Hearing tonight on Greenville airport project
To the Editor;
A Public Hearing for the proposed Parallel Taxiway Project for the Greenville Municipal Airport will be held at 6 p.m. tonight at the Municipal Building Meeting Hall.
Our Airport Engineer from Stantec – Shane MacDougal – will present details on this proposed project, which entails the construction of a 4,000-foot taxiway parallel to the main runway (14-32) of our airport. The FAA is concerned that due to line-of-sight limitations, it is possible to have a plane on one end preparing to take off and another plane taxi-ing in the opposite direction and have neither plane see the other until it is too late. While it is clear this has never happened since the airport was constructed in the 1940s, unprecedented and catastrophic accidents do occur at general aviation airports (such as the multiple-fatality collision at the Knox County Airport several years ago).
This is an expensive project — approximately $3 million — which has been part of Greenville Municipal Airport’s Master Plan since 2000 and has been part of our scheduled Capital Improvement Plan since 2011. The FAA is prepared to fund 90 percent of the cost for this work, and the State of Maine is prepared to fund another 5 percent. The Town of Greenville will be responsible for the last 5 percent, or approximately $150,000.
Town officials have been working with our engineer and various other partners to find ways to reduce the cost of this project to the property taxpayer. Plum Creek has donated some sand and gravel toward this project, which will reduce our costs. We are working with Piscataquis County to see if they will cost-share the Town’s portion of this project, as they did when the main runway was reconstructed in 2005 and 2006. If these efforts are successful, we believe we will be able to reduce our actual share for this project down to 1 to 2 percent.
All of these details will be presented at the Public Hearing. Please come and learn more about this project, and ask questions. it is important that the members of our community understand what we’re trying to do at our airport, and how we are attempting to fund the cost for these improvements.
A week following the Public Hearing, at 6 p.m. on Wednesday, Jan. 27, the Board of Selectmen will hold a special town meeting to seek permission to borrow the necessary funds for the local share for this project. Permission to borrow is necessary to satisfy FAA requirements. The Board of Selectmen’s intention, if permission to borrow is granted, is to wait to actually borrow the necessary funds until it is known exactly how much is needed. I estimate the earliest any bond would close to fund this project would be July 1, 2016.
There are a lot of moving parts with this project, please come to the Public Hearing to learn more, or email me your questions and I’ll attempt to answer them for you.
John Simko, Town Manager
Greenville