease out and these dome hangars here. So those are all the hangars that they are managing and leasing out as part of their contract.

As we noted, those emails started going out to Right Rudder about the sublease issues December 2024, January 2025, February 2025, March 2025, somewhere in that time frame for those. Now, in March 2024, before any of this, about a year or so before the most recent letters and all of that, this is Charles' email to the county. This is one of the business partners for Right Rudder. I think he's the CFO at Right Rudder.

He is reaching out to Todd to talk about their updating hangar leases at the Inverness Airport. "Can you confirm the necessary limits in wording for the tenant insurance requirements"? And then asking these specific things. They are being proactive. They're reaching out and saying, "hey, we're going to change our structure of the leases. Can you let us know what your insurance requirements are for the county?" This gets forwarded over to Mary, who is risk management, I believe. Mary sends an email back saying these are the liability requirements for your leases. Charles confirms that he did receive that and hopes everyone has a good weekend.

April 29th, 2024, "here is some more leases that we're sending out". They're finishing making new ones. They'll send it to risk for management for approval. So they are starting to send out those leases in April of 2024. So again, a year before the issues that we're seeing. "As promised, here's some more leases" that are being sent to Mary. I'm sorry, over the county. This is from Todd to Mary forwarding those leases. Mary confirms to Charles, thanks for sending the leases over to Inverness Airport. She's asking for their insurance certificates. He's saying that a lot of them are month to month. They're talking about here adding some more tenant leases for different things. They're following up to see if there's any more leases to send out. They attach the air methods lease. Again, we're still in April 2024.

This is Mary back to Charles. They're looking for more information about specific hangars. Did this person move? They're waiting for insurance on these things. Now the county maintains, this is from August of 24, the county maintains a spreadsheet of all of the leases and all the hangars and what insurance is there and all of that here. So there's a whole spreadsheet there. So again, they knew of all the leases prior to any issues with the leases. They've had them for six, eight, 10 months and they've never questioned once that these leases are not approved by the county. So they've had them in advance and then all of a sudden in November, after we saw that screenshot of the Facebook post that was sent from Alonda to Rebecca, all of a sudden that triggers a, this is an emergency situation, you're in violation of our lease. Just thought the timing on that was interesting.

Another issue that they jumped into, they said that no one is there to answer the phones. Commissioner Bays references an email that she received. Now I have not seen this email. Maybe it came in the batch of stuff that I haven't received yet so that I've asked for. So I haven't seen any email that complains about no one at the Right Rudder able to talk to people on the phone when this person called. Apparently they called several times. They had won a gift certificate or something about a glider and tried to get that scheduled and never got a hold of Right Rudder Aviation and apparently sent her an email to complain about that. Maybe it happened. Who knows? But regardless, the lease says "leasee shall furnish service on a fair, reasonable, non-discriminated basis to all users at the airport. Leasee shall furnish good, prompt, and efficient service adequate to meet the reasonable demands for its services at the airport".

Basically he has to run a prompt service, efficient service for people at the airport. So if he was not answering the phones, as alleged in that email Commissioner Bays had mentioned, then he would be potentially in violation of the lease. But again, we had talked about that in order to be in violation of the lease, you have to be provided 30 days to correct that issue before any termination was done. And importantly, they never notified him of this issue for that. There was never an email that I found that, hey, please do better service at your airport.

The next issue was airport security. We're going to jump a little bit into this one. So they questioned gate code access, some airboat fueling. I've got a couple videos to show you guys references on that.

Video. Commissioner Kinnard talking

"Doing what he's doing out there. I have since heard that would be concerning to me if I were a pilot and had a plane out there that I guess a number of airboaters in the county get their aviation fuel out there and actually have the gate code to go and do that. That was a concern to folks out there is that having others with that gate code is that something that's getting us sideways."

Video Carlton Hall talking

"It's possible. Part of the lease documents, Right Rudder has control of the security of the airport. They are the operator of the airport. So it is in their best interest to control who has codes and the entrance and exits of that airport is supposed to be monitored and controlled by them."

Commissioner Kinnard is bringing up a point that people have access to the airports. They have gate code access to refuel their airboats and all of that.

