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Gratiot County approves airport electrical maintenance contract, moves to transfer hangar lease after PAPI lights fail
Summary
County commissioners approved a 2025 maintenance agreement with J Rank Electrical for airport lighting and electrical systems, consented to a private hangar lease assignment, and discussed a recent outage of Runway 27 PAPI lights and water-sampling progress at the fuel farm.
The Gratiot County Board of Commissioners approved a one-year maintenance agreement with J Rank Electrical (Mount Pleasant) to service airport lighting and electrical systems and consented to the assignment of a private hangar lease.
Airport manager Dennis reported that the precision approach path indicator (PAPI) lights on Runway 27 failed in June and again the weekend before the meeting. He said field checks and a sensor replacement fixed one occurrence but the most recent outage produced error messages that required specialist service. County staff noted they have turned the affected PAPI lights off and issued a notice to airmen while they arrange repair.
Staff presented the proposed maintenance agreement from J Rank Electrical, which lists a $200 hourly rate with an eight-hour minimum for service calls (a minimum charge of about $1,600 per call), plus parts. Commissioners approved entering the agreement for 2025 and asked staff to investigate other vendors for future work while prioritizing immediate repairs to restore navigational lights.
The board also approved the consent to assign an existing private hangar lease (the lease documents date to February 2009 and use a long-term lease formula with periodic rent adjustments). The board’s action transfers the lease to the incoming leaseholder under the same contractual terms.
Airport staff provided other routine updates: Tritera-conducted water sampling at the fuel farm has returned negative results for the underground storage contamination test for the latest quarter; if samples remain negative for two more quarters the site will be released by the state. Hangar repainting and power-washing were underway; fuel sales year-to-date showed increases in some fuel categories (Jet A and 100LL) compared with the same period last year, although annual revenue figures are partly weather-dependent.
Commissioners emphasized safety as the priority in approving the maintenance contract and asked staff to pursue alternatives for long-term lighting replacement and repairs next year.
