The Conway City Council approved an ordinance that would allow the city to borrow $7.5 million for short-term financing for all or a portion of construction of the city’s new airport in Lollie Bottoms, but the council agreed that a plan needs to be in place well before the balloon payment at the end of the term comes.
The council approved the loan during its regularly scheduled meeting Tuesday at the District Court building.
The municipal airport, Cantrell Field, cannot be sold until the new airport is operational; therefore, the city is asking for short-term financing of funds that will be repaid when the existing 151-acre airport property is sold.
Funds will be used for infrastructure improvements, city officials have said. Specific needs include a new access road, a terminal building, an offsite waterline, three hangars with a total of 54 bays, fueling facilities, a maintenance hangar, aviation fueling facilities, equipment to provide aviation aids, the buyout of the existing Cantrell Filed fixed base operation lease, the mitigation of nearby waterfowl and wildlife attractant areas, airport operation and maintenance equipment.
City attorney Mike Murphy pointed out that there is no way the city can renegotiate the remainder of the loan at the end of the term. The city will have to pay the remainder at that time.
"In a sense, this has been a bit of a bait and switch," said Conway Mayor Tab Townsell. "The federal government had pledged to be responsible for 95 percent with the state taking care of the other five percent. It has now come back that the federal part will only be 90 percent, and while the state says they can take care of the other 10 percent, they cannot do it right away."
Townsell said a partnership with the Arkansas Department of Aeronautics for the terminals had been set. He said that although the payments back off of the loan will begin in June, he would like to see plans in place well before the balloon payment is required, which would be in 60 months. Alderman Mark Vaught said that it would be important to find ways to increase the value of the Cantrell Field property in that time.
The projects involving the airport are in four stages with the new access road and terminal building on schedule for 2012, hangars including 30 bays, offsite waterline and fueling facilities scheduled for 2013, 12 more hangar bays set for 2014 and 2015. The estimated total of the work is $8.75 million.
In other business, the council approved an ordinance that allows an indoor firing range in several zoning districts, but only with a conditional use permit. The council also gave permission for the Conway Police Department to apply for a joint application with the Faulkner County Sheriff's Department for the JAG 2012 Grant. The funds awarded by this grant would be about $23,500, which would be split by the two departments. Should the grant be approved, the funds would be used for pole cameras, GPS tracking devices and an additional taser.
Comments (9)
Add commentFor Sale?
Who's buying?
Wait!
I thought the City Council stated that you were buying the old airport.
HANGARS........
It's "hangars".
Sigh.
Bait and Switch is Right
What happened to the city not being out of pocket on something like this? Actually it is the taxpayers once again that will feel the heat from this if something goes wrong. I guess I should have known the Mayor and his tax and spend agenda wouldn't be happy with just a trickel of money coming into the general fund. So, where is all this money? They just approved $95 million dollars in bonds to pay for the new sewer treatment plant and other added costs that weren't in the $72 million dollar loan they got from the Arkansas Natural Resources Commission. How much do the bond daddys who are underwriting these bonds get? I bet they get all fuzzy inside when the Mayor talks about bonds for this that and something else. Where are the checks and balances for this administration? Does anyone care that these people are bankrupting our city? Wake up people before it is too late!! Just wait a little while longer and the Mayor will find something else he needs and then he will be adding on to the millage to pay for some more toys he needs. I am sick and tired of all these taxes and my house payment going up every six months because these people can't stay within their budget!
what?
"I am sick and tired of all these taxes and my house payment going up every six months because these people can't stay within their budget!"
How is it making your house payment go up every six months?
Some interesting info
I can't help but wonder how many of you know about the plan to move the airport in the 90's. Yes it fell through for various reasons, but did you know that there was a blueprint drawn up to build a baseball/softball/soccer park on the existing airport? I didn't until a very informed friend told me. It was in city hall when Tab took office. Which one would you have liked? A centrally located ballpark that allows you to watch all of your kids at the same place? Boys and girls? Or the result that we have now? How many of the council members who brought forward the plan for our current ballparks were aware of the other plan? Would anyone "in the know" care to explain why this plan was ignored? Was it flawed? Was it because it was Dave Kinleys' plan? Inquiring minds want to know.
Question
One day the cities debts are going to have to be paid, what do we do then? Still no raises for city employees.
Not today DJB
Money tied up in stocks, bonds, and CD's. Maybe next year it is still available.
@catstangbear - Perfect Timing
It will take a little time for the new airport to be completed. Hopefully your bonds and CDs will mature just at the right time. :-)
Softball/baseball fields
"How many of the council members who brought forward the plan for our current ballparks were aware of the other plan? "
I was not aware of a previous plan for ball parks that dated back to that time. The only plan I knew about was to utilize the YBMA location to some degree since it was sold to the city at a reduced price.
However, when the city was in the planning stages of the new softball and baseball complexes, I was in favor of looking for tracts of land that would be more convenient, larger, and "unified" than the situation we have currently.
During this time, the proposed plan was to relocate the fairgrounds and use the YBMA facility for a nine-field complex, which was the maximum amount of baseball fields that this land could accommodate. Mary Smith asked the parks director if nine fields would be enough to support the number of baseball teams in Conway at our current population. His response was, "Just barely."
I suggested that we slow down and look for a larger tract of land that would accommodate the anticipated growth that we would experience in future years, thus allowing for additional baseball fields to be located on the same facility when the population and interest in the sport grew. I was told "we looked and there is simply no land large enough in Conway that can be purchased for this purpose."
Also during this time, the city purchased the land for the new softball complex on Siebenmorgen. This placed it in fairly close proximity to the existing Don Owen softball complex, which made sense since the plan was to extend Museum to the north and connect to Lower Ridge Road. Tournaments could be split between the two facilities, and be "just down the street" from one another.
While the council decided to go ahead with the plan to build the nine-field complex at YBMA, the city began searching for an alternative location for the fairgrounds. One of the properties that was considered for this was the tract of farmland that sits between CHDC and Lower Ridge Road, and is now bordered on the east by the new Museum Road extension.
Ultimately, the city decided against purchasing this for the fairgrounds relocation, but the fact of the matter is that it was not only available for purchase, but it would have made the perfect location for Conway's baseball facilities considering the location of the softball facilities as well.
YBMA could have been sold, or even utilized as a general purpose park with practice facilities while making the Lower Ridge Road property the premier baseball facility, close to the interstate, with room to grow and expand.
To answer your specific questions, I don't know why the decisions were made as they were. Very little of it made sense to me, especially considering that we were given the knowledge that we were planning to build facilities that would "just barely" address the needs of Conway's softball and baseball programs at the current population.