In other business Monday night, the Great Bend City Council:
• Accept the city audit bids submitted by Adams, Brown, Beran and Ball in the amount of $25,130 plus $4,800 per federal fund audited for 2014, $25,900 plus $4,850 per federal fund audited for 2015, and $26,600 plus $4,900 per federal fund audited for 2016. ABBB submitted the only bid.
• Approved providing $2,800 to Great Bend Township to help with the cost of the resealing of the road to the Great Bend Compost Site (the newly named Pat Keenan Road). The total cost is $5,672.27 and the city has worked together on this road in the past.
Barton County has already done the work and billed the township.
• Authorized the closure of Sherman Street from Broadway to K-96 from 4-10 p.m. on Oct. 24, from 3-10:30 p.m. on Oct. 25 and from 10 a.m. to 7 p.m. on Oct. 26 for the First Church of the Nazarene’s annual Judgement House. This is the same as last year’s request.
• Reviewed the Snow Removal Policy, Operational Procedure for 2014. It was scheduled for action but none was taken as some changes and revisions have been recommended. It will come before the council at a future meeting, most likely in November.
• Approved the replat of Great Bend Cemetery North as recommended by the Great Bend Planning Commission. With the new changes being undertaken at Great Bend Cemetery North, it is necessary to replat the next section being opened to align with the way the burial medians have been installed.
It will also accommodate being buried facing the east which is sometimes requested.
• Approved abatements at 300 Chestnut St., owned by Dale McGee, and 408 Plum St., owned by Arturo Morago.
At an earlier meeting, the property at 833 10th, the former Dixon Trailer Park now owned by David Walters, had been on the abatement list. However more time was given to clean up the property.
It was reviewed Monday and found to be within compliance so no further action was taken.
When Seaport Airlines took over as Great Bend’s Essential Air Service provider in June, it offered flights to Wichita. However, the air carrier has learned those flights were not that popular and this was putting Great Bend Municipal Airport’s federally-funding EAS status at risk, a company official told the City Council Monday night.
“We want to do everything we can to continue our partnership,” Seaport’s Jeff Dale said. “We want to get more people on that plane.”
So, at the request of Seaport, the council voted to submit a letter to the United States Department of Transportation seeking permission to drop the flights to Wichita and replace them with flights to Kansas City, Kan. The USDOT has the final say in the matter since it is the agency that manages the EAS program.
The Seaport Airline proposal is to replace the 12 weekly round trips to Wichita and six one-stop flights to Kansas City with 12 weekly round trips to Kansas City. Although number of daily departures would decline by a third, hours flown by Seaport would increase by 50 percent.
Flights to Kansas City showed a higher usage, a study done by Seaport in August noted. Despite being a one-stop and having 50 percent less frequency than Wichita, Kansas City flights generated 69 percent of the traffic since SeaPort took over EAS service.
What does this mean? Airport Manager Martin Miller said the feds will subsidise the carriers at airports like Great Bend up to a $1,000 per passenger under the EAS designation.
However, when passenger counts go down, the subsidy paid to the airlines increases, something frowned upon by the DOT. Through August, subsidy per passenger averaged $1,462.
The result the change, Miller said, would be increased usage which would reduce the subsidy.
Dale said the ticket price would remain at the current $49 to $99 price points.
If approved by the DOT, the new schedule would take affect Nov. 16.
The request came with the endorsement of the Airport Advisory Committee held a special meeting on the matter Sept. 10.
In June, SeaPort Airlines, based in Portland, Ore., started commercial air service from Great Bend, offering flights to Wichita Mid-Continent Airport and Kansas City International Airport. The carrier, which also serves the Salina Regional Airport, was awarded a two-year Essential Air Service contract for Great Bend by the United States Department of Transportation, replacing Great Lakes Aviation.
