Elephant at Airport Meeting is Ignored
The elephant was in the room for the regular monthly meeting of the Grove Airport Trust Authority Board, but no one…the board members, the airport manager, or those in attendance, could see it.
Looking for a scapegoat for recent screwups involving FAA funds and overpayment to a contractor for taxiway work, they blamed the only person not at the meeting, the Engineering Consultant, although he had been invited a week earlier to attend.
It seems that the resurfacing project for the airport taxiway was to have cost $273,000 but the contractor billed for $318,000 and the city paid the bill. City Treasurer Lisa Allred recently found the mistake and is in the process of getting the extra $41,000 back from the contractor. The bill had been approved for payment by the airport authority before submission to the city.
And, a $182,000 FAA grant for fencing part of the airport was missed because the paperwork was not filed by Sept. 30, the deadline date. The money is not lost, but will be rolled over into the 2008 application, but no fencing work will be done in 2007. Also, the previous five year plan submitted by the airport authority to the FAA was not updated and the airport is not in compliance with the plan, according to the FAA.
Despite the fact that the airport has a full time manager paid $38,000 a year to oversee things, the board looked away and will ask the engineer to visit the next board meeting in January to explain why these mistakes occurred. There were also some attempts to blame "the sponsor," a buzzword for the city.
The board did go into Executive Session for over an hour to discuss the airport manager's employment, promotion, demotion, disciplining or resignation, but took no action. Prior to the session, board member Harry Halterman made a motion to delete the word "executive" and just discuss the matter in open meeting, which was met with much applause from the audience. "These executive sessions are not worth a damn," he said, "and I have been watching them for 40 years. "Let's do it out in public where everyone can hear the discussion," he added. His motion failed for lack of a second.
Looking for a scapegoat for recent screwups involving FAA funds and overpayment to a contractor for taxiway work, they blamed the only person not at the meeting, the Engineering Consultant, although he had been invited a week earlier to attend.
It seems that the resurfacing project for the airport taxiway was to have cost $273,000 but the contractor billed for $318,000 and the city paid the bill. City Treasurer Lisa Allred recently found the mistake and is in the process of getting the extra $41,000 back from the contractor. The bill had been approved for payment by the airport authority before submission to the city.
And, a $182,000 FAA grant for fencing part of the airport was missed because the paperwork was not filed by Sept. 30, the deadline date. The money is not lost, but will be rolled over into the 2008 application, but no fencing work will be done in 2007. Also, the previous five year plan submitted by the airport authority to the FAA was not updated and the airport is not in compliance with the plan, according to the FAA.
Despite the fact that the airport has a full time manager paid $38,000 a year to oversee things, the board looked away and will ask the engineer to visit the next board meeting in January to explain why these mistakes occurred. There were also some attempts to blame "the sponsor," a buzzword for the city.
The board did go into Executive Session for over an hour to discuss the airport manager's employment, promotion, demotion, disciplining or resignation, but took no action. Prior to the session, board member Harry Halterman made a motion to delete the word "executive" and just discuss the matter in open meeting, which was met with much applause from the audience. "These executive sessions are not worth a damn," he said, "and I have been watching them for 40 years. "Let's do it out in public where everyone can hear the discussion," he added. His motion failed for lack of a second.
posted by Editor | 3:16 AM
1 Comments:
You would think that the self serving selfish intellectually challenged airport pep squad would realize that the board has to go into executive session to discuss employee issues.
Do we need a full time airport manager anyway? Most similarly sized and economically positioned airports contract out these minimal responsibilities.
This reeks of a job made to order for a Ball Buddy.
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