Commissioners award airport runway

TEKOA — County Commissioners awarded the Tekoa Runway project $20,000 in Economic Development funds.

Port of Whitman County Executive Director Kara Riebold and Tekoa Airport Manager Mike Hale came before the commissioners to present on the request.

Riebold reported the Port Commissioners have talked to County Commissioners about Tekoa’s airport project over the last few months.

The City of Tekoa applied for funding through the Department of Transportation in early May and wrote a letter to the county to apply for .09 Funds for the infrastructure project.

“We found out last month that they were awarded $640,210 from Washington State Department of Transportation Aviation, which was one of the largest awards in the state,” said Reibold, noting Tekoa is bringing money back to Whitman County.

“Rehabilitated and improved will greatly increase their ability to attract those companies in addition to future plans for hangars and other improvements at the airport,” Reibold said.

Hale said they were originally going to start with a taxiway and ask people to lease and build hangars on the airport.

“The department of transportation aviation guys came out and inspected our runway and strongly suggested that we fix the runway before we do anything else,” said Hale, adding there has been nothing done in the last 20 years so doing this gives them a leg up for further development.

The funds are from requests for funding proposals from the Whitman County Economic Development Public Facilities .09 Funds.

Funds are through a sales and use tax for public facilities in rural counties which states the legislative authority of a rural county may impose a sales and use tax to finance public facilities serving economic development purposes in rural counties, construction of affordable workforce housing and offices. (RCW 82.14.370)

According to public record, total funds available for 2024 are $100,000.

The request for Willard Field, a public airport owned and managed by the City of Tekoa, adopted a goal to build an industrial park at the airport in April 2024 and expand airport capabilities.