And another means to attract visitors with $$ to the local area.
You mean the same visitors who whinge about spending $$ on a landing or usage fee?
No council I know runs the public toilets in the town park as a “commercial” venture or “business unit”.
And yet Temora charge a family $13 a time (or $605-$726 a year) to use the town swimming pool.
For some reason, many councils can’t see an aerodrome as being just another public facility which is of substantial intrinsic value without ‘generating fees’ or ‘breaking even’ as a ‘business unit’. Aerial fire fighting base. Aeromedical evacuation facility. Supplies can be flown in and out when the town is cut off by floods or fires. Courier and mail service hub. And another means to attract visitors with $$ to the local area.
Because for many councils they are none of those things. They are just high cost assets (liabilities) used directly or indirectly by very few of the ratepayers. Of any of those points, they may maintain the aerodrome for the aeromedical potential, but that is going to be a very infrequent use, and not something that they aren't going to try and offset some of the costs of 365 days a year maintenance to provide.