A lawsuit filed in federal court on Monday alleges the city of Burlington and Patrick Leahy Burlington International Airport officials “improperly retaliated” against a local helicopter company and its owner and violated his first amendment rights after he spoke out against the airport in local media reports.

Eric Chase, the owner of Mansfield Heliflight, a Milton, Vt.-based charter flight and aircraft repair company that owns and operates a fleet of helicopters, claims in his complaint that his company was punished after he criticized Beta Technologies’ expansion at the airport in the local news.

Beta, the electric aviation company founded in 2017, has rapidly expanded at the airport in recent years. The company in 2022 signed a 75-year lease with the airport, and in 2023 opened a 188,500-square-foot production facility in “The Valley,” the Burlington airport’s hub for general aviation.

But in 2021, other tenants in the Valley — including general aviation companies like charters, flight schools and private plane operators — complained that the city was showing “undue favoritism” towards Beta “in a manner that was going to displace (Mansfield Heliflight) and other general aviation companies” from the airport, Chase’s lawsuit alleges.

Chase criticized the airport in local media, and told VtDigger at the time that the airport had not consulted with him about its future plans.

In the spring of 2022, when Chase tried to renew a five-year lease at BTV, airport officials insisted that Mansfield Heliflight sign on to a non-disparagement agreement as a condition of renewal, attorneys representing Chase allege in the lawsuit.

“In other words, if (Mansfield Heliflight) wanted to remain at BTV, it needed to refrain from any further public criticism of the city’s policies and decisions regarding Beta Technologies and the airport,” the lawsuit reads.

When Chase refused, officials with the city and the airport “engaged in multiple and severe acts of retaliation designed to financially harm” Chase and his company and to “interfere with their use of the airport and to force” them off the airport, according to the lawsuit.

The lawsuit further alleges that because Chase refused to sign on to the non-disparagement clause, airport officials insisted on reducing the square footage allocated to Mansfield Heliflight in the lease renewal agreement. They also improperly increased their rent to “a rate higher than any rent paid by any existing tenant on the airport,” the lawsuit claims.

The federal complaint, filed in U.S. District Court in Burlington, names the city, the airport, NicLongo, BTV’s director of aviation, and David Carmen, the deputy director of aviation, as defendants.

Longo and Carmen did not respond to a request for comment. Joe Magee, the deputy chief of staff to Burlington Mayor Emma Mulvaney-Stanak, said the city could not comment on pending litigation.

Chase’s lease was eventually terminated in September 2022. The lease is the subject of a separate dispute filed against the city, airport and Beta in state court in 2022.  

The state court complaint, which alleges the city and airport breached their contract and reneged on a five-year lease renewal, remains underway in Vermont Superior Court. Attorneys representing Chase in that case did not respond to a voicemail seeking comment.

The fallout from the lease dispute, and what the lawsuit describes as the airport’s retaliation against Chase, “effectively destroyed” his company’s business operations at the airport, he alleges.

Roy Goldberg, one of three attorneys representing Chase in the federal suit, called the city’s behavior “outrageous.”

“It’s just not the way to run an airport, when you basically try to gag people for saying they don’t agree with a certain policy decision,” Goldberg said in an interview.

“This is a situation where you have the folks who are running the airport not playing by the rules they’re supposed to play by,” he said. 

Chase declined to comment through his attorney.