LAKE CLEAR — The town of Harrietstown is being sued by an aviation business, which closed shop at the town-owned Adirondack Regional Airport in July after its lease expired. The businesses is accusing the town of retaliation, breaching lease agreements and alleging a “reign of terror” by Airport Manager Corey Hurwitch.

The company, Go Aviation, is accusing the town of retaliating against it and its employees after a 2020 claim and settlement in which a former airport employee, who is married to a former Go Aviation employee, accused airport staff of sexually harassing her and the airport of wrongfully discharging her.

This new lawsuit, filed with the state Supreme Court in Franklin County on Dec. 5 through Go Aviation’s attorneys with Centolella Law, requests a jury trial.

Town Supervisor Jordanna Mallach, who is named alongside the town in the lawsuit, said the town has contracted with the Clifton Park-based law firm Johnson and Laws, but she had not been personally served with the lawsuit yet.

Town representatives — Mallach and Hurwitch — are declining to comment on the lawsuit and its allegations at this time, at the direction of their attorney April Laws. Laws, the managing partner and co-owner of Johnson and Laws, said the claims made in Go Aviation’s lawsuit against the town are “defensible.”

“The town is going to defend these claims,” she said on Friday. “We find that these claims are written to be salacious. We find that these claims are not based in fact. And we plan to show, during the course of the litigation of this case, that the town did nothing wrong and the town’s employees did nothing wrong.”

There are lot of allegations in the lawsuit. Whether these allegations are true is up to a court to decide.

“You are looking at the allegations from one party,” Laws said. “You have not seen any response from us. One will be forthcoming.”

She said the town will begin working on its response after papers are served.

Go Aviation is seeking damages from the town for loss of revenue they’ve estimated at $4.29 million, plus costs of the trial.

According to the lawsuit, the company and airport’s relationship had been “cordial” up until 2020, when it “soured” following the employee’s claim.

“After the embarrassing findings, Hurwitch began a retaliatory campaign to remove Go Aviation from the Adirondack Regional Airport,” Go Aviation President Michael Klein wrote in a statement.

He accused the town of “weaponizing its authority to damage Go Aviation’s business and reputation,” accusing the town of illegally breaching the lease and removing their business from the airport when it “failed” to renew their lease.

The Potsdam-based company had been at the airport since 2013. It leased a hangar at the airport, where it supplied aircraft charter, management and maintenance services to customers including Cape Air, New York State Police’s Aviation Unit, regional airlines and private fliers.

“They were the only provider of these services in the region,” Klein said in a statement. “These services are no longer provided on site at the airport causing economic harm to the airport and, ultimately, the taxpayers of Harrietstown.”

Since then, Klein said he has moved from Saranac Lake to Maine and is looking for a place to operate his business.

Go Aviation had been leasing an 80-by-80-foot hangar for $1,800 a month. The lease was renewed in 2016 for two years with an additional five year term.

In a letter listed as an exhibit in a notice of claim notifying the town of Go Aviation’s intent to sue, which was filed in June, Klein states that he sought relief from Mallach in March 2022 but says she did not respond to his requests.

Mallach returned from a deployment overseas in March 2022, after being elected while stationed in Kosovo in November 2021.

In the letter, Klein says Go Aviation planned to expand operations at SLK, but said “we cannot move forward with these plans until the current climate at the airport changes.” He warned Mallach of the potential for a lawsuit. Go Aviation leadership began attending town board meetings, seeking to renegotiate the lease, the lawsuit states. Eventually, the town chose not to renew the lease.

On April 30, 2023 the court filing shows a letter from the town attorney saying it would not renew the lease when it expired on July 31, 2023.

The lawsuit claims this decision was “based on a false claim that ‘Go Aviation’s possession/use of the premises does not represent the most productive, best and secure use thereof.'”

The town stated it wanted to open the hangar to transient aircraft.

The lawsuit claims this was done “without a rational or reasonable basis” as their lease already allowed the town to store transient aircraft in this hangar, which it has. The lawsuit claims this decision to not renew the lease was “arbitrary and capricious.”

–

Sexual harassment and termination claim

–

Rebecca Huffman filed a complaint with the state Division of Human Rights in 2020 claiming she was sexually harassed by airport staff and unfairly dismissed.

“After investigation, the Division found that there was probable cause to believe that the Respondents had engaged in unlawful discrimination,” according to a document signed by then-interim commissioner of the DHR Jonathan Smith obtained by the Enterprise.

The town reached a settlement with Huffman in 2021, Smith said, and she discontinued her claim after that.

Her husband, Tyler, was a “senior” Go Aviation employee at the time. He no longer works with the company.

–

Accusations against Hurwitch

–

The lawsuit accuses Hurwitch of enacting “predatory” fines, fining Go Aviation for lease breaches they dispute and claim were outside his power without board approval. These fines relate to the installation of internet cables and parking of vehicles.

“For example, Mr. Hurwitz sought to enforce fines solely against Go Aviation for company owned vehicles parked at the leasehold space while other tenants or entities stored personal vehicles, including a fleet of boats, in multiple locations across the airport,” the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit says the fines are for $40 a day of violation since the start of 2022 and that they have no intention of paying them.

The lawsuit also accuses the town of outbidding Go Aviation for a hangar with taxpayer money.

Goesser Aviation Inc. leased a hangar from the town. Its lease gave the town the right of first refusal to purchase any structure GAI built on this land. Go Aviation began leasing a hangar from GAI in January 2021, according to the lawsuit. It says GAI agreed to sell this land to Go Aviation in May 2021 and they agreed on a price of $95,000.

The lawsuit claims when GAI owner Lutz Goesser told Hurwitch about this plan in August 2021, he allegedly told Goesser to sell it to “Anyone but Go.” Klein does not have documentation of this, he said, and it is based Goesser’s recollection of a conversation.

The lawsuit said the town exercised its right of first refusal, preventing Go Aviation from purchasing the hangar.

“This ensured no location would be available at the airport for Go Aviation to continue offering services,” the lawsuit states.

Mallach said the town paid $125,000 for the hangar in August, 2022.

“It will take 69.8 years for the taxpayers to recover their investment (not including interest),” the lawsuit claims.

The lawsuit also includes numerous other smaller complaints of retaliation and withholding services “maliciously.” This includes restrictions on land use and allegations that Go Aviation’s hangar was “purposely left unplowed” after storms in 2022, leading to important flights and deliveries being missed, losing the company money and damaging its reputation.

The lawsuit claims Go Aviation was the largest purchaser of fuel at the airport until its fuel discount was revoked “unilaterally and without sufficient justification” — after a loss of 50 gallons of fuel it blames on an airport employee not securing a cap tight enough. It says Go Aviation began going elsewhere for fuel, leading to a $324,000 reduction of airport revenues.

The lawsuit accuses the town of negligent supervision or Hurwitch, that town officials were informed of Go Aviation’s complaints and allegedly took no steps to investigate or correct the behavior.

The case has not been assigned to a judge yet, according to the county clerk’s office.