City board members discussed upcomingimprovements to the Brookhaven Municipal Airport at Tuesday night’sboard meeting.

    Ryan Holmes from Dungan Engineering appeared before the board todiscuss progress on a project that will ultimately put a new hangarat the airport.

    Holmes said the first phase of the project is almost complete. Anold hangar was taken down and the grounded graded and prepared fora new slab.

    “The project is 99 percent done,” Holmes said. “They just have tograss it. We are ahead of schedule by 66 days and underbudget.”

    The board plans for a combination of MDOT Airport ImprovementProgram (AIP) grant money and a 2012 airport multimodal grant tofund the construction of the new hangar next year.

    Tuesday night the board approved Holmes to make application for thefinal AIP grant needed.

    Mayor Les Bumgarner said the city receives some AIP money everyyear and has been saving the money for a big project.

    “We should have about $500,000 in old and new grant money,”Bumgarner said.

    Cities are allowed to hold grant money over from year to year, upto three years, said City Clerk Mike Jinks.

    Holmes also briefed the board on the need for an updated stormwater pollution prevention plan at the airport.

    Holmes said the Department of Environmental Quality requires theplan to be periodically updated.

    In other matters, the city board also reappointed James Tillman tothe five-member Housing Authority board at the request of Ward TwoAlderman Terry Bates.

    The board also approved a change order to the Brignall fire loopproject. The board removed Weed Lane from the project, beingundertaken by Greenbriar Digging.

    The removal is only temporary, though.

    Public Works Director Steve Moreton has always intended for theWeed Lane portion of the project to be covered by a 50/50 grant.However, Weed Lane must be removed from the project until grantapproval is secured, according to Moreton and Jinks.

    “We’ll approve another change order then and put Weed Lane backin,” Jinks said.

    The board also approved a pay order of $141,371 for Greenbriar’swork on the Brignall project thus far.

    The board also needs to approve bids for the North First Streetoverlay project, but discussion of that matter was recessed untilNov. 22 at 6:30 p.m. City officials recessed last night’s meetingin order to be able to attend the chamber of commerce banquet.