Jessica Cejnar Andrews / Tuesday, April 4, 2023 @ 4:25 p.m. / Infrastructure, Local Government
Crescent City To Contribute $77,000 For Runway Project at Airport
Runway 18-36 at the Del Norte County Regional Airport is showing alligator cracking and other signs of wear. | Photo courtesy of the Border Coast Regional Airport Authority
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Crescent City Councilors on Monday agreed to kick in $77,000 for a runway rehabilitation project at the Del Norte County Regional Airport.
Councilors directed staff to note that contribution in the city’s 2023-24 budget, which takes effect July 1. They also asked staff to set aside an additional $10,000 annually for capital improvements at the airport.
Councilor Jason Greenough was absent.
Crescent City is one of six members on the Border Coast Regional Airport Authority, the joint powers authority that oversees the airport at Jack McNamara Field in Crescent City. Other members include Del Norte County, Curry County, Brookings, the Tolowa Dee-ni’ Nation and Elk Valley Rancheria.
Airport Director Ryan Cooley has asked each member agency to contribute $77,000, which would pay for a $400,000-$460,000 match for a grant-funded project to rehabilitate Runway 18-36 at the airport. The project is expected to cost between $8 million and $9 million.
Ninety-five percent of it is being paid for through Federal Aviation Administration grant dollars and entitlement funds as well as passenger facility charges.
Of all of its member agencies, only Del Norte County provides an annual contribution to the airport authority, Cooley told Councilors.
“The annual contribution that the county gives us, $271,000, is for our operating budget, which right now gets absorbed by our labor costs,” he said. “The reason we went back to the county, just like we went to all the other JPA members and asked for the $77,000 is because that $271,000 is to help run the airport and is separate from capital improvement.”
Cooley told the Crescent City Council that he will ask the Curry County Board of Commissioners to contribute $77,000 toward the runway rehab project on Wednesday.
The airport authority’s project engineer, WHPacific, is preparing the final design for a “mill and overlay” of Runway 18-36 at the Del Norte County Regional Airport. The project will remove the top layer of asphalt, replace it with new pavement and restore the runway to “like-new condition,” according to Cooley.
The project also consists of replacing the airport’s incandescent runway lighting system with LED lights, according to Cooley. Construction is set to begin next year.
On Monday, though Councilor Raymond Altman, who on March 20 asked to wait until he and his colleagues have a better idea of what’s in the 2023-24 budget, said he was “100 percent” in favor of contributing to the project but starting in the next fiscal year.
Altman’s colleague, Councilor Kelly Schellong, one of the city’s representatives on the airport authority board, had suggested setting aside $10,000 a year to help pay for future airport projects. This includes the planned rehabilitation of runway 12-30 in 2027, she said.
“It makes sense because in four or six years we may not have an extra $300,000 at the end of the year,” Schellong said, referring to a fund balance of $287,632 Finance Director Linda Leaver projected for the end of the 2022-23 fiscal year.
Mayor Pro Tem Blake Inscore, who argued in favor of contributing the $77,000, reiterated his wish to see the city contribute financially to the Border Coast Regional Airport Authority more often.
“We probably should have been talking about this a long time ago,” he said. “I’m the type of person (where) if you get value, but you don’t contribute, that’s part of what’s wrong in our society today. There’s a lot of people that get benefit without contribution and I think we should lead the way as government leaders of turning that tide.”
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