MIDDLETOWN, Ohio — The city of Middletown is asking a federal judge to enforce a lawsuit settlement that city council authorized in November but airport tenant Start Skydiving never signed.
City attorneys argue the company’s owners had a “change of heart” about the settlement, which included a 40-year lease extension and a new hangar worth up to $1.4 million.
“This is unacceptable; and renders the last year-and-a-half of negotiations leading to an agreement useless. The court should enforce the agreed-upon settlement,” said the city’s March 24 motion.
The settlement is politically sensitive because Mayor Nicole Condrey once worked for Start Skydiving and is bound by an ethics ruling that says she is “prohibited from participating” in discussions about its lease arrangements. The company has been fighting with the city over its lease terms since Condrey was elected in 2019.
Start Skydiving co-owner John Hart has filed three lawsuits since 2020, while the city sued to evict the company in 2021. In one case, the company alleged the city breached its 2009 lease for an airport hangar and violated its constitutional rights by “engaging in corporate espionage through the hacking and stealing of Start’s business data.” The city denied the allegations in a 2021 court filing that said Hart was upset about “losing the ability to run free” at the city-owned airport.
Hart did not return an email seeking comment.
The city’s latest court filing brings new details to light, including previous settlement talks in which Start Skydiving initially sought a 20-year lease renewal and $1.2 million in damages in December 2021. In the end, the city agreed to a 40-year lease with a hangar expansion worth up to $1.4 million.
But the company balked at signing because it wasn't convinced the hangar could be built for $1.4 million, the filing states.
In an affidavit, City Manager Paul Lolli said city attorneys “went through every line of the lease prepared by John and his attorneys” in a Sept. 26 meeting where he thought the parties struck a deal.
“We shook hands at the end of the meeting over the agreement,” Lolli said.
But as the deal approached a city council vote, Lolli said Hart sought changes that “made the settlement contingent upon the hangar addition not exceeding $1.4 million.”
Lolli said the city tried to solve that problem by seeking bids on Start Skydiving’s design for the new hangar, but the company never provided final plans for the building.
Hart "told me on March 9 that he no longer wanted to follow the agreement we had reached," Lolli said.
