Video Description:
Airport Advisory Board Meeting – February 10, 2022
Note: The following is the output of transcribing from a video recording. Although the transcription, which was done with software, is largely accurate, in some cases it is incomplete or inaccurate due to inaudible passages or [software] transcription errors. It is posted as an aid to understanding the proceedings at the meeting, but should not be treated as an authoritative record.
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Unknown Speaker 0:00
record before I actually keep going. We have started. All right.
Unknown Speaker 0:06
Well, good evening, everyone and welcome to our February 10. Airport advisory board board meeting. Very nice to see you all. Michelle, glad to have you back with us. Can we ask you to start with calling the roll please?
Unknown Speaker 0:17
You bet. Chairman Earl here. Vice Chair Jordan. Here. BOARD MEMBER bliss. Here. BOARD MEMBER dean here. Board Member Robeson their board members solemn. So salamati Sheehan. Sorry. Tell us
Unknown Speaker 0:38
tell us this cool.
Unknown Speaker 0:40
Nice all day. I was like, I’m gonna say it right.
Unknown Speaker 0:43
Don’t worry about it. Yeah, yes, I’m here.
Unknown Speaker 0:46
Thank you. You have a quorum.
Unknown Speaker 0:49
Thank you, Michelle. First on our agenda is our public invited to be heard. I don’t believe we have anyone on the meeting right now. I’ll just make sure. And see and no one there. We’ll move right along then to approving our minutes. We have minutes from both December 9 and our January 13. Meetings. Does anyone have any revisions to the minutes before we approve? Make a motion? Mr. Robeson?
Unknown Speaker 1:18
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It was from the last meeting. So January meeting. Let’s see, page four lines 36 through 38. Has to do with the land for any extension of the runway to the west. Now, I could be remembering wrong, but what I understood was not that there’s not enough land there. But the city hasn’t made any overtures to the current owners to let them know that we’re interested or, you know, made any progress in that direction. So what you guys recall?
Unknown Speaker 1:55
I had said, Russell, was that on the existing airport land, there’s not enough for an extension, it would be required acquisition. That’s consistent with what you just said.
Unknown Speaker 2:09
Okay, well, I would request a clarification there. Because, you know, it’s a minor point, really, but I think that’s fundamental. So one of the things that their port is trying to do, which is extend the runway.
Unknown Speaker 2:21
So we can just then the amendment would be, there’s not enough on line 37 Not enough land within the current airport
Unknown Speaker 2:29
boundaries. Without an acquisition. Yeah. Okay. But
Unknown Speaker 2:33
But Can I Can I add something to that? Does that mean we can’t do 1000 foot extension? Well, so Steve, I’m gonna just hold that. And for a second in just a minute approval. Sorry. But I’m still gonna stop. Were there any other amendment got
Unknown Speaker 2:56
one more? I got one more for you, Mr. Chairman, page, page six lines 2728. Again, my understanding was that we don’t really need to change the gate code. But the minutes read as if that’s kind of something we’re trying to do.
Unknown Speaker 3:14
Do you want to clarify, I mean, that’s something that I do intend to do once I’ve gotten a complete communication with so that I can communicate with everyone.
Unknown Speaker 3:25
You are going to change the gate code at that point. At that point, yes. Okay. I misunderstood that. So thank you.
Unknown Speaker 3:33
Does anyone else have any revisions to either set of minutes? Okay, I have one for the January 13 minutes on page five, line 29. It just has my first name instead of the last name for the vote. I would entertain a motion without any other discussion to approve the minutes with the with the two amendments.
Unknown Speaker 4:03
I move that we approve the minutes as amended.
Unknown Speaker 4:06
Can you guys do them one at a time? One one hour, then? We can make sure everybody agrees?
Unknown Speaker 4:14
Absolutely. So, Russell, do you want to do Do you want to maybe propose just the
Unknown Speaker 4:21
Yeah, move that we approve the December 9 minutes.
Unknown Speaker 4:26
Is there a second? I’ll second that. Moved and seconded. Any further discussion? All those in favor of approving the December 9 minutes? Raise your hand please. No one opposed. Thank you all. And then can Russell or whoever would like to a a second motion for the January 13 minutes.
Unknown Speaker 4:47
I move that we approve the January 13 minutes as amended.
Unknown Speaker 4:51
I’ll second that as well. Thank you both. Again, any other discussion? All those in favor, raise your hand. and none opposed. Thank you guys. Minutes approved with amendments. Can we move on then to our old business? Financial update? Jeff, I don’t know if if you have something for us tonight on
Unknown Speaker 5:14
this, I do with Joanie out this week and been unable to, I don’t have personal access into our financial system. So I have to work through her for that. Update. We will look for an update the next month. And then we have our standing item of our airport needs recommendations to council. I don’t have anything in particular here, I think there’s kind of two things we could discuss if we want to one would be some of the topics Melinda proposed last month for potential things for people to be interested in. And Steve, I think it would be a great opportunity for you to ask your 1000 foot runway extension question as well. Since we’re here, so either way, first, or Steve, go ahead. I’ll go I’ll go first. I was just thinking about it. I mean, if we can’t do 1000 feet, is there any restriction on shortening the extension, say 500 feet? Any any extension of that runway is going to be a plus, especially on those hot days and summer? I don’t disagree with that statement. And I and I will verify the answer. But my understanding is that with the current FAA requirements, ensuring that all safety areas remain on airport property, that that does not allow an extension of the current runway of any link. But I’ll be happy to to verify with our planning engineering team on that specific question. But, Jeff, just to be clear, the runway extension could still happen if the city acquires the land to support Yes, i Yes. i took Steve’s question as, as the land sits today. Yeah. Is there any room for running? That? That’s there’s always room for extension when you acquire more land? Yeah, that was my my question. With the with the existing land that we control. Can we shorten the runway length extension, and still have enough room while we take it out to what wherever the the safety area has to be and then calculate how how much the runway can be? Extension? Right. And I’ll check and verify that I believe that the safety areas of the existing runway, do not sit within airport property as it stands. Oh, really?
