Will the airport be paved soon?
Engines will soon be revving again in Oliver as the Wine Capital Race Association is set to stage its second drag race event on August 7.
The event will be held in the industrial area, at 345th Avenue and 89th Street. The first event in June attracted over 50 cars.
Osoyoos is planning to host two racing events this fall, but it is unclear now whether the venue will be ready to host the events.
The Osoyoos races are scheduled for September and October at the Osoyoos airport, which still needs to undergo a paving job.
The Osoyoos Times has learned that a budget oversight has left the Town of Osoyoos with a shortfall of over $100,000 to complete the job to the standards recomm-ended by Interior Testing.
The test that came back from Interior Testing and our engineers stated that we had to do a little more work on the base material under the paved portion to allow the equivalent of a Dash 7 to land on our runway, Mayor John Slater explained.
This would put us over the proposed budget. The new figures came in at $290,000 to $340,000, but our original specs were not to this high standard.rnSlater said council is now looking at whether they can change the scope of the project and still come within budget.
We do have the option of going back to the original specs to keep within budget and council will be making this decision soon.
The town now faces a difficult decision. Do they change the scope of the project to remain within budget, in which case the airport may not be able to accommodate larger aircraft?rnOr do they go ahead with the new projected budget and somehow find the shortfall to make it happen?
When asked what this would mean for the racing events and for the airport itself, Mayor Slater was not sure.
Council will be working on all these questions in the next few weeks with our engineers, Mayor John Slater said.
