As Dave asked in his comment today, what if we can not extend a contract with MassPort and are forced to downgrade to a General Aviation Airport--will it save money??? That is a real good question and Dave brought up some great points.
Looking at the IMG Executive Summary at the bottom of page 4. It does not look like it will save much money. It will save a little money (not being 139 certified), "it will likely require extremely high subsidization".
At the same time extending the agreement with MassPort, this will cost us money as well since we still pay 100% of the debt service and no way will MassPort go with 100%. Bottom line IMG estimates about 1,400,000 cost to the General Fund if we extend the contract.
So it will still cost is alot of money to downgrade to a GA airport and it will still cost us alot of money to extend the contract with MassPort. What are options are left? Close or sell are the only two left.
Versus even trying to get into whether or not we can close the airport, why don't we do everything possible over the next 400 days to SELL ORH!!! IMG dismisses this in their reports, but so what? Why not try?? What exactly do we have to lose to put up a big FOR SALE sign on ORH??
WRRB/Telegram District City Council Forum 10/18
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This forum is for all district council candidates; all candidates are here
today. Format: 14 total questions, 4 questions across districts (for all
candida...
6 months ago
4 comments:
If the city won't save that much money with a GA facility, it looks like Worcester Metrowest Boston Airport is destined to always be a commercial airport on top of a hill...for better or for worse.
I can see how debt service would be the same if we downgrade to a GA facility. One would think that we could downsize on the staff and save some money, but evidently not.
It's interesting that the ONLY logical solution proposed by the IMS report is to continue along the same path.
A recent story in the orcester Telegram shows how the Orange airport is expanding. Fitchburg is busy. Southbridge is busy, but Worcester is losing money. IMG says it will still cost $2,000,000 a year to downgrade to GA only.
I think that report needs more scrutiny.
Charley
Charley:
Good to see you on the blog.
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