Williston Airport

Davey Crockett

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I'd kind of forgotten about it until I saw it on the news , They were trying to acquire the land last I heard about it. Did the guy sell out easily or did they have to use a little force ?


http://www.thedickinsonpress.com/news/4016274-county-commissioners-against-new-williston-airport-others-say-its-needed



That's a big project.

"Total cost of the Williston’s airport project is estimated at $231 million, with the federal government expected to pay half of that. The city and state will split the other half."

- - - Updated - - -

I might have been off by about 35 million on my price but I was close.
 


eyexer

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Old airport had to be moved. No question about that. However, they paid like 15 million for the land. It was essentially one section I believe. That's insane. But it was the good old boy greasing job. This was actually pretty worthless pasture land. So not like he was selling prime farm land. So I wonder if all land like that will see their tax assess valuations skyrocket lol. Going to be about 280 million for the new airport. The feds are paying a decent sized portion of that. But the site the current airport sits on is worth a large amount of money. I think the city is going to end up about 50 million in debt if I remember correctly But they're over 200 million in debt now so what the hell is another 50 going to hurt lol. I personally don't believe the city of Williston will ever be out of debt. And could well be the first city in ND to file for bankruptcy. The state refuses to share much of the oil revenue with them. Nor do they give them much back in the form of sales tax money. Even though Williston is the #1 collector of sales tax in the state. Even over Fargo.
 

guywhofishes

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1/4 billion seems like a bargain

can't even buy a half a$$ diversion system for that

;:;popcorn
 

lostinnd

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The new airport in Williston is quite a joke. Just look at the expanded one in Minot that has empty terminals that have never been opened, waste of money there. Minot is quite a bit bigger than Williston so I don't know how they expect to utilize a similarly sized airport, especially with the drop in boardings over the last 3-4 years. The land that the old airport is on is going to be a tough sell since there are still hundreds of empty residential lots and tons of empty commercial lots West of town. People act like the City/State ONLY having to contribute 50-100 MILLION dollars out of the total cost is a bargain, federal dollars come out of all of our pockets!

Just like a lot of the poor financial decisions made by the City/State this one may just be another "$50 million" in debt but hey whatever its just numbers right? Maybe someday someone running the City will say enough is enough and become fiscally responsible. Its a shame that the locals on the commission are even supporting all of these poor decisions.

We left Williston a year ago and love it. Sure the ARC is nice, sure the new airport will be nice, etc but look at their shitty schools that they have done nothing to improve. Thats one of the primary reasons we left. They built a new high school that is smaller than the old one and they wondered why after one year it was already overcrowded? Not to mention the building is poorly designed and junk overall. I hope the citizens continue to vote down these absurd bonds for new schools and send a message to the idiots in charge that they need to get their head out of their ass.

You can thank greasy Hoven for pushing that airport funding through even after boardings declined upwards of 80%.
 


Davey Crockett

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From the outside looking in all I know is what the media presents but after reading that the county commissioners were against building new and were in favor of an upgrade to the existing one made me even more curious after I looked at the 2018 satellite image. There must have been some politics involved too. Chicago's O,Hare is pretty much surrounded by town.
 

Kurtr

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From the construction side I would rather be a greater at Walmart than work on one. There is so many specs and risk you have to build at least 35% in for penalties. They use the same specs at every airport don’t mater if it is Williston or lax.
 

Davey Crockett

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From the construction side I would rather be a greater at Walmart than work on one. There is so many specs and risk you have to build at least 35% in for penalties. They use the same specs at every airport don’t mater if it is Williston or lax.


You got that right, Airports might be the worst but All federally funded projects seem that way. Watched a contractor pour a gymnasium floor and two days later they were jack hammering it back out . No idea why or who's nickle it was on but it hurt to watch .
 

eyexer

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I wasn't in favor of the new airport. But there were some serious issues that would have to be overcome to bring this airport up to spec. First of the whole runway would have to be removed and redone to allow heavier aircraft. The big kicker was it would have to be lengthened considerably and the FAA wouldn't allow it. It would have to go to the northwest and the grade out that direction goes up considerably and it was out of the FAA allowable limits. The amount of dirt that would have to be moved would be enormous. And the golf course would have to disappear. No real room to increase the terminal size either. In all honesty what probably should have been done is build a new one midway between Sidney and Williston and share the cost. But there is no way Williston would have went along with that. And it really makes one wonder why it isn't just fine to drive to Minot to catch a plane. People drive a hell of a lot further on a regular basis to catch flights. The city just really wants to make themselves look like players in this ordeal. Sure it would be nice to be able to jump on Alegiant here and fly to Phoenix. But for 300 million I don't think we can afford that luxury.

Now to schools. What a fucking debacle. This school system has no damn clue. Worst I've ever seen. I could spend an hour just talking about the bullshit involved in the new building proposals alone.
 

Mort

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As for the airport, I'm kinda on the fence on the matter, I feel it was kinda of a damn if we did, damn if we didn't.

As regarding the new high school, like eyexr, don't get me started...alright, I will....number 1, the location is the worst place for it, I was against the location when the proposed in the first place.
 


raider

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on these issues - what do you do??? if someone would tell these folks what the price of oil will b in a month, or year, or decade, it would b pretty easy for them to know what to do... the people making these decisions are hiring firms to try to predict the future... what else do they do??? they go to the people who may or should know by looking at the trends and basically have to go with that information, as do the taxpayers...

i was told by an industry insider that oil would b $90 a barrel by dec 1... where is it now???

anyone with a crystal ball needs to run for these local positions and b hero's...

we need to b real here - anyone that knows what the oil price is gonna do would b on bahamas angler, not nodak angler...
 

