By Roger McKinney

rmckinney@joplinglobe.com

COLUMBUS, Kan. — The Cherokee County Commission on Monday gave the city of Oswego permission to build a new, safer entrance road to its airport.

Though Oswego is in Labette County, the airport is about a mile inside Cherokee County, east of the Labette County line on U.S. Highway 160.

Oswego Mayor Tom Bringle told the commissioners that the new road would be perpendicular to the highway. The current road, which would be eliminated as part of the project, is at a diagonal to the highway.

George Dockery, an engineer with the Kansas Department of Transportation, said the state would like the entrance road to be as close to a 90-degree angle with the highway as possible. He said that with the diagonal, motorists sometimes disregard the stop sign at the intersection.

Bringle said the city will pay for the work

Oswego City Clerk Cheri Peine said outside the meeting that the city is applying for a grant from the Federal Aviation Administration for the work. She said the project probably will cost about $100,000. No construction schedule has been established.

Project engineer Donald Klapmeyer said the 21-foot-wide entrance road would be paved.

“Most of the airplanes at the airport are owned by people from Cherokee County,” Bringle said.

Also on Monday, Cherokee County Appraiser Nancy Herrenbruck said she had scheduled about 60 informal property-valuation hearings requested by taxpayers.

“They listen to the national averages, and those aren’t the averages for Kansas,” Herrenbruck said of the reason some people are challenging their valuations.

Tax time