By ANDY GARDNER MASSENA -- The town will rent space at Massena International Airport to Air Methods Corp., which runs Lifenet air evacuation flights via helicopter. “Because Potsdam airport runway …
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By ANDY GARDNER
MASSENA -- The town will rent space at Massena International Airport to Air Methods Corp., which runs Lifenet air evacuation flights via helicopter.
“Because Potsdam airport runway will be shut down a couple months this summer … they need a place to fly out of, they also have people on staff 24 hours per day, so they need a place for crew to stay,” said Town Supervisor Joseph Gray.
The deal, which was approved 3-0, calls for the company to pay $1,000 to rent a hangar and another $1,000 to rent a nearby house on airport land, which was formerly owned by Stephen Trautmann.
The company is required to have staff onhand around the clock, so they need living quarters, Gray said.
“We were talking about maybe bringing in mobile campers, or RVs but we’ve got this house on the airport grounds that’s vacant,” he said. “They went and looked at the house, I wasn’t there, but (Councilman) Al Nicola said they thought it was a great facility.
The deal calls for a lease from May to July, with an option to renew it if the work in Potsdam doesn’t wrap up on time.
Potsdam Municipal Airport, or Damon Field, will be closed for several months while it's single runway is widened in the interest of general safety and to provide a margin of safety for larger aircraft that wish to use it.