The board of aviation commissioners has approved a design for its fencing project in a 3-2 vote.
During a special meeting, the board approved a plan that included a 10-foot fence between hangars and a 4-foot exterior fence and gate with keypad entry. Airport director Brian Payne said that while the fencing between hangars will be present on both the west and east sides of the airport, the east side will not have the 4-foot gate at its back.
The Sept. 1 vote also included acceptance of a bid contract with G.B. Hastie Fence Company for work on the 10-foot fence, with a construction amount of $3,039,470.75. The bid contract does not include the 4-foot exterior fencing.
Brad Davis, James Euler and Mark Pillar voted in favor of the plan and bid contract; Doug Van Klompenburg and Dick Gaynor voted against.
“This is not going to be a very popular decision with everyone on the board, but I feel it’s the right decision,” said board president Pillar.
Prior to the vote, Van Klompenburg made a motion to approve a different plan, which included a 10-foot outer perimeter fence outside of hangars with access devices for entry, as well as “appropriate signage” and posts with chains in certain areas of the airport.
Van Klompenburg’s motion was brought to a vote. He and Gaynor voted in favor of it; the other three commissioners voted against.
Van Klompenburg said that the fence between hangars was “decidedly less secure.”
Gaynor agreed, saying, “If we put the 10-foot fence between the hangars, each hangar then with the doors open becomes an access point.”
Payne, on the other hand, called the approved plan the “safest and most secure option” and said that it would limit the number of vehicles with access to the airfield, as well as keep out wildlife.
Van Klompenburg also said that his plan would help mend the relationship between the airport and tenants.
“There’s a lot of really angry aircraft owners and tenants out there, because they feel, and I would tend to agree with them, that they’ve been completely blindsided by this whole process,” he said.
Pillar replied that since the fencing debate had gone on for about three or four months, the process was hardly sudden. He added that the reason the debate had become more urgent was so that the board could send a final plan to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in order to receive their grant funding.
Payne also pointed out that the 4-foot exterior fence, which was not part of the airport’s original proposal, was put in at the request of the west side tenants.
“We do have a duty to provide the safest airfield we can,” Pillar said, referencing the airport’s mission statement: “To maximize safe, efficient, high quality access to the global airspace system for the betterment of Columbus and south central Indiana.”
Both Payne and Pillar said that they believed the FAA would prefer the 10-foot fence in between hangars. The FAA’s approval of the design is necessary because the airport is receiving $2,793,500 in Airport Improvement Program grant funds for their fencing project. The project also includes work on back-access drives behind hangars.
The FAA funds will go toward the 10-foot fence in between hangars, but not the four-foot exterior fence and gate system, which will be paid for by the airport.