Commissioner Finegan talking

"I read everything that you read. My issue was a year ago, two years ago, whenever it was with safety and security. To me, breaking the lease was, as you had mentioned, with the gate codes, but also giving access to just Airbnb property. I'm not over that yet because that tells me something about the person that's running our airport when you're advertising secure property and there's no even potable water and people get sick for a few bucks. That concerns me gravely, especially in the state of affairs even currently right now within our country. If we don't have tight security at our airport, that is certainly a great risk."

She is questioning as well the airport security. She mentions an Airbnb thing, which we'll talk about in the next section. But again, she's questioning the security at the airports and people who have access to the airport facilities. I read everything.

Next video. Commissioner Davis talking.

"Thank you. Commissioner Finegan. That's also on my list. Everybody needs to remember that's a 5,000 foot runway, which puts it into TSA level security. When Crystal River gets to 5,000, they will also be at TSA level security, which that doesn't mean that we have magnetometers and things and conveyor belts to put your luggage through. It's not that. But the fence line must remain secure and we need to be very careful about those things."

All right, so she mentions again security and she mentions the fence line that needs to be secure and that as the 5,000 foot runway that there's more security, tight security that's needed for TSA and whatnot.

All right, it's important to note in his lease, number 16 of the things that he's supposed to provide services. There's a list of 21 services that he is to provide. Number 16 there is manage security gate access and cards for the main gates. I talked to him (Andy) about this. I am told that he has access to the gate codes and all of that and he's the one that manages. There's a list in his office of people who have access to all of that.

Now valid points about security, you know, maybe we need to have a secure facility. Maybe there's questions there regarding Right Rudder's lack of security or so to speak. They're questioning, you know, the airboats and people have access to that.

Now I also want to point out two separate sections in the lease that seem to be contradictory to him having the exclusive ability to maintain the security at the airports.

1. Section D says non-exclusive rights. It is not the intent of this agreement to grant the leasee, which is Right Rudder, the exclusive rights to provide any and or all of services of all services described in this article at any time during the term of this agreement. Leassor, which is the county, reserves the rights at its sole discretion to grant other certain rights and privileges upon the airport which are identical in parts or in whole to those granted to the leasee. So that means that the county is able to give permission to other people to do similar services or similar things or have similar access to the airports that Wright Rutter has. And he has no choice to dispute that, so they can get permission to people to access the airports.
2. Section A, use of airport facilities. Leasee shall be entitled in common with others so authorized to use all of the facilities and improvements of a public nature which are now or may hereafter be connected with or pertain to the airports, including the use of landing areas, runways, taxiways, navigational aids, terminal facilities, aircraft parking areas, and hangars designated by the leassor.
   
   So again, the county is able to give permission to other people. Access to the airport facilities and Right Rudder Aviation is not able to stop those. So if someone from the county or someone that the county authorizes goes to the airport and says, hey, I'm authorized to use this facility or I have permission from so-and-so, Andy cannot say no, you can't use the facility. They have to provide access to those people to the facility.
   
   Now, interesting here, Alonda pops up again. You'll notice a common theme with her behind the scenes working this. Alonda on May 15th of this year texts Rebecca Bays, "do you know the gate code for Inverness airports? Guess someone changed the lock". Rebecca says no, she's never had the code. And Alonda says it was changed like last week. So she is asking for the gate code from Rebecca. I guess previously she had permission to use the airport facilities.
   
   Now, interesting thing to note here, I checked with Andy. Andy told me that Alonda did not have any aircraft or anything at the airports. Again, she runs a helicopter business. He told me that he did not lease any space to her, that she does not have any space at the airport. Her helicopters or other aviation planes or whatnot that she may have are not at the airports. So why does she have an access code to the gates? Big question.
   
   Now she is working on a lease with the county for a commercial hangar that they're going to give her for her business, which will be a topic for a different day. But again, the county is able to give permission to people, whoever they want to give permission to access the airport. So if the argument there is that Andy is not keeping a secure airport, he's not being responsible for the security of the airport because people are coming in and out with gate codes, Andy's hands are tied. He can't tell people they cannot get a gate code. If they come and say they're authorized by the county, I guess he could follow up and see if there's permission for that. But the county is able to give that permission to whoever they want to give it to at any point in time. Andy cannot say no.
   
   Now commissioner Davis also mentioned the security with the fencing and all of that. Important to note here, there's a maintenance agreement in place with the Right Rudder Aviation lease and operating agreement that he has with the county. Basically saying that the county is responsible for the maintenance of the entire facility, the external maintenance of the buildings, mowing, you know, things of that nature. It falls on the county when there's an issue with the gate, for instance.
   
