Columbia Airport has ideas for funding new terminal

COLUMBIA, Mo- The Columbia Airport Advisory Board met Wednesday afternoon with three main agendas.

The most important was to figure out how were they going to fund a new terminal. The current terminal has been around since the early 1970’s. It is just too small to be the only terminal for the growing airport.

Member of the Airport Advisory Board, John Riddick explained why the one terminal is a hassle. “It gets pretty crowded in there now when there is two flights close together, one flight gets delayed just a little bit, where it pushes up against another one. You’ve got maybe 100 people in a space that’s designed for just 100 people.”

Riddick continued to describe that there is no snack bar and only had the bare necessities.

Some of the proposed ways that they might gather the funds would be to raise lodging tax by 1%, charging a small fee for parking, and a new restaurant tax.

The earliest the City Council would vote on the proposition would be in May and would not go to the ballots until August.