Unknown Speaker 7:46
That’s true. I just looked at that, again. It’s supposed to be 1000 feet now we only have about it, yeah, 800 feet to the fence.
Unknown Speaker 7:55
So we’re 200 feet into property that we don’t control. Right. And that historically, was very normal for airports. It was not a previous requirement of FAA to have those safety areas. But what happened over time, is that when you don’t control that land, then people will do what they want, whether it’s with trees or otherwise. And so it became more of a issue to spend money on managing things off airport than an airport having full control of that. So that’s sort of what drove the change in FAA policy.
Unknown Speaker 8:36
I did not know that. Thank you,
Unknown Speaker 8:39
Mr. Silva. i And you know, I’m not proposing this. I’m just purely educational for my purposes. Would this be something that if the landowner didn’t want to sell, it could be eminent domain it?
Unknown Speaker 8:57
I am not an eminent domain expert, but my understanding is, is that airport sponsors, typically cities or counties do have the ability for the public benefit to eminent domain land, whether or not this specific one falls within the criteria? I can’t answer that. But I do know that that has been used in the past.
Unknown Speaker 9:24
I think that Thanks, Steve, for bringing that up. And it was just a good clarification coming out of those minutes. Vice Chair Jordan, do you view and suggested last month, a series of items probably 10 or 11, or 12. That we may want to focus on and how one or two of us each assigned to some of those. I don’t know if anyone had a chance to think through those. If you want to kind of maybe walk through those one more times. I thought it was a really good list to see how we might want to how we might want to focus on those going forward, as it fits into, you know, our court role of recommendations to council going forward.
Unknown Speaker 10:06
Yeah, the thank you the, to the extension discussion, I know that this has been an agenda item, since I joined the board in January of 2016. And it was scheduled, it was on the books, it felt like it was really far away, then it got moved up a couple of years, and then it kind of got pushed off. And I couldn’t, I couldn’t swear to anything in court at this point. But at one point, that soccer field on the west side with the farm was they, you know, have been spoken to, and they were open to selling that land, to the airport, for the purpose of extension, we were still it was so far out financially with the FAA and grants and things like that, and the purchase of land, and then the all the studies and things that had to happen, those had to happen first, as I recall, prairie dogs and Pribyl mice and things like that. And then then, you know, we had to begin the process, really close with what was the viability which then lead to could we make an offer on it, which would lead to the money and, and then will the FAA back us on the extension. So it is, it seems like they just happened at other airports. And then we go fly and discover new paint jobs and new asphalt. But it is quite a process since we don’t own that land. But at one point, there were talks and the land owner was open to selling. But that was probably three or four years ago, I would guess at least. And so I don’t know if that condition still exists, or if that land sold. And then I don’t know how many of you saw that there’s a that mulching facility that they’re going to put in the county is next to us to the north. And if you ever go get trees, you go way back to the back. And they’re going to put in a chicken facility back there. And there’s been some discussion with people who live on St. Bryan Road, about the noise. And that’s a city development that’s going to happen. And it’ll be over again to the north and west end of
Unknown Speaker 12:24
I feel like I’m gonna sneeze of the,
Unknown Speaker 12:27
of the airport for us. Excuse me, I’m so sorry. And the, but again, that soccer field is really the issue. And I’ve always watched that soccer field closely, especially in the summer, it makes me very nervous to come in over that with all the little kicks there. So some of the so the runway extension would be, we could all become experts in our area, if that’s an area that you wanted to take on. Isn’t of interest would be to kind of monitor that. Ask questions, find out so the runway extension would be one. The grants are always a question, just how we can liaise on those, those are pretty much in the ballpark of the city. But just you know, following through and helping out with the report manager with getting data or whatever else has to be done. Those are the kind of things I used to ask David if there was any way I could help him as a just a civilian and somebody on the airport. Could I help him administrative Lee with anything like that? rules and regs compliance FBO kind of eyes on the airport, we have the squawk list through Lopa that they were like six months ago, there was a lot of chatter with it. And they were keeping the spreadsheet with issues around the airport that I think most of them had been addressed now. But we could bring that in at the board to watch a squawk list and be sure that we’re eating and enabling the improvements around the airport because some of them the pilots do. I did see the Bazi on the other night. So that was awesome. And so squat list the public restrooms on the south side. For those based on the south side that have a vested interest in the airport development in general, we’ve had different members come and speak to us about their ideas for development and kind of be that liaison. That person that keeps your ear to the ground on that. And then airport airport development with LDAP. You know, promoting us with the city. Being that liaison to be sure that we’re showing up in the important areas of the city that we feel we get left out of and stepped over by dia typically, a lot of things refer to dia as being the closest airport when we have one right there. The airport Expo and air show which has been in my my basket for quite a long time then I’ll just go ahead and say while To saying that that we had decided on a 2023 show, prior to Mr. Slater’s passing. And so I don’t know that we’ll try to pursue 2023 with a new airport manager coming on. That was the, I thought we’d be well underway at this point working on it. And we’ve had setbacks of all kinds. So that’s something to consider. But that does require very knowledgeable team to pull that off. And then finally, I think, Oh, the electric charging stations, which plays into the advanced on what 2.0 and the climate action. So attending those meetings, listening in on what’s the discussion, brainstorming how the airport can be a part of that and be at the we’d love to be at the lead, not 20 years behind all that we’d like to be up at the front, and perhaps even breaking ground, in aviation and in the city, for working with the city and not being a an outlier, or a stodgy old component, but actually being on the front of it. So charging stations, it’s easy to say not easy to implement. We discussed that airport last month, that aircraft, that still there’s still a lot of questions about what they’re going to need, you know, how what’s a quick charge look like things like that. So again, just becoming subject matter experts in in a specific area that you’re interested in, and could report back to the board, or be available to be called either providing reporting practically, after attending a meeting or, or learning something new, and then being able to be called on to gather information. As it comes before us, we can present a counselor.
