County talks airport runway project

The Harlan County Fiscal Court approved actions aimed at improvements at the Tucker Guthrie Memorial Airport including a runway extension project during a recent meeting.
Harlan County Judge-Executive Dan Mosley brought the court up to speed on the airport runway extension project.
“This project has been going on for some time at the airport,” Mosley said. “They’ve been putting up some money on their end to go toward that. It’s come to the time now that the FAA is asking questions related to where this is going to go, like is there going to be a local match, are we interested in the project.”
Mosley explained while the majority of the runway extension project would be federally funded, there would be some type of match the county would have to put toward the project.
“It would be my recommendation that we look at applying for the House Bill 723 funds that were appropriated by the General Assembly to match that,” Mosley said. “We found out recently that we were approved for the House Bill 723 funds related to the broadband project.”
Magistrate Paul Caldwell made a motion to apply for House Bill 723 funds to match FAA funding for the airport runway extension, seconded by Magistrate Jim Roddy. The motion passed with no objection.
The court then moved on to a pair of grants the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) had recently advised were available, but only if the county acted quickly.
“Item 19 will be to approve an airport infrastructure grant…for an environment assessment associated with Tucker Guthrie Memorial Airport,” Mosley said. “Fred (Busroe, Harlan County Attorney) and I had a lengthy conversation about this the other day. The FAA tends to call at the 11th hour to notify that these funds are available. That is what occurred.”
Mosley asked approval to be retroactive because the FAA had wanted an agreement in place before the next Fiscal Court meeting was scheduled.
“There is a small five percent match, but usually the airport board will cover those,” Mosley said. “I just wanted to let you all know why we went ahead and moved on it.”
Mosley advised the funds would not be available if the agreement had not been acted on immediately.
“We spoke to the Chairman of the Airport Board, Mark Miracle, who was very much in favor of these grants coming to the airport,” Mosley said.
Magistrate James Howard made a motion approving the application for the airport infrastructure grant of $189,000 for an environmental assessment. Magistrate Jim Roddy seconded the motion, which was approved without opposition.
Another motion approving the application for a related $80,967 airport infrastructure grant for an ALP update was made by Howard, seconded by Magistrate Paul Caldwell and unanimously approved by the Court.

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