City Set to Pass Over Local Engineers for Airport Expansion

SAN ANGELO, TX — The City will place its final stamp of approval on a 5-year contract for on-call services with an engineering firm to usher in millions in airport projects Tuesday, March 16. The firm pending final selection is not located in San Angelo even though there were two San Angelo firms and two additional Texas companies that lost in the selection process. City Council should be asking why?

A secret committee of five unrevealed people (unrevealed in the City Council information packet anyway) along with San Angelo Airport Manager Jeremy Valgardson selected an engineering firm based in Colorado to oversee millions in airport projects for the next half decade. One of the members of the selection committee doesn’t live in the state of Texas, we’re told but could not confirm. The Airport Advisory Board, made up of members appointed by the City Council, rubber-stamped the selection.

According to the consent agenda item set for final approval Tuesday, March 16. Jviation, A Woolpert Company, based in Denver, Colorado won the competitive process when the secret selection committee scored all Request for Proposals responses. The information given to council does not detail how the committee scored each company. Jviation has current deals with Colorado City, Utah and Cedar City, Arizona airports, among many others.

Losing the bid were two local engineering firms. KSA Engineers, Inc. of San Angelo engineered the new $6.2 million airport terminal building completed just three years ago. Centurian Planning and Design wrote the Mathis Field Master Plan in 2019 that defined the airport projects to be now undertaken by the Denver engineering firm. Centurian, located in the Concho Valley Center for Entrepreneurial Development — the business incubator, is currently building its offices in the unit block of W. Beauregard, rehabilitating a two-story storefront across from the Zero One Ale House.

If the consent agenda passes Tuesday, Jviation will oversee a gigantic wishlist of projects that will transform Mathis Field into a business and general aviation mega airport. Among the projects:

• Airport Apron Development / Rehabilitation / Reconstruction
• Convert Crosswind Runway (9 and 27) into a Taxiway
• Rehabilitate Runway 3-21, the current ILS instrument landing runway
• Reconstruct Taxiway H
• Terminal Drainage Assessment / Implementation / Construction
• Electrical Improvements
• Decouple Runway Ends (Runway 3 / Runway 36)
• NAVAID Relocation from runway 3 to 36
• New Hangar and Ramp Construction
• Development of Fueling Facilities
• Terminal Parking Lot Improvements
• Rental Car QTA Development
• Construction of Airport Entrance Roads
• Commercial Terminal Building Expansion
• Assist the Airport in ALP Updates and Grant Administration

All of the projects will be financed with federal grants making the engineering contract worth millions. So far, no one on City Council has asked why two local engineering firms were passed over. Nor has anyone asked who was on the initial secret selection committee or how the RFPs were scored. Maybe someone on Council will on Tuesday morning before the concept of buying local is deep-sixed by not questioning the item on consent agenda just as the out-of-state company’s selection was rubber-stamped by the Airport Advisory Board a couple weeks ago.

Generally, for contracts such as this, the City is required to reconsider items voted upon in a previous council meeting once more. After the second vote, the item becomes law. Any of the seven members of the City Council can “pull” an item from the consent agenda to be re-voted upon, resetting the process.

Other firms vying for the contract were (in no particular order):

• Garver (Georgetown, Texas)
• GEE Consultants, Inc. (Dallas)
• Parkhill, Smith & Cooper, Inc. (Lubbock)