When AirEvac first came to St. Clair, the whole town was
abuzz. Busting with pride, an air ambulance
service had chosen to come to St. Clair.
St. Clair built them a hangar, let
them store their own fuel, and basically set up a helicopter operation without
even talking to the FAA. When the new
AirEvac facility was built, the city also spent close to $35,000 in tax money
to make it happen. About $23,000 went to
Cockran engineering to get FAA approval and site engineering. A large portion of the work almost $10,000
was for moving the septic system, and redoing the riel lights. This work was done by Vision excavating. This
cost was, as far as one can tell from the records, entered as an operating
expense and not a capitol expense.
Add the $20,000 building the city built for AirEvac originally,
the city has over $55,000 invested in AirEvac, that’s $5500 a year. This will end up as a net loss to the airport
of almost $27,000 if they move in 2013, and another $10,000 for the cost of
providing water and sewer service, now you are looking at about a $37,000 loss
to have AirEvac on the field for about 8 years.
And now the airport will have two vacant building that cannot hold an
aircraft.
Time to call channel 2 news. YOU PAID FOR IT
ReplyDeleteI was at the Sullivan airport today, some businessmen flew in, in a C-421. They were going to St. Clair for a business meeting. They borrowed the courtesy car and drove to St. Clair. I asked them why they didn't want to fly into St. Clair. They said they preferred to fly into attended airports. Evidently, they had been to St. Clair before, they didn't ask for directions. They wouldn't say why they were coming to St. Clair but they were from Denver.
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