OGDEN — A company that leases ground at the Ogden-Hinckley Airport has filed a suit in federal court alleging that officials unconstitutionally cut an owner’s access to the corporate hangar, a dispute apparently growing out of ongoing conflict between the airport and some hangar owners.

BSJ Travel Inc. filed the case Monday in U.S. District Court, Salt Lake City, contending that Ogden City was retaliating against one of the litigants, BSJ Travel owner Doug Durbano, when it deactivated his airport security badge on about Sept. 10.

Durbano and several dozen other hangar owners sued the city last year over new airport management and development plans that included the city no longer automatically renewing ground leases. Under the new policies, airport officials began not renewing some long-standing hangar leases and demolishing some of the decades-old structures. The city said it needed to make better use of airport space to attract new business and boost the airport’s economic viability, but the hangar owners argued the lease moves were illegal government takings of private property.

In July this year, U.S. District Judge David Barlow dismissed that suit, saying the lease disputes were “garden variety” contract matters better addressed in the state district courts. Durbano and several hangar owners have appealed that ruling to the 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Denver.

The BSJ Travel complaint accuses city officials, including Airport Manager Bryant Garrett and City Attorney Gary Williams, with allegedly using the airport’s security and access badge system for unauthorized purposes. The badge system was set up as part of Transportation Security Administration protocols when commercial passenger flights were occurring in Ogden. TSA no longer is operating at the airport, according to the suit, because Allegiant and Avelo airlines ended their Ogden service last summer.

The suit alleges that officials are using the badge system for purposes outside the purview of TSA operations, “including, and especially, to penalize, coerce or retaliate against its ground lessors for matters unrelated to security.”

Durbano said that while his access was cut off, BSJ Travel Vice President Jared Brown’s badge recently was renewed. Durbano said in the suit that Williams told him in a phone conversation that the city expected Durbano to “comply with unrelated inspection demands” involving a different hangar “left over from a renter who had fled the airport for reasons of his own” after attempting to get a security badge a year ago.

Garrett, contacted Thursday, declined to discuss the disputes because of the ongoing litigation, referring questions to Stephen Noel, outside counsel, who has defended the city in the civil suits.

Noel said he could not respond to the BSJ suit in detail because he had just received it and was still reviewing the complaint, but he alluded to a pending inspection issue and said that depending on its outcome, the BSJ Travel-Durbano matter may soon be moot.

But the suit said Brown’s ease of security badge renewal compared to Durbano’s revealed an alleged unconstitutional denial of access for Durbano and potentially other lease litigants. The suit said Brown was told by officials that “BSJ qualified for the issuance of security badges under its lease and was otherwise in full compliance and apparently was not on the ‘bad guy’ list.” Brown had never sued Ogden, the suit said.

The badge denial “is tantamount to ill will or spite, or is done for the purpose of injuring plaintiff by bringing to bear the unbridled power of the governmental bureaucracy,” the suit said. Durbano said as a result, he has lost access to aircraft, other equipment and related property in the BSJ hangar.

The suit asks the federal court for an emergency injunction against the city.

Durbano and about a dozen other of the more than 70 hangar owners involved in the 2021 suit are participating in the appeal to the Denver court. But most other hangar owners and the Ogden Regional Airport Association decided not to join the appeal and instead will pursue state contract litigation, Ed McKenney, association president, said recently.

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