Passengers at Williams Lake Regional Airport could pay an additional $10 as Council hopes to implement a new improvement airport fee.
Council considered the fee proposal at Tuesday night’s regular meeting and unanimously agreed to direct staff to prepare a bylaw for consideration on the subject.
Mayor Walt Cobb said that the $10 would be on top of the already $15 being charged per ticket.
“One of the things we recognize is that we want to continue to expand the airport,” said Councillor Scott Nelson.
“It’s a regional airport and frankly the taxpayers of Williams Lake have been paying for it at the end of the day so we want to create this fund to allow us to be able to do things such as repaving the road, applying for grants for expansion of the airport and continue to do the upgrades. We don’t want city taxpayers to be paying  for it individually.”
“At this point in time, this 10 dollar fee would be one of the lowest in the province in our geographical area.”
Council also agreed to direct staff to prepare a short-term borrowing bylaw to borrow funds for the airport road rehabilitation in 2019.
The recommendation was voted against Councillor Ivan Bonnell who said the fee structure should be first confirmed before deciding to borrow any money.
The City of Williams Lake received ownership of the Williams Lake Regional Airport from Transport Canada in 1997.