MORGANTOWN — Morgantown will move forward with efforts to annex property around Suncrest Elementary School, and the city’s airport hangar project will likely need an additional $600,000 to hit an April completion date.
Both issues were among the topics of conversation at Tuesday’s Morgantown City Council Committee of the Whole meeting.
Monongalia County Schools Superintendent Eddie Campbell came directly to council chambers following an earlier board of education meeting during which the BOE voted unanimously to request the school — located at 3647 Collins Ferry Road — be annexed into Morgantown’s municipal boundaries.
The driving force behind the request is a desire to fall under the jurisdiction of Morgantown’s police and fire protection, as well as the desire to have sidewalks built along Collins Ferry Road in front of the school.
“That’s something that we’ve heard from the community for some time regarding access to the facility, to the school itself, not having sidewalks,” Campbell said.
In order to provide sidewalks, the city would need to annex the Collins Ferry Road right of way.
According to Tuesday’s discussion, the desired annexation would follow Collins Ferry Road beyond the school, where it dead ends.
Bringing in the additional land would also allow for the creation of the planned Collins Ferry Connector Trail, a half-mile trail linking the Suncrest and Collins Ferry Road neighborhoods to the rail-trail.
Mon River Trails Conservancy Director Ella Belling was also on hand to speak in favor of the annexation, as was Morgantown Pedestrian Safety Board President Matthew Cross.
City Manager Paul Brake explained that the more difficult work of getting the necessary property owners on board can now begin.
“It’s a matter of talking to the property owners. They really control the time frame. It could be a matter of a few weeks. It could be a matter of a few months,” Brake said.
Annexing the property via minor boundary adjustment, which is the city’s plan, will require the approval of the Monongalia County Commission.
In other city news, council heard from Brad Homan, associate vice-president of Michael Baker International, regarding the ongoing construction of three aircraft hangars east of the Morgantown Municipal Airport runway.
The project has been behind since it began in summer 2017. The heavy lifting was supposed to be subsidized by Air Force reservists through the federal Innovative Readiness Training program.
Homan explained that federal budget cuts resulted in the reservists showing up without equipment or fuel, putting that financial burden on the city and slowing progress.
“Their budget got cut. They tried to provide as much as they could. They tried to provide more. They just couldn’t,” Homan said, explaining that the city was left to bring on a number of contractors to complete the work.
Additionally, Homan said, the soil at the construction site was not suitable to support the improvements, resulting in a substantial excavation project to make the area suitable for foundations.
The bottom line, Homan said, is that an estimated $660,655 in additional funds will be needed to complete the project, bringing the total cost to $4,770,620.
He explained that the project will end up being more expensive and take substantially longer than had it been built traditionally, without IRT involvement.
“This type of increase is not typical,” Homan said of the cost overruns, “but the way we did this project is not typical.”
Offsetting that news to some degree was word from Brake that the city has received a grant for $800,739.19 from the Federal Aviation Administration and the West Virginia Aeronautics Commission.
The grant is for the reimbursement of funds spent preparing the environmental assessment for the planned airport runway extension.
Lastly, council plans to present a letter to the legislature signed by Mayor Bill Kawecki spelling out city council’s objection to HB 2519, or the Campus Self Defense Act, also known as “campus carry.”
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