   Now I have this email next. This is September 2024. Andy sends an email to Todd saying the old FBO gate is stuck open. Todd replies back, "thanks for the heads up, Andy. I'm waiting for a part to fix that one too". I just picked this one particular email because it was somewhat recent. There's probably 30 or 40 different emails that I found throughout the duration of this lease in the public records request that there's different issues with the gates. Sometimes the gates are stuck open. Sometimes they're stuck closed. Sometimes the gate codes don't work. Sometimes the automation thing doesn't work. Some of the issues were at the hangar space that the Citrus County Sheriff's Office uses. The Sheriff's Office reached out to Andy. "Hey, our gate's not working. The gate is stuck open. The bathrooms are open." You know, things of that nature.
   
   There's countless issues that I've found in the public records similar to this one where Andy notifies Todd that there's an issue with the gates that he can't fix. Now again, because the county manages the property, the county is responsible for the maintenance of the property in the lease. Andy can't go fix that. So if there's a gate stuck open, Andy doesn't have the ability to fix that gate to close it. Again, you're charging him with security of a facility. You're blaming him for people having access to the facility. But when there's an issue, when there's a gate stuck open in this instance, he can't fix it. He has to go to county staff to fix it. In this email, Todd acknowledges that he got the heads up. They're still waiting for a part to fix another gate, apparently. How can you get mad at him for security if he's not able to fix those issues when they arise because he has to go through the county. And we all know the county does not do things very quickly. So again, this is an issue that they raised with the security. But again, there was never a default letter. There was never anything to notify him. "Hey, you're in violation of the lease because the airboat people have access to the fuel". So I don't know why they're questioning that portion of that because there was never an official document that says, hey, fix this. You have 30 days to fix it.
   
   But more importantly here, the county has a vested interest in fuel. So part of his lease is you'll see here that he has to pay a flowage fee of five cents per gallon of fuel that he sells. Now, airports sell fuel to the public for their planes and things of that nature. You heard Commissioner Kinnard mention that the airboaters use aviation fuel and that they have a code for that. But why would the county not want them to fuel at the airport facility? Why would the county not give the airboaters permission? Again, Andy can't stop them from getting permission. He can't tell them, no, they can't fuel up there because the county has a vested interest in selling fuel at the airport. So every time the airboaters go and buy fuel, the county gets five cents a gallon for those purchases. So something important to note there.
   
   Lets talk about the business that came up in the meeting. What happened here was Andy was renting a trailer, you know, pay Mesa's left. What's going on with that? Some people claimed that Andy chased them off. Other people claim that they didn't operate correctly and they were in violation of their lease with Andy. Who knows the issue there? But the claim was that he ran off a business from the airport. But again, in the contract, he has the right to manage the leases, manage the property and all of those things. So if he felt that somebody was not able to be there for whatever reason, he is able to make that decision for that. So the county is not tasked with managing that portion.
   
   They mentioned losing a business partner. Eagle Vista is no longer a partner. So in the documents that they filed as part of the RFQ, request for qualifications, when Andy applied for the FBO, he submitted a bunch of documents. In those documents, they had mentioned a partnership between Wright Rutter Aviation and Eagle's Vista. They were going to join a joint venture for the Inverness Airport. "None of them have filed bankruptcy. This allows to bring two successful complementary businesses together." and so on.
   
   They're talking about how they're going to work together to run the FBO in Inverness. They provide a corporate structure of what it's going to look like underneath the corporate umbrella of the Inverness Airport LLC. Right Rudder is going to manage the flight training, aircraft rental, Flaps Cafe, which is, I guess, a diner they were going to put in, on-demand charter, Part 135. Eagle Vista is going to manage the FBO operation, aircraft maintenance, flight training, and commercial spring as part of the contract. So they had two different things that they were going to do, but all under the corporate umbrella of the Inverness LLC.
   
   Now, important to note here that even though those were mentioned together in the solicitation or in the request for qualifications, the notice of award went to Right Rudder. So this is the notice of award going to Charles Lawson, Right Rudder Aviation. This is saying that they've been approved and authorized to execute the operation. The contract itself is with Right Rudder Aviation. You'll notice on here, Right Rudder Aviation does not mention Eagle Vista, does not mention any partnership that's required to Eagle Vista to be a part of this. It is explicitly with Right Rudder Aviation. Now, again, that issue, again, wasn't addressed. It was addressed at the meeting, but there was no termination letter or anything like that sent out or default letter notification. Be like, hey, you're in violation of your lease because, again, it was with Right Rudder for that.
   
