Kent Johnson is chairman of the Havana Regional Port District Board that owns the airport. And some folks think the business arrangement that has his son leasing land from the airport run by Johnson’s board isn’t proper.
In 2005, Johnson Farms was awarded the lease for $19,527 a year, which works out to $147 per acre for the company that has Kent Johnson as its majority shareholder. Johnson’s son signed lease papers in 2006. At least some lease payments were paid via checks written on a Johnson Farms account.
In 2010, the board invited new bids and received nine, including one from Johnson’s son. There was a vacancy on the three-seat board at the time. Johnson recused himself due to conflict-of-interest concerns in light of the bid submitted by his son. That left just one board member to consider bids, which was short of a quorum, and so none of the bids were considered. Instead, the lease between Johnson’s son and the port district board remained in place at the rate of $147 per acre, near the bottom of average lease prices of between $130 and $300 per acre in the region, depending on land quality and productivity, as reported by the Illinois Society of Professional Farm Managers and Rural Appraisers.
In 2013, the airport board again invited lease bids and received nine responses. At $228 per acre, a bid from Johnson’s son was the third highest. Nonetheless, he was awarded the lease after the two high bidders reportedly changed their minds and decided they didn’t want to farm the property, according to a story in the Mason County Democrat, a local newspaper run by Bob and Wendy Martin who rent a hangar at the airport.
The Martins went beyond exposing lease arrangements in the local newspaper. In 2013, the newspaper and Wendy Martin sued the port district, alleging an illegal sweetheart deal between the board and Johnson’s son. Johnson, the plaintiffs say, benefited either directly or indirectly from the lease. The newspaper was also concerned that the board had violated the state Open Meetings Act by awarding a lease to Johnson’s son outside of a public meeting. The district was dismissed as a defendant when it promised not to violate the Open Meetings Act in the future, but the Johnsons remain targets.
In the pending lawsuit, Martin asks that leases between Johnson’s son and the port district prior to 2013 be declared invalid and that the defendants return to the port district any income gained from leases with Johnson’s son. In court papers, Michael Mersot, attorney for Johnson, Johnson’s son and Johnson Farms, denies that the board chairman benefited financially from the lease between the airport and his son. Mersot also says that Martin, who alleges that hangar rents are higher than they should be owing to foregone income from sweetheart leases, has no personal interest or stake in the matter and so cannot sue.
The Martins aren’t the only ones who see something fishy. The state Department of Transportation received complaints about the lease from Mike Perkins, an airport user, in 2010 and 2012. The governor appoints the port district board, and so Perkins also complained to the state Office of the Executive Inspector General in 2010. More recently, Tom Galassi, another airport user, alleged an illegal sweetheart lease deal in a complaint this year to the inspector general, which responded with a short letter in June explaining that the inspector general has no jurisdiction.
Galassi says he can’t understand why no one in the government has done anything about the lease arrangements. He said that he’s been cutting grass and fixing up buildings for free at the airport for years, but is no longer volunteering his services.
“I don’t even want to go out there anymore,” Galassi says. “It’s wrong and everybody knows it’s wrong and nobody’s doing anything about it. It boggles my mind.”
Contact Bruce Rushton at [email protected].
