Report Inappropriate Comments

Has anybody opened up the airport's budget to see what is actually there?

Presumably Mr. Fredericks will be making his presentation to the General Assembly on this item within the next month or so. The safety improvement and runway expansion budget calls for about $100 million in FAA grants through 2018. The big problem with this is RIAC's small hub designation which puts it in direct competition with dozens of other small airports - many of whom have a greater need and better connections to the Republicans who control the House of Representatives. The House of course wants to cut back on FAA grants and use the funds for general network safety improvements like NextGen.

And none of this meets the original need to rebuild Runway 16-34. That reason for the EIS is totally ignored until after 2020. How RIAC can come up with the funds for that deferred maintenance project is totally beyond me.

The budget calls for $31 million in "RIAC bonds" -- actually Economic Commerce bonds - similar to the 38 Studios bonds - paid for through passenger facility charges - the most expensive way for an airport to borrow money. The budget calls for a debt service of $4 million per year which is about four times the debt service for the glycol plant for a similar size borrowing. On top of that the budget is calling for $7.2 million in direct passenger facility payments - money that won't exist because all passenger facility charges will be applied to the expensive $31 million bond offering according to RIAC documents.

Project success is dependent on whether the bond rating agencies agree to the $31 million borrowing plan RIAC has with about $4 million debt service - a scenario that at least one agency warned RIAC could not be done without a large increase in passenger counts. That is one of the reasons Mr. Fredericks keeps saying better days are coming. If the passengers don't start flocking to Green in droves, then he has no leverage with the bond rating agencies. If the borrowing sputters out or the Republicans kill large portions of FAA grants -- a likely scenario - then RIAC will have spent $6.6 million to move the ball fields to no end except to expose the kids to truly retched air from the jet fumes as the jets spew their exhaust directly into the kids lungs at ground level.

We need to see the plans for Main Avenue. Will there be two sidewalks? Will the lane separations be up to spec. Is this curving bypass going to be another Newport Bridge with no lane separations when the same could have been built in? How about the intersection with Industrial Drive? How safe will that be? How will the curving road be marked for night time driving? How about provisions for the massive snow piles that pop up from the drifting snow?

Lots of questions are still unanswered.

From: Airport projects running under budget

Please explain the inappropriate content below.