Unknown Speaker 16:51
Thank you. And I’ll just, you know, add all of that is within the context of providing recommendations to council on future action and our duty of kind of promoting your awareness, utilization and development of the airport. I have two hands raised. So I’m going to go councilmember Barton first and see we’re up there first.
Unknown Speaker 17:13
Yeah, thank you. I just had a couple of corrections on on Melinda’s first item of the wood shipping facility is not a city facility, we probably wouldn’t have that county, isn’t it? I can’t it’s a county facility. I’m looking into it, because I’ve heard from constituents who are unhappy. And the other the other important point is that it’s got a three year renewal cycle. If it does go in it’s goes in for three years and not forever wood. So you know, in terms of the availability of the site, and and,
Unknown Speaker 17:54
and it’s definitely parallel to the runways, it’s not going to like come around over that property. Runways is definitely parallel and then differs, I don’t know, I doubt it’s gonna be a height, any kind of an issue for us. But I did see the conversation was about the noise from it. And the trucks coming in and out that the neighbors on separate are worried about it. And they I think one person said, you know, we’ve already got enough to deal with with the airport. But that is the quiet area right there. We’ve cut our engine number coming into land, so it’s quieter. But just to say that that is happening beside us and to the north and west. Yeah. And that last I, I’ve spent a little bit since I’ve flown, but it’s still, I think we’ve still got a soccer field, I think that’s still an active soccer field at the end. When when departing to the west, so and that’s obviously the land that we’d be considering the 1000 foot to my memory as well would take us past 75th Wood, actually, we can’t actually do 1000 feet, even from the end of our runway out because there’s a road. So we do have to look at something a little under that anyway. That’s all all just in my memory from when this has been brought up in the past. And then to Marcia to the Initiatives with the City. You know, that’s definitely we definitely want to be involved and then with promotion by the city, to new businesses and businesses looking to relocate families, whoever it is, yeah. It was kind of tied in with the arts long initiative for Performing Arts Center week we kind of showed up on the radar there. It did require a longer runway. So there’s a lot of history in those discussions, but we’re still at the end of the day, sitting here. Talking about length and not having the land so it’s frustrating for us to never feel like we can get just to square one. And either, you know, push it along enough to get shut down completely. They still be at least we understand. But that’s a function of the airport and the FAA, a lot of other lot about the bodies. So
Unknown Speaker 20:10
Palace, do you want to go ahead?
Unknown Speaker 20:14
Yes, super quick just to add on to what Miss Jordan was talking about, about opportunities. I’m on the Innovate long whiteboard. So what we’re going to be working on is advanced manufacturing. And anyone who has an idea or wants to participate or would like to talk to me about ideas that we can incorporate this, these leaders called last poo, which is a big job facility that they’re trying to raise money for. So plenty of opportunity, please reach out if you want to chat. Have you talked to you about it and learn from your perspectives?
Unknown Speaker 20:57
Great. Thank you, Russell.
Unknown Speaker 21:02
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Just wanted to quickly say I just measured when Melinda was talking about the distance to 75th, and it’s 2200 feet ish. So we do have around 4000 1000. I’ve saved the area. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 21:18
I’m glad I wasn’t the only one on Google Maps looking at.
Unknown Speaker 21:22
Looking at longer. Yeah, maybe we were thinking 10,000? I don’t know, there was definitely discussion of do we go? You know, Can we can we put the rug underneath us to go over do it Chicago styler, whatever ports, those are where they go under. And it’s been a long time now. There’s been so much discussion in so little movement. So
Unknown Speaker 21:42
well, so to keep us moving on this for tonight. I mean, I wrote down, I think six of those that, at least, in my mind are kind of the more important ones, though. Certainly, it’s not up to me if anyone disagrees with me. But if I’m curious if there’s kind of, you know, two people for each of these, who wants to be involved and kind of take this on. So when we incorporate board reports, were able to bring back updates and kind of have that person be the subject matter expert to inform the rest of us. So the ones I wrote down and Melinda, I’m adding one to your list for pending, some of that needs to happen in the next month. I’ve got the airshow in the Expo. I’ve got electric charging, that got the runway extension. I’ve got kind of I guess broad promotion partnerships, long run development, talents, I’m taking your innovation, and then we need to talk about an annual report.
