Steven Smilay, left, is given the oath of office by Warsaw Mayor Jeff Grose, right, for the Board of Aviation Commissioners. Smilay replaces Jay Rigdon, who retired from the board in December after 35 years. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — The power line lowering project to the east of the Warsaw Municipal Airport will be “rocking ’n’ rolling” by February.

At Tuesday’s Jan. 14, Board of Aviation Commissioners meeting, CHA Aviation Planning Leader Robert LaFayette reported that mobilization for the runway 9-27 obstruction mitigation project started Monday.

“So, the way the project is going to work, Kent Power has taken over — we talked about this last time — from Newkirk. They mobilized yesterday. But the access and manning crew also mobilized yesterday. The drill crew is mobilizing Thursday and the first pour is going in Friday for the foundations of the new tower,” he said.

The tentative construction schedule is for test and checkout on Feb. 27; the energization date is Feb. 27; and the demobilization is scheduled for March 13.

“They are sticking very closely, as you can see, from 1/13 to 3/13, the two-month construction timeline, and you will see new towers, I believe, the second week of February,” LaFayette stated.

“… And then we have some coordination to do with (Airport Manager) Nick (King) on pulling the meters that currently power the existing lights on top of the existing towers. And once those meters are pulled, the new towers will come … That’s scheduled for Feb. 20. So we’re rocking ’n’ rolling.”

He requested the board approve an invoice for $5,556.80, including the local share of $277.84, for CHA; and an invoice for $1,592,916.35, including the local share of $79,645.82, for AEP.

“The $1.6 million is part of that supplemental grant that the airport received quite a long time ago, in 2020, and it’s been amended since then. I think the final value of it right now is $7.8 million. This is a good chunk of it,” LaFayette explained.

The board approved both invoices.

On the runway 9-27 safety area project, LaFayette explained to new board member Steven Smilay, “This was a project that we’re starting the programming for the improvement of runway 9-27. There are some safety area issues on both ends of the runway that we’re currently putting a plan in place to mitigate. And this has been going on for quite a while, and there’s been some hurdles with the FAA that we’re now starting to get over.”

He requested the board approve a CHA invoice for $1,391.16, with a local share of $69.56, which they did. It was noted they’re still waiting on some revisions for the safety area project from the FAA. When they get those, make the necessary changes and resubmit the safety area plan, it can be closed out.

On the rehabilitation and reconstruction project for corporate taxilane E-1, LaFayette said in the last month they’ve been working on closing it out.

“So we have that contract amendment with Phend & Brown to catch a few more of the concrete panels, so dealing with the contracts and provisions and the construction administration for that,” LaFayette said.

“We don’t have much left on the project. The final stages are upcoming, but we collectively decided to wait until spring to do the seal coats and the final pavement markings, basically just due to warmer temperatures.”

The board approved the CHA invoice for $13,373.66, which is all state share, for that project.

Moving on to the taxiway B rehabilitation, LaFayette explained, “We started that internal kickoff and project initiation. We’re starting the beginning stages of preliminary design.”

The schedule has to be completed prior to June. He said they’re expecting bids in hand in May to make the FAA grant deadline in June.

“This is related to trying basically get the grant in time to use the rest of the bill funds … allocated to the airport,” LaFayette said.

King explained, “Just a refresher, the bill is the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law that was passed. Each airport in the United States was allocated so many dollars. We only had a few years in which we could use those dollars, and this was one of the projects that we were putting that money toward.”

“We have to have the grant in by June in order to use the money. If the grant’s not in by June, we lose the money,” LaFayette stated. He asked the board to approve the CHA invoice for $8,779.12, including a local share of $438.96, for the project, which they did.

For CHA’s work on the Airport Overlay District, the board approved the invoice from CHA for $16,000, all local share. An AOD is a zoning district that helps protect the airspace and some of the land uses around the airport.

The final project and invoice LaFayette presented was for the runway 9-27 rehabilitation.

“This is a local project where we’re putting together some design packages to rehabilitate around the primary runway to serve the existing tenets that we have on the airport,” LaFayette said.

“So what we’ve done is, we’ve gotten approval for task order 11. Since then, we started the internal kickoff and the project initiation. We have begun the design stages – not just the preliminary design.”

The next step is a coordination call with King to discuss the design phase.

LaFayette said the anticipated schedule is to be complete during the summer months. He said they’ll work with King to make sure it’s done right and they’ll go after some bids for the project later this year.

King said, “This was the project – because the county is partnering with us on the power line project, the Airport Overlay District and the farm fuel project — that was able to free up some other money that we had set aside for those capital projects to focus on rehabilitating more of our asphalt. So we are using some of that money that we had saved last year to put towards repaving our east-west runway, which after taxiway Bravo, is the worst asphalt on the field.”

He estimated the last overlay was 31-32 years ago. The CHA invoice approved by the board was for $20,245.20.

LaFayette later noted that for the airport’s projects, “We have projects where we have full local share. We have projects where we have full state share. We have projects where we have federal funding and local share. So we’re, I think, for the program that we have for this airport and this size of airport, the stakeholders — Nick, the board, the mayor, the county — are doing a really good job of partnering for the improvement of the airport to be able to find all of these dollars to put into this airport in a short amount of time to make the amount of improvements that we have, in the short amount of time that CHA has even been a part of the airport. So, hopefully, we can continue that partnership.”

Adding to what LaFayette said, King said, “This year at the airport, you and I are going to be managing right around $12 million in projects, and it’s going to cost the local airport approximately $1 million. So, we’re getting more than 10-to-1 on the dollar in what we’re investing in the airport this year.”

LaFayette said that’s pretty incredible and he wasn’t sure there is an airport in the state that can say that.

In other business:

• Mayor Jeff Grose gave the oath of office to Smilay. Smilay replaces Jay Rigdon, who retired from the board in December after 35 years.

• The board elected Dan Robinson as president for 2025, John Yingling as vice president and Gene Zale as secretary.

They also voted to continue meeting at 5:15 p.m. on the second Tuesday of every month.