City council approves $300k airport grant

The Weiser City Council on Monday approved a $300,000 grant for a rehabilitation project at Weiser Municipal Airport.

 Councilmembers first approved a $95,000 agreement between the city and J-U-B Engineers, a civil engineering firm with expertise in transportation. 

 The firm’s Aviation Services Group Manager, Toby Epler, said during Monday’s regular council meeting, that he has served as Weiser’s airport engineer for 14 years.

 “What you have in front of you tonight is an engineering agreement for us to do, essentially, the project management, design, bidding, construction services, and project closeout for the grant that is associated with this year’s FAA project, which will be crack fill, seal coating, and remarking of the airport, which we do every five to six years out there to maintain your airport pavements,” he told councilmembers. “It’s very similar to projects we have done in the past.”

 Epler said that the design phase of the project has already begun.

 “The idea is that it will go out to bid next month, trying to get the best prices, of course,” he said. “Bids open the first of April. The project will probably be done at the request of the airport, probably in September when usage is a little bit lower, and weather is nice. It’s about a two-week project and will be done by the end of the year.”

 The city’s part of the $300,000 FAA grant will be $15,000.

 “That will be your part of the whole project,” Epler said. “We are budgeting for five percent. Of course, the FAA handles 90 percent. The State of Idaho typically puts in anywhere from 2.5 to 7.5 [percent], so we just use five percent for budget purposes.”

 That five percent, or $15,000, will come out of the city’s airport budget.

 Airport Manager Jim Metzger was pleased to learn the project is happening sooner than he expected.

 “They will re-topcoat everything and then re-paint and stripe everything,” he said. “They’ve done it once since I’ve been here. I thought it was a little further out than this, but we could use it … because we have some issues with our pavement.”