Mineral County Airport Board begins FAA grant process

The Mineral County Airport Board was present at the Friday meeting of the Mineral County Commissioners meeting to receive approval on an engineering firm.

Approval of the firm is the first step in the current Federal Aviation Administration grant process that, if received, will provide the airport with funds needed to keep the airports goal of being self-sustainable going.

“We are little behind and trying to catch up with the FAA grant cycle,” Steve Temple, Airport Board member, said. “After our last briefing we indicated the airport board was going to seek qualifications from engineers to look at obtaining future engineer services. It is actually required by the FAA that we go out and solicit proposals.”

Temple added that four firms responded with proposals and the airport board was on hand to walk the commissioners through those proposals in order to make the selection.

“Selecting a firm allows the airport board to negotiate a contract that we can bring back to the commissioners for approval,” Temple said. “And lets us do so soon enough that we can get into the (FAA) grant cycle.”

The FAA grant cycle requires a set of documents to be prepared and submitted and the airport board, according to Temple, “relies” on an outside firm to prepare those documents.

“The FAA is very strict with the process and require a consultant to do that,” Temple said.

Temple added that the FAA provides 90 percent of the funding for all of the airport projects – from physical construction such as the recent hangar additions to hiring and utilizing consultants.

“When you provide that much funding to a project you get to set the rules,” Temple said. “We all know that we have desires and we have a capital improvement program, but the real secret is getting the FAA to go along with those desires.”

The current challenge with the FAA is meeting their requirement of having snow removal equipment on hand at the airport. Temple said the airport boards current stance is to focus on generating income and creating a self-sustaining airport and have been focused on trying to find a solution to the snow removal equipment that will not set back their goals.

After further discussion of the current challenges the airport board is facing with things like FAA required snow removal equipment, Temple asked the county commissioners how they would like to go through the applications from engineering firms.

“Why don’t you just tell us who you want, give your reasons for that and if that sells us we will go from there,” Commissioner Roman Zylawy said.

Commissioner Duane Simons added that it was the airport boards “call” and the commissioners would go with the recommendations of the airport board.

With that said, Temple stated the current view of the airport board is to go with Steling, an engineering firm with “a long history” with the airport and community.

“They’ve done a fine job in the past, they know the FAA and won’t cause problems,” Temple said.

There was a brief discussion on Steling prior to Commissioner Simons making a motion to approve Steling as the engineering firm. This motion passed unanimously.