A ribbon cutting, fuel tanks, and other things

On Wednesday Pawsitively Pets had its Chamber of Commerce ribbon cutting ceremony. Pawsitively Pets is a pet grooming business on Drexel Drive. It is open Monday thru Friday from 9:00 until 5:00 and on Saturdays from 9:00 until 3:00.

While in the area, I checked on the water level of the quarry.

In the evening there was a meeting of the Airport Authority, and on the way I passed through the Fairgrounds to see what was happening. There were quite a few folks getting things ready. I noticed that the openings on the Commercial Building were actually doors that could be shut.

At the airport meeting the main item was a discussion of the proposed fuel farm. As I understand the background, and this was picked up from the discussion, there is a program called the Airport Improvement Program through which the FAA makes money available to airports. Certain amounts become available each year. However, the money is not automatic--rather it requires a grant proposal. The airport authority would like to spend the money that is theoretically available to it for new fuel tanks because the existing tanks are split tanks which contain both jet and regular fuel, and this type of tank is no longer legal to install. The authority, working through its consultants, NGC, had a good bid on the tanks themselves but only had one bid for the installation work, and the consultants thought that that bid was excessively high. The reason they only got one bid is because of the timing--the best time to put out bids is in the spring, but grant funding is not sure until the late summer. If the cost of the project exceeds what the grants fund, the local authority, and thus the taxpayers, foot the bill.

The members of the board and two NCG people discussed the situation for over an hour. The top consultant thought the best course of action would be to order the tanks because the price of those would probably be considerably higher if they were put out for bid again, but to rebid the installation work. The two other options were to accept both the tank and the installation bid, or to do nothing. No one was in favor of doing the installation now, one member liked the option of buying the tanks now, and the others seemed content to wait. So it appears that they will start the process over next year.

It was interesting to listen to them trying to deal with risk. If they bought tanks and then could not get a good bid for installation, would they be stuck with tanks? They did not want that risk, but in rejecting that risk, they assumed the risk that the tanks might be considerably more expensive next year. What risks are you willing to take and which are you not willing to take in a situation where every option involves some kind of risk?

In other airport news, the airport has installed new fuel pumps that have a higher flow rate. The EAA 828 Fly-in had 40 aircraft fly in and the dinner had 150 pork chops sold.