   Now, another issue that they wanted to do is they wanted to see the financials. I believe it was Commissioner Bays kept pushing that they want to see financials. They want to see what the airport's making, want to see how much the individual business is making, all of that.
   
   So here's a video for that. Commissioner Bays talking.
   
   "We have some specifics. I think right now, as I understand it, his contract does not require him to provide financials. I would like to change that. I'd like to see financials, see what type of business we're running. I think these are assets of the taxpayers, and I think we have an obligation of the taxpayers to run them and have a stewardship of financial responsibility."
   
   All right, so you heard her mention that she feels that they need to send their financials for Right Rudder to the county because she wants to make sure that the county interests are protected and that they're running the county facilities and all those things. The issue I have with that is, again, it doesn't say it in the contract. But number two is, what does it matter what the financials of Right Rudder?
   
   Let's hypothetically say they're making $100 million a year. I don't know how much they're making. I'm assuming it's not nowhere near that much. But let's just say, you know, just for the heck of it, they're making $100 million a year.
   
   What does it matter to the county how much money that they are making at that facility? As long as the Right Rudder Aviation is doing their 21 things that they're required to do, providing the 10 hours a day service, providing the different things, the maintenance, the fueling, you know, all those things that they're contracted to do, as long as they are doing those things and providing that service to the county, they are maintaining the airport, they're doing all those things. What does it matter how much money they're making?
   
   Now, the motive might be for the commissioners to be like, "hey, you know, this is, you know, they're making $100 million a year. Why doesn't Citrus County make $100 million a year?" You know, take over the lease, things of that. So I can see that being a reason to try to push them out so that the county can take over those things. But we all know with governments, as soon as government takes over, things start to get way more expensive and usually cost tax dollars far more money if they were to run it themselves than it is for a third party to run it.
   
   As it is, from what I understand, the county isn't paying Right Rudder to maintain it. They're not paying for those services. They're not paying for those things. The county has to maintain it, you know, the mowing, the fences, the maintenance and things of that nature. But they're not paying to operate it. So there's a difference there. So what does it matter financially if the Right Rudder make $100 million or they're making $1 million? They might be losing $1,000, $10,000, $20,000, whatever the number is. What does it matter to the county as long as those services are being provided and as long as Right Rudder is in fulfilling their obligations to the county for that? So I thought that was kind of an odd request for her to be pushing for financials for that.
   
   Now, importantly, they do get some financial records. So in the contract, it says, Leasee shall provide monthly report to Leassor detailing fuel sales because, again, the county gets paid $0.05 per gallon of fuel that they sell. So Right Rudder Aviation sends them monthly fuel flow totals. This is how much they sold. This is the rate at which they charge the county or that they reimburse the county $0.05 per gallon. This is the total that was due. This is the check number there. They provide these spreadsheets. So these spreadsheets show you the overall amount of fuel that was sold, average transaction for the fuel. They are several pages long. I just screenshot it one page for this. And it shows you all the transactions for the fuel.
   
   The county has the fuel flow totals. So they know how much fuel that the Right Rudder Aviation is selling, which is part of their lease agreement that they are to provide because the county gets paid for that. But beyond that, I don't know why it matters to the county how much money they make, how much profit they make, how much money they lose, whatever that is. I don't see a reason for the county to know those things aside from wanting the detailed financials for them to decide if it's profitable to do it themselves.
   
   Now, importantly to note on this, during the public records request, I've noticed a couple things that were against the law. So I'm going to quote the law here for you. I'm going to make a whole separate video on this because I think this is a pretty big deal.
   
   So 2024 Florida statutes. This is regarding public records and what is exempt.
   
   "General exemptions from inspection or copying of public records." This particular thing, this letter C here is what we're going to hone in on here. "Any financial statement or other financial information necessary to verify the financial adequacy of the prospective bidder, which an agency requires a prospective bidder to submit in order to pre-qualify for bidding or for responding to a solicitation for a road or any other public works project that is exempt."
   
