By Adam Pack
During their regular meeting on Wednesday, Mar. 2, the Greenbrier County Airport Authority met to discuss adding more bathrooms and a gift shop, and securing bids for temporary modifications of the passenger holding area.
Airport Manager Brian Belcher explained that a motion for temporary modifications would allow his office to secure bids and contracts for the erecting of “passenger holding areas which remain within the original footprint of the airport.” The motion would allow for more swift action by the airport to prepare for large groups planning to come into the area as well as relieving the chronic overcrowding problem. “As of now we can only hold 60-some people in there, so if there are even 50 people it’s almost impossible for them to spread out, and that’s a COVID concern as well,” Belcher explained. Further on, Belcher explained another motion modification to passenger holding which would add another set of bathrooms in the airport. “As of now, there’s just the one set of bathrooms and everyone, men, women and children are all having to use them.
Everyone that wants to use them usually has to stand in a line, so we definitely want to fix that.”
The Authority also motioned to approve the purchase of new radios for the grounds crew. The current radio setup is aging and in need of repair, and crew members are having difficulty hearing each other as well keeping radios in working order.
The bid for a new fleet of radio, charging bays, and two years of maintenance came out to $16,523.
Also, the AWOS System, which used to communicate weather information to pilots, needed urgent repairs recently. Those repairs were made on an emergency basis as they cost over the $5,000 limit which the airport manager is allowed to expend on maintenance and repair. The expenditure needed the retrospective approval of the authority, which the authority granted.
Lastly, the authority discussed the opening of a Ground Stop Gift Shop in the airport. Ground Stop Gifts would be the first gift shop at LWB. The Authority moved to approve the lease agreement with Ground Stop unanimously, with Greg Furlong saying that, “Most all airports have such amenities, and this serves a need that’s currently not served.”
