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Lexington Tables Motion Amid Members’ Concerns
A request to financially support a feasibility study of a general aviation airport within the Rockbridge area drew a mixture of responses last week by members of Buena Vista and Lexington city councils.
Buena Vista City Council opted to pass an amended resolution Thursday to approve committing city funds for the city’s share of the study costs while removing language from a draft resolution provided by the county that appeared to offer an outright endorsement of actually developing the airport here.
Lexington City Council, meeting separately Thursday, tabled taking action on a resolution until March 21, pending discussions with the city’s Industrial Development Authority about whether the IDA would put up the funds to cover Lexington’s share of the costs for the study.
Rockbridge County’s Economic Development Authority adopted a resolution in December supporting a feasibility study and using EDA funds for the county’s share of the study. The Rockbridge County Board of Supervisors in January passed a resolution in support of the study. The resolution included a provision that EDA funds be used to pay for the county’s share of the study as well as a request to both city councils asking that each city financially support its share of the study costs.
While most of the estimated $200,000 costs for such a study would be covered by the Federal Aviation Administration and the Virginia Department of Aviation, a portion of the funds would have to be funded locally. The local contribution to the study would be $40,000, which would be divided among the county, Lexington and Buena Vista based on their respective populations. Lexington is being asked to contribute $8,606 and Buena Vista’s share would be $7,185. -At Buena Vista City Council’s meeting, City Manager Jason Tyree alluded to a memorandum sent to City Council from Tyree and Buena Vista Director of Economic Development Kristina Ramsey offering pros and cons to the idea of pursuing the study.
Positives included economic development, infrastructure improvement, tourism and recreation, emergency services and long-term planning. Disadvantages included limited demographic relevance, a questionable return on investment, community resource considerations and higher priority transportation needs.
Council member Todd Jones said he supported having the city contribute its share of the costs for the feasibility study but he wanted to make clear that the city was not endorsing the idea of establishing a general aviation airport in the Rockbridge area. He said a determination of whether Council endorses the airport would be made later, after the feasibility study is completed.
Council member Steve Webb made a motion to adopt a resolution of support for the feasibility study that would include a cap on the amount of money Buena Vista would spend on its share of the study.
Referring to a draft resolution provided by the county, Jones said he wanted to delete references within the draft that indicated an endorsement of the airport. Webb agreed to amend his motion to reflect this. Ron Cash seconded the amended motion, which passed unanimously.
-At Lexington City Council’s meeting, Jay Williams, who represents the South River District on Rockbridge County’s Economic Development Authority, addressed Council about the benefits of having a general aviation airport within the county, including developing new educational programs and opportunities with the local colleges.
All four local colleges have written letters in support of the airport, as have several local business entities, including UTS Systems, XFS Global and BARC Electric Cooperative. The Rockbridge County Farm Bureau has written a letter of opposition to the airport. These letters were included in both city councils’ agenda packages for Thursday’s meetings.
“We sit right at the intersection of Interstates 64 and 81, and an airport in this area would definitely be an enhancement to our community,” Williams said. “Who’s going to come? We don’t know, but I will tell you, taking that first step and really driving down in a feasibility study and getting all the information together so it can be looked at and a conscious decision made moving forward.”
Williams noted that a feasibility study for an airport had previously been done in 1994, and that an updated study would give the best idea of whether building the airport within the county was possible.
“Has anything drastically changed, has the terrain changed?” he said. “Absolutely not. But a 30-year-old study, I think, needs to be refreshed. The EDA feels that it’s an opportunity to look at this attribute, if you will, to our community and the economic boost that it will bring.”
Council member Nicholas Betts asked if the study would include potential expansion of the airport, and Williams said that he didn’t know, but agreed that it would be in the best interest of the county for the study to take a long-term approach.
“I can tell you that if we invest in a feasibility study that’s short-term, we’d be missing the mark,” he said. “I think you need to look at bringing on a general aviation airport with the potential of expansion, if you have that capability, and what you’d bring in in the future. But if we look at a mark in time and don’t look to the future, I think we’re gonna miss [the mark].”
Several members of City Council expressed hesitation about committing to help fund a feasibility study, potentially leading the city to make a greater commitment to funding a share of actually developing an airport. Council member David Sigler noted that, in 1996 when the cost for the airport was given, the runway alone was going to cost between $27 million and $30 million.
(General aviation airport construction is eligible for funding by both the federal and state governments. The FAA website gives details of the federal Airport Improvement Program (AIP) at www.faa.gov/airports/ aip/overview. It states that small primary, reliever, and general aviation airports are eligible for grants covering a range of 90-95 percent of eligible costs, based on statutory requirements. Funding for the AIP program comes from aviation fuel taxes and airline ticket taxes, not the general tax revenue of the federal government.)
“So if we move forward with this, and we agree to the costsharing now, I have some concerns that it’s setting precedent … that we’re going to contribute our proportional share to $50 million or if it’s now $60 million just to build the air strip, not including building,” he said.
“It concerns me because I don’t think anyone has explained yet, truly, what general aviation is and how that helps the citizens of Lexington, Rockbridge County and Buena Vista when we all have to invest in a city hall and a high school and a jail and a landfill and our water and sewer system,” said Sigler. “It hasn’t been clear to me. It’s only been explained to me that private industry will benefit and somehow it will be better that they won’t have to go 25 miles up towards Staunton. If you’re in Natural Bridge, it still wouldn’t make sense to drive up to the northern part of the county, so if you’re in Natural Bridge, you’re going south, so you might not be using the general aviation airport if it’s located in Raphine.”
He noted that the county’s EDA had agreed to supply the funds for Rockbridge County’s portion of the local contribution and asked if it would be possible for the city’s portion of the funds to come from the city’s IDA. City Manager Jim Halasz replied that the city could request that the funds come from the IDA and Council member Chuck Smith commented that the only way he could vote in favor of the city paying for a portion of the feasibility study was if the money came from the IDA.
Betts proposed amending the language of the final clause of the resolution, which says that the “Lexington City Council commits to providing support for this initiative and cost-share in the feasibility study” to remove the references to support for “this initiative and costshare” and only reference the feasibility study.
“If we commit do doing the feasibility study, we’d want to see what the study said before committing to the initiative,” he said. “But I am in support of doing the feasibility study because I think it would be worth the money.”
Council member Leslie Straughan opposed the feasibility study, citing both the city’s and county’s comprehensive land use plans and pointing out that neither includes any provisions to put an airport in the city or county.
“Neither plan says that we should expand air service in our area,” she said. “[Lexington’s] plan in particular emphasizes environmental stewardship, and, quite frankly, private plane travel is the worst environmental polluter in terms of transportation when you look at it in terms of emissions per mile per person. We are emphasizing walking and biking and having an airport to service private planes is counter to that.”
Straughan told Williams that she was appreciative of the work the EDA had put into the initiative and that she could see where they were coming from about potential opportunities for economic development, but that when “looking at the overall needs of the county and for Lexington, I’m not in favor of moving forward with even the feasibility study.”
Betts made a motion to adopt the resolution with his proposed amendment, but that motion failed to receive a second. Betts then made a motion to table the discussion until Council’s March 21 meeting while inquiries were made about getting the funding from the IDA. Sigler provided the second and the motion passed 3-2, with Smith joining Betts and Sigler in voting in favor, while Straughan and Council member Charles Aligood voted nay. Vice Mayor Marylin Alexander was not in attendance at the meeting.