Unknown Speaker 22:39
Oh my gosh, yes, you are right.
Unknown Speaker 22:42
Did I miss one? That’s one things we should be focused on kind of as well. Right off the bat here.
Unknown Speaker 22:49
Thanks for catching the annual report. I usually try to help on that. To get stories from the airport. Get some of the community inputs, Mr. Bliss you
Unknown Speaker 23:14
still need yourself. Sorry, I got muted. I didn’t even know if the FBO is that something we should be looking into?
Unknown Speaker 23:26
In what context? And just having an FBO at the airport. I mean, though, my we don’t have one and how we get one and do we have to advertise? Do we have to go to people? That’s one and number two is is the bathrooms on the south side. So one of the things that Melinda brought up. Yeah. Okay. I’ll take on that project. How’s that? Alright, Steve, I’m writing it down for restaurants. Anyone else want to be on the restroom? Okay, I’m only doing that because I spend most of my time on the south side. And it’s crazy that if I have to use a bathroom, I have to leave the airport to go around to the Northside
Unknown Speaker 24:17
party, a porta potty sometimes there’s multiple people going there.
Unknown Speaker 24:23
And these Imagine I have stopped in Cheyenne though to go to the bathroom before he came home. So that’s maybe you want to think about that.
Unknown Speaker 24:33
Probably a good idea. I always forget that part.
Unknown Speaker 24:37
That’s right. You know, find your favorite bathroom someplace. So
Unknown Speaker 24:42
I’m going to run down this list then and see if any of these anyone really wants to volunteer for some of these. So Expo Air Show. Huge topic.
Unknown Speaker 24:52
Yeah, it’s of the off the board by the time we’re doing that, but I think that’s fine. We had other you know, we’ve got a lot of people on that. So
Unknown Speaker 24:59
even more You’re off the board. We still need you. Thank you. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 25:04
Absolutely another board member want to kind of be involved in that with Melinda. Since we don’t have two board members, Malcolm, thank you. Absolutely. electric charging anyone have a particular interest there that I broadly infrastructure, all the rest of that just really trying to understand how how that plays in here to Alice? I’m curious about that one as well, especially for the financial implications. I will put me there seeing no one else, by the way, extension.
Unknown Speaker 25:40
Russell no one else. I mean, I’ll help to
Unknown Speaker 25:48
Russell and Tallis broad promotion partnership Longmont development. Don’t everyone at once here and didn’t really
Unknown Speaker 26:01
tell us in inroads? It sounds like I’m
Unknown Speaker 26:03
already kind of doing that. ls and I’ll join you on that one. Tell us for if you Great, thank you. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 26:17
Can I lump? Steve, you’d brought up FBO KY lump that in with just development broadly. Yes. Perhaps services and who? Anyone have a particular interest in development? FBO services. I’ll put myself on there if anyone wants to join me.
Unknown Speaker 26:36
Are you putting that in? I wrote down from when Melinda was talking that squawk list was one of them? Is that kind of what you’re getting out there?
Unknown Speaker 26:43
I am not actually, I was thinking more broader. What we were talking about? When was that? July or August with how we, you know, what’s that future hangar development look like? What’s kind of the next steps of development on the airport. I was my head was
Unknown Speaker 27:02
such a well, I’ll volunteer myself for squawk list when it comes up. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 27:07
And to squawk list, I see. I also had a note about the airport security, just lights and kind of you know, check in the airport. When we’re in the area I’ve done it before where I’ve just you know, been coming home late and and go just take a drive thru and loop around or I’ll see somebody on the ramp, just headlights and stuff and just cruise over and just be another presence here another set of headlights just to make them nervous. If they’re not, they’re up to no good.
Unknown Speaker 27:34
I think we need advisory board magnets for our cars, though, because people are always staring at me while I’m driving around the airport. This way your dark glasses. Have your wired mic.
Unknown Speaker 27:46
Flashing lights. There you go. Alright, so I’ve got Russell on squawk list. I’m gonna put security kind of together with that house
Unknown Speaker 27:56
as well. No, no security, but development because I think development is gone with the other stuff that I’m already doing to with the economic development.
Unknown Speaker 28:05
Jeff, you and I’ve got development. Alright. Last I’ve got an annual report, blend. I know you’ve been involved. I would like to work on kind of refreshing this based on the comments we got from Council last year, but has a special interest in being involved here.
Unknown Speaker 28:25
And I do recall those comments that we do it more like a corporate IT for new people on the board. It was more just a historic view, look back and nothing really forward and not kind of taking a Profit Loss approach to it. You know,
Unknown Speaker 28:48
I can assist with that. That’s my background. Okay. Okay. I do great forecasting for startups to get their foot capital. So that’s exactly what I do.
Unknown Speaker 28:57
Okay, that’d be great. And just to get some advice on it, too. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 29:00
We can’t have all three of us do it. Oh, you’re right. We can’t We can’t have three more of us together for Open Meetings.
Unknown Speaker 29:07
Oh, I can just say it as needed. Or if you guys need me to add in just for the finance part. Okay, okay.
Unknown Speaker 29:14
We will pull you in, then one of us will pull you in. Okay. Yeah.
Unknown Speaker 29:21
Linda, do I recall correctly that when we get those comments you asked, do they expect the same Profit and Loss report from the golf courses and things like that? All right.
