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Officials approve bid for airport upgrades
By Stephanie Salmons
Airport Authority members Oct. 14 unanimously approved a bid for the second phase of improvements at the airport.
Airport officials received three bids for the project, which will include improvements to the parking lot, two retention ponds and repair to ditches on neighboring property.
The project was awarded to the lowest bidder – MacKenzie Co. of Asheville – which bid $391,201 on the project.
The two other bids received were from WNC Paving, which bid $419,895 and Phillips and Jordan Inc., which bid $425,094.
The improvements include recommendations made by consultants W.K. Dickson after a geotechnical and slope-stability study done at the airport earlier this summer.
The projects will be paid for with grant money from the N.C. Department of Transportation’s Division of Aviation which administers federal aviation money.
County officials in September allocated $61,585 to the Airport Authority to serve as matching funds that would bring some four years worth of grant money – close to $600,000 – to the local airport.
Original cost estimates for the projects were around $600,000, but authority chairman Greg Hall said during a telephone interview Tuesday (Oct. 21) that those numbers were just estimates and Dickson official were “erring on the side of caution.”
Dickson’s David Peeler recommended that the authority award the contract to MacKenzie once two conditions were met: ascertain that the federal grant money has been received; and that the N.C. Department of Environmental and Natural Resources inspects and approves all projects and that review results in a permit, Peeler told The Herald Tuesday.
“The fortunate thing is bids came in good,” Peeler said during the Oct. 14 meeting, referring to the fact that the low bid was around $391,000, well below the estimated $600,000. “(The airport) has four or five years of entitlement money, so we have more than we actually need.” He added that not all of the federal money will be used on phase II of the airport improvements.
The leftover grant money, some $200,000, could then be used for other improvements at the airport, such as additional hangars or tree clearing, Peeler said.
Hall said Tuesday that the grant money is not allowed to be used for things such as the maintenance of the airport or for buying fuel.
“But we can use it for improvements or projects,” Hall said. “Everyone has wanted hangars, hopefully we’ll have some money left over that we can put toward hangars, or at least for the pads the hangars will sit on. In a financial situation like ours, we barely take in enough money to run the airport, but if we had another six to 10 hangars that we could rent out for $200 to $300 month, we’d probably be in the green at that point.”
Work on phase II is set to begin around Nov. 1.
The study and consequential improvements stem from a lawsuit filed nearly two years ago by adjacent landowners R.L. Ammons and Dewayne Pruett. Their complaints contend slope failure at the airport that sits atop Berry Ridge near Cullowhee is threatening their homes and property. Those suits name as defendants Jackson County and the Jackson County Airport Authority.
The lawsuits hinge on a landslide that occurred Aug. 22, 2005, when an isolated storm dumped massive rainfall on the Little Savannah watershed sending large amounts of mud onto the Ammons property. The same rain event triggered movement at an earlier slide on the Pruett property.
Hall also reported on a meeting held at the request of attorney Eric Ridenour of Sylva, who represents Ammons and Pruett.
In addition to Hall and Ridenour, authority attorney Doug Wilson of Asheville, Sharon Alexander, who represents the county in the suits, county manager and authority member Ken Westmoreland, Commissioners’ Chairman Brian McMahan as well as representatives from W.K. Dickson and Ed Hearn, a subcontractor of Dickson’s in charge of the geotechnical studies performed this summer, gathered to examine the properties.
“I am very encouraged by this because it’s the first step in a potential and possible resolution,” Hall said.
There were some differences of opinion between Ridenour and Hearn on some issues, Hall said, adding that “it was good to get everyone together trying to resolve this thing. At the end Eric Ridenour said ‘Sharon Alexander, I’ll call you,’ and so we don’t know anything past that. It was a great meeting, I thought.”
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