   Which means that any documents as part of the RFQ, if the companies are required to submit, hey, we want to see your corporate financials, we want to see your personal credit reports, things of that nature as part of the RFQ so that the county can look at it and be like, hey, they're qualified to run it or they're not qualified to run it based on that information. Any of those things that are acquired during the solicitation process are exempt from public records and cannot be disclosed to the public.
   
   I was reviewing the agenda items for this meeting on Tuesday, yesterday on Monday, and I noticed as I was going through them, I noticed that in the Right Rudder section, they included all of the personal financial details of the individuals and the financials for the companies. So clearly a violation of the law.
   
   Now I did email the county back and say, "hey, you guys are in violation of this law by including this information in there". And it was taken off of the previous or the subsequent when they re-updated it yesterday, I think it was. So for a week or so, all of that personal information was out there. I'll kind of show you what that looks like. So this was the packet that Right Rudder put together for the county. This says RFQ, this is the number for that. This is the documents that were included in that. Notice down here, other forms and document information starting on page 104.
   
   Now, I do have permission from Andy to share this information. I redacted all the details of it so I'm not sharing private personal information. I just wanted you guys to see what was included in that and why it was a violation of the law.So this is Andy Chan's credit reports. Again, I blacked everything out so you guys don't have access to that on there. But this was unredacted, posted online for the world to see in violation of the Florida law. So this was on there.
   
   Also included on there was the corporate profit and loss statements that Wright Rutter submitted. There were several years of these that were submitted. I just picked the 2017 portion of that to show you guys. Again, I redacted all the information on here. These were unredacted on the documents online. So clearly a violation of the law for that. And the county subsequently took that off once I challenged them on that.
   
   Beyond that, there was another issue with Crystal River. They posted Crystal River's personal financial information because Crystal River is required to provide financial documents as part of their contract because they pay their lease based on how much money they're making every month, every year, whatever it is. So they have to provide their bank statements and all of those things. Now, in the public records request, they did release that information. There was a link that was available that was open to the public, was not secured, that included all that financial details on there. Again, I made the Crystal Air Group aware of that and they agreed that they were not supposed to have that information in the public.
   
   So two big huge issues there with the county. I don't know where those are going to go, if there's lawsuits or anything like that. I have no idea. But I was given permission to share this information with you and these screenshots for that.
   
   Now, one thing that I found throughout all this is that there is Alonda again requesting financial details. She wants the publicly viewed fuel reports because she's trying to get a gauge on the financials. So I'm trying to figure out where all of this comes from and why the county's wanting financial data. And again, I keep coming back to Alonda with a lot of these things.
   
   So here's the report that gets to Alonda talking about the fuel flowage. Now this is Todd. With that information in hand, you can see a profit over $40,000 per month. So Todd is questioning or saying, hey, it's $40,000 per month profits. The county's only getting $0.05, which will be adjusted at a higher amount, respectively.
   
   So Todd is admitting that the county needs to get more money because, again, according to this, Andy is profiting $40,000 per month on fuel. Now I did talk to Andy about this. There's a lot of stuff that goes into this. We see it from a, hey, it's a $40,000 profit, but there's a lot of things behind the scenes. There's certifications, there's equipment, things of that nature. So just because it shows a profit on the sheet doesn't mean that it's necessarily a $40,000 profit per month. It could be less. Again, I don't know the details of that. But there is other costs associated with that that the county doesn't see. But again, they're saying that there's a $40,000 profit per month and that Todd is suggesting that the county needs to raise that because it seems absurd is what I'm getting from this.
   
   Now to further drive that point home, we have another text message from Alonda to Rebecca talking about the fuel flowage here. "So the million dollars with the jet fuel and the county only got $6,000." She's questioning how much jet fuel Andy's getting. So he sold a million dollars with the jet fuel, the county only got $6,000. So she's trying to figure out why the county's not getting enough. "Even at 100% markup, he netted $504,000". So she's questioning the amount of money that he's making with his fuel. "His students pay the rates that pay him per gallon, so he keeps it high because it benefits him". So she's saying that he's keeping high prices because he makes more profit.
   
   Again, I don't know why the county needs to be determined about how much profit a private business is making. I don't know if they seek out other businesses that use their property. I know the historical school in Hernando was given a 50-year lease at $1 per year, I believe it was, for a club recovery to run that. Are they asking for their financials as part of that agreement? I don't know. Do other places that use county property, Kayla's Coats I think might be one of them. Anyway, there's other non-profits that use the kind of facilities. Are they required to give the documentation of how much money that they are bringing in in donations and how much money is spent on staffing and things of thatnature? Are they required for those financials? Again, I don't know why the county has an issue with the financials if Andy's doing what he's supposed to be doing.
   
