The Gray County Commissioners Court met on Tuesday morning for a regularly-scheduled meeting.
The Commissioners received a presentation during the meeting from Paul Loyd, chairman of the airport’s board of directors, and board member James Bagley concerning a potential 90-10 grant from the federal government and the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
“The federal government is requiring us to propose a plan by March 18,” County Judge Chris Porter said. “They gave us a week of lead time to do this and it’s a 90-10 grant. We approved Paul submitting a plan to do that.
“We are the only regional airport to be able to do that. There are opportunities there to help our airport grow through federal grant funding that other airports don’t have. This is one of those programs. It’ll be $2.1 million of five years with about a $245,000 match from the County. We are trying to figure out whether to invest the $44,000 a year or how we want to navigate that.”
The plan proposed by Loyd was to separate the crosswinds runway and main runway to create a taxi-way between the two to allow for the use of instrument landing at night. While landing in the dark has been done at Perry Lefors Field before, a recent change by the Federal Aviation Administration has changed the protocol on the requirements for aircraft to do so.
“Instrument landing at night is because of high-cloud conditions or low visibility,” Porter said. “That would enable instrumentation to be used because of the re-design of those two runways. You can use instruments, but you’re not given permission to land at night because of the way the two runways are joined together.”
During the meeting Tuesday, Porter noted that the growth of the airport, including maybe even scheduled flights (even if it’s a long way down the road), is pivotal to Pampa’s growth. Bagley said in the present the funds could be spent on safety upgrades, preventative maintenance and improvements, which is seen first-hand by new businesses coming in.
“I look at it in the present day,” Bagley said. “I can’t say the name of the new company but they are looking at coming in and they have a private jet [at the airport]. Would they have picked Pampa if we didn’t have the airport that we have? I don’t know. I would speculate that since they have a really nice jet that they may not have picked Pampa because they fly that jet a lot.”
Bagley added the County has done a great job at the airport and it is the first thing potential new businesses see when they fly into Pampa.
The Commissioners approved the plan to be submitted by Friday.
The Commissioners also approved the replacement of tornado sirens at the Cole Addition and Walnut Creek through ARPA (American Rescue Plan Act) funds. There will be a 10-week lead time on the project, but Porter emphasized that the sirens at those locations do work.
“Those two sirens have been functional but the problem we run into is once we start them, we can’t turn them off,” Porter said. “It takes five minutes from the time out to get there. So for five minutes you have a siren blaring on a Saturday afternoon. So we made the decision that we’re not going to do that every Saturday because it’s a nuisance to do that. We tested them once a month to make sure they are functioning but now with these new ones they will be just like the City of Pampa’s.”
As severe storm nears and wildfire season continues, Porter confirmed that the sirens will be turned on if there is any danger to those communities.
“Those are emergency sirens for any emergency and that (wildfires) is what I’m concerned with more than anything,” Porter said. “We thought it would be a shorter lead-time but it’s not going to be because the parts are not in to build those sirens. They are functioning and they will continue to function the way the have the last three years and hopefully after 10 years they will be in compliance.”
The following items were also approved:
• Minutes of the previous meeting
• Pay Bills as Approved by the County Auditor
• Accept County Treasurer’s Report
• Accept County Clerk’s Report
• Interlocal Agreement’s with the City of Lefors for Road Maintenance and fire suppression. The commissioners tabled Assistance with Municipal Controlled Burns.
• Resolution Ordering a Constitutional Election on May 7, 2022, and Consolidation of Precincts for that Election.
• Reimbursement to the Office of the Governor of $7, 500 for a Grant for Prescription Medicine and Inmate Mental Health Services in 2020 for the Gray County Sheriff’s Department with Unfulfilled Terms
• Cooperative Agreement between Gray County and Texas A&M Agrilife Extension Service
• Reimbursement of $5,210.69 to a Private Citizen for Overpayment of Taxes
• CLE Training Credits from the County Treasurer and Commissioner Baggerman and Commissioner Arrington
• Extending the County Burn Ban