Unknown Speaker 29:31
Discussion? Yes. Go. You said. All right.
Unknown Speaker 29:34
Yeah. Yeah, I did kind of have a beef about that. Didn’t I remember that? Yeah. And, but it does make sense. And it is wise, especially if we want to position ourselves to be promoted by the city and be attractive to developers that we do have a more professional report that shows our vision and mission for the airport. So and I think we’re ready for that. But yeah, we definitely did get hacked about our report that we don’t even prepare. That was the other problem for new board members. We don’t prepare the report, it was prepared. And then we just had a chance to review it and look at look for mistakes, which there usually weren’t any. And so this will be an opportunity. And it’s not do it doesn’t get presented, I think until
Unknown Speaker 30:21
well, so I’m not going to get ahead of myself and our current are already we’re already two weeks late. Are we? Okay? We’ll talk about that. But we’re having a little bit more time to do
Unknown Speaker 30:33
well, just we just play blame COVID.
Unknown Speaker 30:37
I looked back at our at our history last year, we approved it in March, but we didn’t actually take it to council till May.
Unknown Speaker 30:43
So I was thinking, I was thinking we made it to June because budgets are in June.
Unknown Speaker 30:48
We’re gonna give ourselves a little bit more, more leeway. But I’ll leave that for probably next month when we can actually come back and talk. Okay. Does anyone else have any other comments, I’ve got a good list here. I appreciate everyone stepping up and volunteering for a few of these. I think this will we’ll continue to define what this actually looks like in practice as we do some of these reports, but I love the I love how we’re all getting involved. So before we move on anyone else, you get
Unknown Speaker 31:18
to post these can finalize lists of everything. And, yes,
Unknown Speaker 31:26
it’ll be in the minutes. And then yeah, and then
Unknown Speaker 31:31
I’ll make I’ll work with Jeff or Michelle to get one of them to send it out to all of us from the discussion here. So we don’t have to wait for the minutes.
Unknown Speaker 31:41
And then if anybody thinks of anything else that was just based on our conversations and the things that we continuously are taking a look at and discussing, and just gives us a chance to get a little more instead of all of us having 12 things on our mind that we can just have four or five and kind of dig a little deeper and, and, and report back or bring up new things, or at least be intelligent to engage in conversation. We had a really good presentation last year about development on the board. But the ideas were so new, I cleaned like a park, something that I certainly had never thought of. And had no I was so surprised by it. I didn’t have any way to respond to it or or, you know, it’s just a great idea. But that was as far as it went. So just to have a better grip on, you know, what is feasible, what’s not, and kind of be the voice.
Unknown Speaker 32:43
There. Well, thank you everyone for that. I think that was I’m excited for where we go with it. I’m gonna move us on then to our new business. We’ve got an airport hiring airport manager hiring update. Phil are Jeff, I don’t know who it is. But Phil, do you mind just introducing yourself first?
Unknown Speaker 33:00
Yeah, it’s not this, I thought this might be a good place to introduce myself. My name is Phil Greenwald. I’m the transportation planning manager with the city I work for Joanie Marsh. And she’s not here today, obviously, but I will be taking over the supervisory role duties of the new airport manager when he or she comes on board. So just wanted to give you that heads up. And you’ll probably see a lot more of me as a as we try to assist the new person in, in taking this board or being the liaison for this board. So I’ve been working for the city for 22 years, been in transportation for my whole career basically. And so they thought that was a polio good point to try to move the airport into a transportation realm. And I think that’s, I think that’s a great idea because we really are going to start working about are talking about how we make a better team with that airport manager being part of the transportation group rather than being kind of its own appendage that that you know, maybe didn’t get all the love that they needed in the in the past and you saw it you probably saw that firsthand. And and so we’re trying to try to bring the airport and the airport manager into into being more consistent, more more communication with the city and just been great. I have to you know this better than I do. But I’ve been working with him just a short time and realize what a great asset he’s been and how how grateful we all are. That he was able to give us the support his time and and will be sad will be very sad to see him go but he’s gonna leave us in really good hands because he’s been part of the hiring team that we’ve been looking for, for this new manager. So just let you know that we we had 19 qualified applicants that that came toward or came to us as far as their applications meeting all the standards that the city puts forward. From that 19 We we found nine folks that really met kind of that minimum threshold, that minimum standard that I think we were looking for as an upper manager. From that five people accepted our interview invitation. So we were able to last week put together some interviews of five people. And then from there, we have three finalists that we’d like to introduce to you, quite frankly, and, and we’re trying to set that up right now we’re waiting for Johnny to come back to kind of finalize things, but what we’d like to do is, you know, interview them from the, from, from our team for city team, and then have them kind of make the rounds as far as maybe a meet and greet with this airport advisory board. And I know Harold wants to meet them. And then, obviously, Marsha, as the as the as the airport council member liaison, we would, we would hope that you too, would be included in the in those meet and greets. So Councilman Martin, we want you to be part of that if you have time. So we may do a bigger thing we make we made. This is kind of our first blush, what’s going on. So very good to meet you all. I really appreciate the time tonight. I wish I could have been here last month, but unfortunately I was I had to be kind of in charge of the vacation to to Hawaii. So we finally got our vacation in from 2020. So I apologize for that. But I was having too much too much of fun time. But without Is there any questions I can help answer?