   Now I can see the questions on the fuel. Maybe if the fuel price is too high, maybe they're selling less fuel as a result because they can go other places for that. I don't know the answer to that. But again, it's kind of odd that they're questioning that. But the important thing to note in this is that the commissioner has asked if he was fulfilling all of his obligations.
   
   This is the video. Commissioners Bays talking:
   
   "But I know that maintenance is also required of the leases. What are the other terms of the lease? Are they being met?"
   
   Carlton Hall talking:
   
   "Well, there are 21 items that are required items and maintenance for so many hours a day, so many days a week is part of that. Actually having someone at the airport for 10 hours a day, seven days a week is part of that. There's a whole stipulation of required actions for the fuel farm. A lot of the other regulations that they handle on a day-to-day basis for us are outlined in that lease document. And are those being met? Currently, they are. I did notice just in the last few days going through some background information, when you go on Right Rudder's website, it doesn't mention that they're open 10 hours a day. It kind of mentions a nine to five, but it's possible that they have staff there for 10 hours a day."
   
   All right, so you can hear and see there, Carlton Hall said that Right Rudder is doing everything they're asked to do. He did question whether they're there for 10 hours a day like they're supposed to because the website said nine to five, but he did admit that maybe there's people there that they don't know about. Just because it says nine to five doesn't mean that they're not there for the 10 hours that they're supposed to be there, but he did admit that they were doing everything they're supposed to be doing with their contracts.
   
   So some more interesting thoughts here, some more things that kind of sparked my curiosity.
   
   Here's a video. Commissioner Bays talking:
   
   "I feel like at this point, we hired an attorney exactly for these purposes, and he's got us on the right track. We're going down the right road. If we want to go back to the table and negotiate with Andy, that's one thing. But I think the prudent course of action today is to ratify what the attorney put in front of us, and if we want to go back and renegotiate and find a path forward, great. But I just think there's a lot of tightening up in this."
   
   All right, so she is saying there that they hired an attorney, which is Chris Wilson. They hired him August 24. She's saying that he provided all these documents. He provided all of this information for us, that it's prudent for them to follow his advice basically to cancel this letter, to honor this letter and to cancel the contract with Right Rudder because it was given to them by Chris.
   
   Now, important to note there is that Chris was hired by the county. That is true. However, Chris is not tasked with digging in and finding things on his own. He is reporting to staff. He is given direction from staff. So anything that he does is directed from him by staff. That staff member is Todd, for whatever reason. They've given Todd the ability to go directly to the attorney. Again, Todd is the aviation person there. So Todd is the one that's driving the ship. Todd is the one that's directing Chris on all these things. So he's the one that tipped him off on the, hey, they're missing the 141. Hey, they're in violation of the leases. They're in violation of this. Please send this letter out. So all of these letters and all of these things here, they're all Todd telling Chris to do something. Yes, send that letter. Yes, do this.
   
   This isn't Chris going through and being like, hey, I found this when we're reviewing contracts. Or, hey, I think that Right Rudder's in violation of this. It's Todd going to the attorney, hey, Right Rudder's in violation, we think, because of this. Hey, send this letter out. We want you to do this. So staff is directing Chris on how to proceed and how to do these things. This isn't Chris sending stuff to the county and being like, hey, I found this. You guys should cancel this lease. This is my suggestion, things of that nature.
   
   Now, again, these are just letters. I've shared some of these before. I'm just showing the correspondence with Todd and them. Now there's going to be a letter here on March 3, 2025. It's important for this one because Chris is doing his lawyer thing. He's sending these documents out as directed by Todd.
   
   This is a status update that was sent out. On here it says discuss termination provisions of the lease, recommended next steps prior to termination, including prior to sending out a termination letter for that, his suggestion is: don't terminate the lease until we do these steps: Need to develop a transition plan for the management operation of Inverness Airports. Need to develop a financial plan inclusive of operational and management costs. Need analysis for what the county can afford given current and expected profits and losses once management is transitioned. Recommend reaching out to similarly situated airports for estimation of any unknown costs.
   