Davey Crockett

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I agree, It would be tough to sit on a board of directors with that kind of money at stake. Our own state has been predicting, speculating and cheer leading so I am not necessarily pointing fingers at any Williston board members. The problem with hiring consulting firms to predict futures is that you are almost certain to get close to the same conservative answer every time no matter what they see or what they know and without any repercussion to them and they get paid up front to do it with no guarantee of accuracy, It's right in the contract. I cringe when I see how much money that gets spent on feasibility studies , It's unreal what they cost. Excitement is an overwhelming emotion to deal with during good times.
 

eyexer

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In Williston it's not a question of "need" for space. The question is why the hell do you need to spend 127 million. They want to spend 70 million alone just for one elementary. The Mountrail/Williams electric coop just got done building an 85,000 square foot facility for 38 million. And it's totally state of the art. Just the HVAC system alone is unbelievable. Geothermal system with something like 300 150' holes drilled for their coils. Could you imagine what that cost alone? yet they built this multi building campus for 38 million. Yet the school is trying to tell us it takes 70 million for an elementary lol. I have a cousin who owns her own architecture firm in Kansas City. I talked to her about this. Williston thinks it needs to spend $430 a square foot for schools. In KC they build them all the time for $220-$275 a square foot. And that's with union labor. Williston is going about this totally wrong. They are letting a company that gets paid a percentage of total cost dictate to them what they need. That's letting the fox in the hen house if I've ever seen it. And they don't even know what exactly they're going to get for it. All they have is square footage and an exterior sketch. How the hell can you sell that to tax payers. And they want to close some existing elementary's because they were built in the 50's. Holy shit go to the eastern part of the country and look at two hundred year old buildings that are in perfectly good shape. The board tries to tell us the older elementary's are structurally unsound. Yet they can't tell you what it is and they won't present an engineers findings on the matter. And that is because it's untrue. And they just want new. The path their taking is preventing the situation from being remedied. Everybody knows what the real story is. Another point is they had to have a two million dollar football/track facility complete with artificial turf etc. They had a perfectly good field/track that they could have used for quite a number of years. But they had to have it with the new high school even though they knew they were under building. Because they knew it would be far easier to sell a new addition to the tax payers rather than an athletic facility. This is being done in such a piss poor way it's amazing. Now add to that District 8 exists which is everything outside of city limits. They have 1/4 the students and collect about four times the property tax money than the city does. how the hell these districts aren't put into one district is assinine. District 8 tried three times to get a property tax measure passed to built a new elementary and it got smoked every time because they honestly didn't need one. So what did they do? Right after the third defeat they whipped out 16 million from a school maintenance slush fund to build a new school. how in the hell does a school hoard away 16 million dollars. Especially one the size of district 8. This shit is beyond mind boggling.
 

raider

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i'm with you on the cost and politics of these deals - what i'm talking about is the if and when...
 

eyexer

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here's where we are at today with education. Williston still has less kids in school than it did at the peak of the 70's boom. And we now have more class rooms. But of course they aren't luxurious enough
 


raider

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in 1985 school enrollment was 3508 (highest ever b4 or until 2014)...

in 2017 school enrollment was 4211...

projected school enrollment in 6 years is 5300...
 

eyexer

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It did jump a bunch in 17' but until that point there really wasn't much difference. But they do have far more space now. They didn't have the new high school then. So essentially the same space now as in the old days. Their 5300 projection is way off I think. Wouldn't surprise me if the enrollment actually has peaked. But your right what if it doesn't. This is why it really pisses me off that they want to stick local property owners with a bill for a schools they won't need in ten or fifteen years. And then to maintain and keep the lights on afterward. This is why the School land trust needs to be used for buildings. But in Williston's situation it's way past time to combine the two districts. The high school age kids are already coming to town for school anyway.

Now let me throw this out there. What if Williston says fuck it we're not building anymore school. Then they set a capacity and when that level is reached close the door and no more students. Any new students can go to the private school or to Trenton or wherever. Or the state can cough up the funds for additional space. What would happen if that was the case.
 

espringers

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the way these big projects are "sold" by the big general contractors that get a fixed % of the final project cost is a bit disturbing. architects get a fixed % too usually. fox guarding the hen house is right. i've got a buddy who is in that line of business. we pretty much just agree not to talk about it.
 

eyexer

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There is absolutely no incentive to keep costs down when the architecture firm is charging 8-10% of total project cost. That's the most absurd thing I've ever heard. There should be incentives to keep cost down not up. There really needs to be a law that prevents this shit on public building projects. There should be a flat rate for the designing/engineering and a flat rate for the project management portion. Then whatever bid is accepted for the actual construction phase (labor). There truly is not a low bid process for schools. The school board can't even tell you what's going into a 70 million dollar school. How in the hell is anybody supposed to vote for something like that. That would be like you or I going to the dealer and asking for a pickup. Dealer tells you it's 60K but you won't know what your getting exactly until it shows up and if you don't like it too bad so sad.
 

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