Unknown Speaker 36:34
What’s the timeframe for the three finalists in the meet and greet just to get an idea? And would they do it? Evening weekend daytime,
Unknown Speaker 36:41
we’re gonna we’re looking at the end of the week on the 21st week of the 21st, or the beginning of the week, the 28th. So we do have kind of some flexibility. I think we all wanted it to move a little faster. But with people. We’re trying to align everybody here. So that’s been that’s been a bit of a bit of a task. So we think the 21st in the in the week of the 28th will be our one of those will let you know as soon as we know and the seasons. We have some organization around that. Thank you. Did you have anything? Oh, good.
Unknown Speaker 37:15
One thing I just wanted to add on to fill out the three finalists without disclosing who they are. Is that the adage for coordination, future meet and greets and views? Is that to within the prep range area or not?
Unknown Speaker 37:35
Thank you very much. Any other questions I can help answer or relate to Joanie? Well, thank you for your time tonight.
Unknown Speaker 37:43
No question. No. So I’m, I’m sorry, I’m still learning so much about this. And I apologize for any ignorant statements. But when I got the tour of the Greeley airport, I met the Greeley manager, they were saying that they were more of an autonomous airport rather than a centralized City Airport, by you making it closer to the city transportation organization? Are you saying that you’re going to try to bring the airport more within the city? And does that follow the overall trend of municipal airports nationwide? Or is the trend to be more autonomous.
Unknown Speaker 38:22
I don’t have any idea on what what happens kind of nationwide, and what the what the different values are, I think it’s it varies by city and jurisdiction and where those airports are located. We just feel like the airports been kind of out there without uh, without being part of the city team. And we really value that idea of city team. You’ll know that since since Jeff has taken over, we’ve incorporated Public Works Natural Resources, their ability to really keep the runways plowed when during our storm events. And that was something that may or may have been missing a little bit before and also keeping all of our lights in the you know, on the field working well. And, and doing that. So just incorporating that just a little element of teamwork has really gone a long ways we think as far as making the airport more of a part of the city.
Unknown Speaker 39:16
And when the FBO supposed to do that, like isn’t the FBO supposed to do those things like the lights and the lights and keep the lights on?
Unknown Speaker 39:27
Typically be the airport sponsor, in this case as a city. And I know Jeff, you’re going to talk through a little bit of those responsibilities. One thing else I just want to add, I learned this last week, and don’t quote me on the exact numbers but 74 airports, I think within the state of Colorado, 70 of them are city airports or something around that number. It’s nearly all the airports in the state. Russell, do you want to
Unknown Speaker 39:56
thank you. I just wanted to respond to tell us a little bit Since he’s new, I would say that for many years, most people who have been associated with the airport and their port board have been asking the city to take a bigger role and help out and not treated as an enterprise fund orphaned child that, you know, like Phil said, It needs more love. And I’m glad to hear someone from the city say that. And I feel like a lot of our usual commentators at the meetings like Don, and those people will be feeling the same way about it. So I think it’s a great thing that they’re that we’re hearing this kind of talk from the city.
Unknown Speaker 40:36
And I’ll just add on is that I have felt the love. And if I hadn’t, I honestly could not have done the job. The amount of work that needs to be accomplished, both physical work, fixing lights, run runway inspection, snowplowing, you name it, invoicing could not have been done by one person. And so the advantage of being the city or county gives the full breadth and depth of those human and financial and equipment resources that can be brought to the table. It is fairly common. And then and then I’ll just add on to just for education is that the FBI was responsible for the products and services that they offer at the airport, they are not the airport manager, they do not manage the airfield, they do not inspect the airfield, maintain the airfield. That is the responsibility of the city. Councilmember.
Unknown Speaker 41:44
Thank you. Um, actually, what Jeff just said prompted the question, and then I wanted to clarify for for Russell, what Phil said, there is management reorganization going on inside the city. And I think what Phil you are talking about is having the new airport manager work more closely with the rest of the, of the Transportation Department working for you, as opposed to the airport manager was traditionally kind of islands, and didn’t have a team to work with. And, you know, didn’t have a team to fall back on for things like transit to and from the airport, for example. But the in terms of the financial economic structure of the airport, which is that it’s a Colorado enterprise, and that it’s uses the city shared services model. Those things have been ongoing for a long time. And I it’s my not my understanding that a change in that is contemplated does that correct?
Unknown Speaker 43:06
They’ll go overall organizational change. But I think Jeff said it well. And you did too, is that the idea is to provide more support for this for this person. And for this airport. And for this facility. It’s, it’s it’s time that we work it into, and have given more support more, more resources that the city has available. So exactly what you said.
Unknown Speaker 43:36
I will. Thank you, Phil, for the hiring update. Steve, sorry, go ahead. Along with the hiring of the manager, Phil, are you also going to be hiring an assistant?
Unknown Speaker 43:52
Just maybe you can answer that. But it’s not really an assistant but it is. It is an extra person to help.
Unknown Speaker 43:59
And they’re there. My understanding is that it was approved in the last budget for a hiring an operations person, that person would be more dedicated to the airport, around snow removal around airport inspection, airport maintenance, runway taxiway life repairs, it would be a shared position. So the airport would be paying for half of the person the Public Works Department would be paying for half of the person. So that person will work in coordination between both the airport manager and the Public Works office.
Unknown Speaker 44:38
And there’ll be located just on the other side of the of the of the street basically of the airport. So they’re right across the street from you.
