WESTFIELD – The City Council voted unanimously Thursday to approve two motions allocating $300,000 of Community Preservation Act for the restoration of Hangar #2 at Barnes Regional Airport.
Airport manager Brian Barnes said the Community Preservation Committee had allocated $500,000 for the project but that more money was needed after a more in depth inspection of the building.
“The CPC was asked to approve $500,000 to do the outside of the building of Hangar #2, that was the initial estimate by Reinhardt Associates, but the revised number to restore the exterior of the building is now more than $1 million,” Barnes said. “The school (Westfield Technical Academy) has a $250,000 grant.”
Barnes said that the city received two bids to perform the exterior envelope restoration and that both bids to replace the roof, doors, and windows and to rehabilitate the masonry work came in at “around $900,000.”
The city’s plans to use the hangar to house a new program at the Westfield Technical Academy and a new curriculum is being developed for an Airframe and Powerplant (A&P) Program for aviation technology, which would allow students to join the aviation industry upon graduation in maintenance, manufacturing, air traffic control, airport management, engineering and airport design positions.
Barnes said the Hangar #2 rehabilitation work is slated to begin by the end of this month and be completed in the current calendar year. Airframe and Powerplant is expected to to occupy the building and begin the new course by January of 2017.
Finance Committee Chairman Brent B. Bean requested that the City Council act as a committee of the whole because he could not form a quorum for his three-member committee because two members were out of town on business trips.
The council discussed both CPC request for appropriation, including one for $255,000 and the other for $45,000. Both were approved by 11-0 votes.
In other business, Bean requested that the City Council return a $1.8 million bond appropriation request to Mayor Daniel M. Knapik to refine the wording of how those funds will be expended. Bean said that it may also be possible to trip the amount of the bond.
The $1.8 million bond was submitted in place of a $4 million bond which was more expansive in specifically describing the scope of work to be done with that funding. Several of the projects included in the $4 million bond, which received council support, were not present in the $1.8 million bond.
Bean has also said there is a uneven playing field for sports, with some sports being highly funded and others languishing.
“ We’re spending a tremendous amount of money on male sports, so there’s an equity issue,” Bean said Thursday morning prior to the City Council session. “We have to spread that money around more to include women’s’ sports facilities, money to improve field hockey, softball facilities as well.”
Bean suggested that the City Council may vote to send the bond proposal back to Knapik to be revised, a motion that was adopted by a 11-0 voice vote.
