Airport renovations near completion

By Ralph Pokorny

Nevada Daily Mail

The major work on the improvements at the Nevada Municipal Airport is complete and the airport board is now looking at putting the finishing touches on the project.

During a meeting at noon, Thursday, the board announced that they had received a $10,000 grant from the L. F. Richardson Foundation to purchase furnishings for the new terminal building.

The Community Development Block Grant that paid the majority of the cost of constructing the building could not be used to purchase the furniture, appliances and other such necessities to make the terminal more useable.

Mark Mitchell, Nevada's project manager for the terminal, told the board that an eight-camera security system is ready to be installed and the city expects to have an ADA- compliant automatic door installed next week. He said that the installation of that door should take of the issue of the poor fit of the current door.

Mitchell told the board that they city still is obligated to pay Sprouls Construction $5,000 on their contract, even if the board is not happy with the finished building.

"But it's not finished," Monte Curtis, airport board chairman said.

"When are they going to come back and clean the dead bugs from the light fixtures and seal the building so they cannot get in?" he asked.

"We need to send them a letter telling them that we want the bugs removed from the light fixtures," he said.

Most of the overhead flourescent light fixtures have many dead insects, that were not removed after the building was finished and there are visible openings around several of the windows and entry door in the office.

With the terminal and the runway projects mostly completely the board is turning its attention to painting and cleaning up the rest of the buildings at the airport.

Mitchell told the board that they have about $5,300 left in their budget for maintenance this year that can be used to spruce up the airport, including painting the existing t-hangar, clean up around the Quonset building and spread some piles of millings from the runway project to make a driveway. They are also waiting for final approval to drain the wetland area along U.S. Highway 54 and fill it so it can be used for some purpose.

The board voted unanimously to spend up to $3,000 to paint the T-hangar.

They also voted to spend up to $1,500 to move the piles of millings and clean-up around the Quonset building, and up to $1,000 to install a chain link fence along the north edge of the runway apron west from the terminal building.

Mitchell told the board that in January they need to take a look at some needed changed in the city code relating to the operation of the airport.

"There are four pages of rules in the code, and most of them are wrong," he said.

He said that they also need to work with the city council to clarify precisely who should operate the airport.

According the city code he said that airport is established as an executive board with the power to operate the airport, in a similar manner to the Nevada Regional Medical Center board of directors. However, the code also says that the city manager or his designee is the airport manager.

"That has caused some problems in the past," Mitchell said.