Unknown Speaker 44:48
We gotta wait for the new manager to get settled in and his job before we do this. They have already may be incorrect on this I’m talking with Matt McKenzie, which is responsible for recruiting for that person. Because they’ve been working on recruiting new public works people, but have had a very difficult time finding viable candidates. I’m not 100% sure if that position has already been posted, but it certainly has not yet been. That’s my understanding as well. Thanks, Jeff. I’ll move on from hiring, I will just say I’m I’m communicated to Joanie and Harold, that, you know, we are I will call a special meeting, whenever it’s appropriate to have that meet and greet and that we’re, we’re eager to provide our input on that candidate. And they were, you know, consistently been really on board with making sure that we have a voice in there, with the reminder that the decision making the rest of them. So I’ll just have that disclaimer. Jeff, you had offered to do a little presentation on some of the sponsor responsibilities. And I think that’d be really helpful. So I’ll turn it over to you for a little bit. Thank you very much. Sharing screen will work here. Everyone does see okay. Yes, we can. So I’ll try to keep this as short as possible, probably going to be about 20 minutes. But I’m not going to cover every item on this slide, I am happy to share this slide deck. This is an excerpt. So myself. And our firm has been teaching a class for about 25 years with the American Association of airport executives to see their logo down the bottom right. And part of the class that we teach is on airport sponsor assurances to ensure airport managers understand their obligations as an airport sponsor to the FAA. These airport sponsor assurances accompany the receipt of grant monies from the FAA through the airport improvement program. There are 39 of them that cover a broad range of topics. A large number of the assurances are very specific to what an airport sponsor must do during a project that they are being funded. Some of the assurances have to do with ongoing obligations and responsibilities in the way the airport is managed and operated. And they do this to ensure that these public use airports and I like to call them federally obligated public use, airports are developed, operated and maintained in a safe, secure, efficient, compatible and compliant manner. That’s the intent of the airport sponsor insurances. I mentioned there’s, there’s 39 of them, I will, along with sending out the slide deck to you. I will also send you the 39 assurances if you’re so inclined to read each one of them, that it’s worthwhile just familiarizing yourself with them, I’m going to focus on about five of them that are probably most important from the aspect of ongoing management and operation of an airport. These are the assurances that when a complaint is filed with the FAA accusing an airport of being a non compliance for if the FAA through an inspection on their own without a complaint. These are the areas that airport sponsors more commonly than not find themselves in violation or alleged violation. Assurance five is about preserving rights and powers. And really the objective here is that the FAA does not want the airport sponsor. And when I say airport sponsor, I’m referring to the city and the situation. But they do not want the airport sponsor to do something that would deprive them of the rights and powers that the FAA wants to ensure that they maintain so that they can one maintain compliance with the assurances, and to operate the airport in a safe, secure and efficient manner.
Unknown Speaker 49:44
An airport sponsor can give their rights of way within agreements, including lease agreements, operating agreements, permits, and just actions that they take can also deprive themselves also drives and powers. And one of the things that the assurance requires is that if the airport sponsor ever finds themselves where they have lost their rights and powers, they must act promptly to acquire, extinguish or modify that so that they bring those back into the fold. And, by the way, because I’ve got the PowerPoint up, I don’t see anyone’s faces or hands. So if there is a question, I’m happy to pause, just speak up, and you’re happy to address that. One of the keys is obviously the safe and service smell condition of the airport. This is a responsibility that the airport has under assurance five, and making sure that they maintain the airport in that safe and service. So the condition you see the word minimum standards in here, and I’ll talk about minimum standards later from commercial aeronautical activity. But the minimum standards within this assurance is, is the standards that the FAA sets up for the operation and maintenance of an airport. And those are the minimum standards that are being referred to in this insurance. Assurance 22 is about economic non discrimination. It’s a terrible title. Because one of the the tests that I always ask airport manager, they say, can you discriminate? Most people don’t raise their hand, they don’t think they can discriminate, but you can, what the words actually say and this assurances that they must the airport must be available on reasonable terms without unjust discrimination. So there are all different types of forms of just discrimination. For example, some airport may have a different type of fuel flow, which feed or jet fuel they do for AB dance, that is discrimination, but it’s just they may charge a higher rent for boardwalk than for North Carolina, that is discrimination, but it is just discrimination. They may charge a different rent for commercial businesses than non commercial businesses, also just discrimination. So airports may discriminate, they just may not adjust the discriminate. And the other important aspect to have this assurance and a few others is that you’ll notice here that it says to all types kinds and classes of aeronautical use. So, the focus of the FAA is about aeronautical use of the airport, any non aeronautical use has to receive approval from the FAA to release land for non aeronautical use, but an airport sponsor may unjustly discriminate against non aeronautical use of an airport because their focus is aeronautical use they may deny use of an airport for non aeronautical use, because their requirement is to make it available for aeronautical use yes talus.
Unknown Speaker 53:11
So, if I, if I got approached by an aerospace company, it’s not aeronautical, or would it be in like, like, I need to learn or needed to speak with someone about this process because part of my master plan is to use the airport for a lot of things in r&d and stuff.
Unknown Speaker 53:34
So, there is a specific definition of aeronautical. And the short definition of that is to and that is directly related to the use of the airport by aircraft, maintaining aircraft servicing aircraft, storing aircraft, it’s about the aircraft’s use. It’s about things that are going to use the runways.
