On the screen behind Warsaw Municipal Airport Manager Nick King are the figures for the power line lowering project as presented by CHA Consulting. Photo by David Slone, Times-Union.

By David Slone
Times-Union

WARSAW — It’s good to save money and the Board of Aviation Commissioners was made aware of some savings recently on Warsaw Municipal Airport projects.

On the corporate taxi lane E-1 rehabilitation and reconstruction project, CHA Consulting Project Engineer Mary Kerstein told the board Phend & Brown has completed the seal coat and final paint striping work items. A final inspection walkthrough was completed with the Indiana Department of Transportation on July 31.

She presented a CHA invoice for $4,107.40, all local share, for the board to approve, which they did. She presented an invoice from Phend & Brown for $30,213.15, all local share, which the board voted to pay.

The third item she presented on the project was the final balance for the project, which had a decrease amount of $89,233.35. She said they came in under the budget. “It’s always nice to come in under budget on a project,” Airport Manager Nick King said. After the deduct, the total for the project came in at $1,386,681.65.

“It’s not very often you get to increase the scope of a project and do more with less money, and the project cost goes down, so that was very, very pleasant,” King stated. Kerstein thanked CHA civil engineer Ranjit Bhandari for keeping the project under budget.

Kerstein also reported the runway 27 obstruction mitigation (AEP power line lowering project) is “really just outside of our hands right now. We sent all of the closeout documentation to the FAA in June and now we’re just waiting for the FAA review on everything to see if they need anything else from us.”

No action from the board was required.

Later in the meeting, Board President Dan Robinson asked what was the final total in dollars for the power line lowering project. Kerstein said they were pretty close to the grant amount with it, and King said they came in around $160,000 to $180,000 under the grant awarded amount. After reviewing documentation, it was determined the amount awarded was $7,967,203 but the costs came in at $7,749,520.82. Kerstein said the federal share covered 90% of the project, just over $7 million, the state’s share was about $400,000 and the local share was just under $400,000.

King thanked the county for helping getting the project across the finish line.

Board Vice President John Yingling asked what more was needed done for them to alter the approach to 9-27 now that the power lines have been lowered.“We need to move the road. That’s the next project,” King replied.

“(CR) 100 East is now our next big project, and our current goal, with the airport, why we’re doing all these paving projects, is to get the airport asphalt back up to snuff. Now that we’ve got the power lines down, we really need to focus on some pavement preservation, so we are doing projects that are going to get the asphalt to a point where we will be good for a minimum of 10 years with the asphalt we’re going to have out there. And then that will let us really focus all of our time and attention on what to do with 100 East and what that project is going to look like.”

He said their goal, as always, is to tunnel under 100 East and that has not changed.

On the wildlife hazard site visit, Kerstein said they’re just waiting for the FAA to review and comment on it as they’ve not provided an update yet. While no action was required by the board, King said to Kerstein, “I don’t know if Simon reached out to you, but I called him the middle of last week. We talked about possibly resubmitting the wildlife action. We recently had a bird strike last week.”

He said three or four dozen Canadian geese flew into the airport right as a crop duster was taking off. Four geese were killed, but King said there was no damage to the aircraft and the pilot was fine.

“He was able to circle around and land and look at the aircraft and there was no damage that we were made aware of from that strike, but we did go through the normal reporting procedures,” King said. “So Simon and I talked maybe if we resubmit it with the documents of the recent wildlife strike, maybe that might help expedite on their end to say, ‘hey, this is something we really want to get looked at, can you guys get a move on this?’ ”

Kerstein said that was a good suggestion. She said she would make sure she checked in with Simon in a couple weeks and make sure they got that resubmitted soon.

Another invoice was presented to the board from CHA for $18,000 regarding work the consulting firm did on the Airport Overlay District. The board approved it.

For the runway 9-27 rehabilitation, Kerstein reported, “We had notice to proceed, start on that last week, Aug. 7, and we actually closed the runway on Monday, the 11th, so that is closed until the 18th of September. Right now, the schedule for the contractor is: Patching is planned for the week of Aug. 18; milling planned for the week of the 25th; and paving the following week.”

She said barricades and gates have been put up, and then presented a CHA invoice for $13,224.40, all local share. The board approved it.

The board’s next meeting is at 5:15 p.m. Sept. 9 in the council chambers at City Hall.