   He is saying that the county needs to have in place a transition plan. Once the FBO is gone, how is the county transitioning to management and operation of the airports? They need to develop a financial plan inclusive of operational and management costs. What is the plan going forward? They need an analysis of what Citrus County can afford.To me, we heard at the meeting that they were going to solicit this as an RFQ for another FBO.
   
   Based on this information that we see here and all the recommendations that the attorney is making, it sounds like to me that Citrus County wants to take over the management of the airports. They need to put a financial plan in place to cover the operational and management costs. They need an analysis of what the county can afford. How much is this going to cost the county? What is the expected profit and loss once the management is transitioned over to the county? And then they want them to reach out to similarly situated airports to get an estimation of any unknown costs to try to figure out things that they might be missing. So why would you do all of that if there were going to be an RFQ process to hire another company to manage all those things for you? Maybe there's going to be a company. They mentioned there's going to be an RFQ. We'll see in a couple weeks what happens with that when Andy is gone. But it looks like to me that they're setting up the steps for the county to take over that facility and run it.
   
   Now we can discuss whether that's a good idea or not. Again, I had mentioned that generally when a county takes over things or government takes over things, it's way more expensive for taxpayers. But we'll see what happens with all of that.
   
   But we still have some questions of things that need to be answered:
   
   1) Why is Denise Lynn not involved? Denise Lynn is the county attorney. Why is she not involved in any of these discussions? There was no email sent to her. Now if you remember correctly, back when they hired Chris on August 24, there was an email that went out to Todd from Denise saying that, hey, when you send documents out, please send them to my office as well so I can review them and be prepared for anything that happens. So there's a termination letter. There's some default letters that are sent out. Why is she not notified? Why is her office not notified of those letters going out? Because that's potential opening the county for potential litigation. Should Andy decide to sue the county for breach of contract or whatever, she would be involved in that conversation, right? So why is she not notified for that?
   
   2) Why is the county okay with the previous leases and not have an issue until late 2024? We talked about in this video how the county had all of the information for leases early 2024, March, April, May, June, July 2024. Those leases were sent to the county from Wright Rudder Aviation. I did not see any letters or any comments on anything until November, December of 2024 questioning the leases, questioning, hey, we have an issue with this contract that you have a sublease on. We have an issue with this contract. Why were none of those brought to attention prior to November, December? Again, good question.
   
   3) Why did the county ignore the May 14, 2025 letter? In that letter that was sent out from the attorneys for Right Rudder Aviation, they questioned some of the leases. They provided those leases. Hey, here's the lease information. Let us know if there's any issues. I didn't see any back and forth on some of those things. Now, they did reach out and say that there was an issue with one of the leases that was extending beyond Right Rudder's contracts with the county. But Right Rudder addressed a lot of those issues. They changed some of the contracts that were questioned. But for the most part, they ignored most of the other subleases. They never responded back. They never approved or denied any of them. But they're going to say that they're in defaults for that. So a question of why no issues prior to those things.
   
   4) The biggest question is: what is the plan with the airport once Wright Rudder leaves? Assuming they leave on June 30th, which is six days from now, who runs the airport? From my understanding, the county doesn't have the staffing, doesn't have the ability to do it on their own. I don't know what Wright Rudder is able to take with them when they leave. Do they take all the trucks and stuff that they purchased as part of that? I don't know those answers. But what is the plan with the county taking over those airports? What is the plan once Right Rudder leaves to run the airports? All those things. What's going to happen there? Again, the lawyer suggested a transition plan prior to termination. I never saw a transition plan prior to termination. I never saw a transition plan. I don't know. I've never seen a transition plan discussed. All the public records, I don't see any public records that say, hey, we're gonna do this, this, this, and this. No commissioners were involved in any of those discussions. I haven't seen any higher staff members involved in any of those discussions. So who knows what's gonna happen. But they need to have a plan in place in six days when Right Rudder is no longer there.
   
   So that's it for now. I've got some more videos coming up once some more public records requests come in. Again, I'm waiting on stuff. It's kind of dragged out a little bit, so I'm starting to push back and challenge some of the decisions that have been made with public records. So I'm gonna continue fighting that battle. But check back later. I will have a couple more videos coming up soon with more information that we dive into this issue. And I'm trying to share all the information that I gather for you guys so you guys are fully educated on the issues. So thank you. Thank you.