News Talk 94.1/AM 1600 Where The Upper Cumberland Talks
The Upper Cumberland Regional Airport Board will hold a special called meeting Wednesday to discuss a new interlocal agreement between the four governments involved with the airport.
Airport Manager Dean Selby said the new agreement will clarify the responsibilities the governments of Cookeville, Sparta, Putnam County and White County. Selby said the current agreement has become outdated since it was first introduced in the early 1990s.
“Things have changed,” Selby said. “Laws have changed. Rules have changed. Things that happen within the federal government have changed. The way the grants had been written to this airport historically have not exactly matched what was reported in 1990, so what this is an attempt to do is to rectify that.”
Selby said this agreement is separate from the discussion of needing an airport authority versus the current board. Selby said the new agreement needs to be in place first.
Selby said if the board approves the new agreement it will be sent to each of the four governments for ratification. It would then go to T-DOT and the FAA for final approval. He said an updated agreement between the four governments is the next step in the discussions for a potential airport authority.
“It’s a pretty complicated document,” Selby said. “But as with any document, as things around it change, it has to be able to live and breathe and adopt to the current rules and regulations.”
The new agreement was presented to the airport board at the November 14 meeting, but the board chose to hold a later meeting so they could have time to properly review the proposal.
Selby said the plan was written as a joint effort between each of the attorneys of the four governments.
“They’ve been working for several months now on making sure that it is concurrent with state law and that it accurately reflects the actual operating conditions of the airport and the way we interact with the four local governments,” Selby said.
