(a) Authorization; Ordinance or Resolution Commissioners; Removal of Commissioners.

(1) Any municipality may, by ordinance if a city or town, or by resolution if a county, create a municipal airport authority, which shall be authorized to exercise its functions upon the appointment and qualification of the first commissioners of the authority, and the issuance of a certificate of incorporation by the secretary of state. Upon adoption of an ordinance or resolution, whichever is applicable, creating a municipal airport authority, the governing body of the municipality shall, pursuant to the ordinance or resolution, appoint at least five (5) and no more than eleven (11) persons as commissioners of the authority. The commissioners who are first appointed shall be designated to serve for terms of one (1), two (2), three (3), four (4), and five (5) years, respectively, but thereafter, each commissioner shall be appointed by the governing body of the municipality for a term of five (5) years, except that vacancies occurring otherwise than by the expiration of terms shall be filled by the governing body of the municipality for the unexpired term, in the same manner as the original appointments.

(2) The governing body of the municipality or the county may, by a two-thirds (⅔) vote of the governing body upon written charges and after a public hearing, remove any or all of the commissioners of the authority for incompetency, failure or neglect to perform the duties required by law, malfeasance, misfeasance, misconduct or corruption in office or for any other good and sufficient reason. If removed, a vacancy shall exist on the authority of the commissioner or commissioners so removed and the vacancy shall be filled by the governing body for the unexpired term in the same manner as in the case of the original appointment.

(b) Application; Certificate; Corporate Existence.

(1) The commissioners of the airport authority shall present to the secretary of state an application signed by them, which shall set forth, without any detail other than mere recital:

(A) That the governing body of the municipality by ordinance or resolution created a municipal airport authority and thereafter appointed them as commissioners;

(B) The name and official residence of each of the commissioners, together with a certified copy of the appointment evidencing their right to office, the date and place of induction into and taking oath of office and that they desire the municipal airport authority to become a public body corporate and politic under this chapter;

(C) The term of office of each of the commissioners;

(D) The name that is proposed for the corporation; and

(E) The location of the principal office of the proposed corporation.

(2) The application shall be subscribed and sworn to by each of the commissioners before an officer authorized by the laws of the state to take and certify oaths, who shall certify upon the application that such officer personally knows the commissioners, and knows them to be the officers as appointed in the application, and that each subscribed and swore thereto in the officer's presence. The secretary of state shall examine the application and if the secretary of state finds that the name proposed for the corporation is not identical with that of a person or of any other corporation of this state, or so nearly similar as to lead to confusion and uncertainty, the secretary of state shall receive and file it and shall record it in an appropriate book of record in the secretary of state's office.

(3) When the application has been made, filed and recorded as provided in this subsection (b), the authority shall constitute a public body corporate and politic under the name proposed in the application. The secretary of state shall make and issue to the commissioners a certificate of incorporation pursuant to this chapter, under the seal of the state and shall record the certificate with the application.

(4) Upon receiving the certificate of incorporation, the commissioners shall cause the certificate to be placed of record in the register's office of the county in which the airport authority has its principal office.

(c) This section shall not apply to any county having a metropolitan form of government and having a population of more than one hundred thousand (100,000).

(d)

(1)

(A) The county legislative body of any county that has created a municipal airport authority where the commissioners of the airport authority have, without legal authority to do so in accordance with § 42-3-104, altered their certificate of authority filed with the secretary of state, referring to the municipal airport created pursuant to this section as a regional airport authority, shall have the authority, if the county legislative body determines that it is in the best interest of the county that the airport authority so created be dissolved, then upon adoption of a resolution by a two-thirds (⅔) vote of the county legislative body, the county mayor shall execute and file for record with the secretary of state a certificate of dissolution reciting those facts and declaring the authority to be dissolved. The resolution shall be read and passed upon two (2) separate readings at two (2) consecutive meetings in open session. At least thirty (30) days shall have elapsed between the first and second readings. Any resolution not so read and passed shall be null and void.

(B) The resolution dissolving the airport authority shall further provide whether the governing body of the municipality shall become the governing body to operate the airport.

(2) Upon filing the certificate, the authority shall be dissolved, and title to all funds and other properties of the authority at the time of the dissolution shall vest in and be delivered to the county to which this subsection (d) applies.

(3) If within twelve (12) months of the dissolution, the county by resolution, votes to create a new municipal airport authority in the manner provided in this part, any grants or funds that had been given to or received by the previous, now dissolved, authority for its operation shall not be forfeited but for purposes of the funds or grants, the new authority created under this subdivision (d)(3) shall be deemed to be the named recipient authority of the funds or grants unless otherwise provided by specific language in the funds or grants.