Unknown Speaker 54:02
Would the drone be an aircraft? A drone is an aircraft Yeah, is it is like a space shuttle or rover an aircraft? Like would that be considered aircraft,
Unknown Speaker 54:12
if it’s using the runway,
Unknown Speaker 54:14
but drones out use the runway just go straight up?
Unknown Speaker 54:17
Well, they get if they use the airport infrastructure.
Unknown Speaker 54:21
So they get plugged into a charger or is that
Unknown Speaker 54:25
if they are using the airport, I mean, if they’re flying in and out of the airport, then that would be deemed aeronautical use flying in and out of the airport, an interesting delineation between aeronautical. So, you would think that aircraft manufacturing is an aeronautical use, it is not. And so Gulfstream aerospace in Savannah, Georgia, a lot of their manufacturing is off airport, and the FAA sort of draws the line on aircraft manufacturing and say Well, you don’t need the airport to manufacture that aircraft at the airport for when you deliver that airplane. So when that airplane is completed and then goes across the delivery line, then it becomes aeronautical. And so their delivery center is on airport, their aircraft manufacturing is off airport. So, FAA is very sensitive to making sure that land that could on an airport that could be used for aeronautical activity is reserved for aeronautical activity, it doesn’t mean that they won’t approve the release of it. But the airport sponsor has to demonstrate that that land will not need to be utilized for aeronautical use for an extremely long time. And then at the point that it does need to be used for optical use, it can be clawed back for that use.
Unknown Speaker 55:55
Historically, oh, AD, we had a TELUS there was a wedding venue that wanted to lease the far end of the runways on the west side and conduct weddings. strange idea, and pretty quickly shut down because you for my high skydiving, they lease the drop zone. And that’s a public process. And so these, this wedding venue, that’s actually just north of the railroad tracks, came in and was trying to lease the space to hold weddings, and the far west into the airport. And it didn’t happen. So I think the applications at our airport, I know the solar panels have been a question that are way down. Also at the far West End. And but I think that’s pretty much it for the things that are report that have come up in the past, that it’s all if it that you’re preserving it. It’s not necessarily it’s booked and committed, but it’s been preserved.
Unknown Speaker 56:59
Sure, description was so strange,
Unknown Speaker 57:01
like, take that out of my mind is like a very difficult process where like we should, like if we’re building new, like, for example, that whole side of the airport that has no hangars, and it’s just a field. If we wanted to build something on there, it would have to be aeronautical related basically,
Unknown Speaker 57:22
it would be yes. Thank you. So one of the other requirements of assurance 22 is ensuring that similar commercial aeronautical activity, businesses are chain charged the same rates, fees and rentals for the use of similar land and improvements. And that is really the nuances of this is that very rarely do you find a business using the same or similar land or facilities or providing the same or similar services. So an aircraft maintenance company is not similar to like Trading Company, a aircraft storage company is not the same as an FBO. And so an airport can have different rates and fees, and they can have different uses of land and improvements. Too often people interpret this all they see all these words same and think that they have to treat everyone the same. And that’s not always the case. Each commercial activity also needs to be provided without unjust discrimination. So some of these assurance flow through to the providers of services. And, and the airport sponsor is obligated to place certain provisions within the operators lease agreement to ensure that they’re providing their services on a reasonable and not unjust a discriminatory discriminatory basis to the airport users. The assurance also gives the ability for the sponsor to establish reasonable rules and regulations. And I’ll also add in the word minimum standards here which falls under that context of rules and regulations that have to be met by all users of the airport. Again focused on safety and efficiency, but also minimum standards brings in that minimum threshold to engage in a commercial aeronautical activity at the airport. The airport does have the right to make decisions on what is safe and they may prohibit unsafe activities at an airport. But ultimately the FAA is the final arbiter of that decision. They determine what is safe and not safe at a federally obligated public use airport. One of the things is in assurance 22 Is that the sponsor may engage in competitive, competitive commercial aeronautical activities, but certainly not required. And the FAA even states that private enterprise in most situations is best position to provide the commercial aeronautical activities at the airport. But if an airport sponsor wishes to compete, they have to compete following the same rules and minimum standards. The airport sponsor cannot prevent non commercial self service activities. So an aircraft owner can maintain their own aircraft with their own employees and their own equipment. They can’t use a contract entity or individual, they can’t use someone else’s hangar and someone else’s equipment, they have to do it themselves. One of the keys is exclusivity. They cannot grant exclusivity for use of the airport. This is primarily focused around commercial aeronautical activities. The act of exclusivity is about D barring others and it’s really not about if there’s one, it’s just about if you are preventing others from doing it, that are willing to meet you our rules and regulations and your minimum standards. This is one of the tools the FAA uses to ensure fraud you use of a federally obligated Airport. The interesting thing that a lot of people don’t know and understand because they think that an airport with only one FBO is potentially violating this exclusive rule. But more than 90% of airports with a 3000 foot paved runway or more have only one or zero FBO is a very small percentage of airports across the country have two or more FPS and I define an FBO as an entity that is at a minimum of selling fuel. We call an aircraft maintenance company or a flight training company, a Sasa a specialized aviation service operator. Also under assurance 23 and exclusive rights, you know, they talk about the different meet different mechanisms that exclusive right can be conferred.
Unknown Speaker 1:02:25
I’ve seen it written in the lease agreement, you will be the only FBO in the airport. That’s a clear violation of assurance 23. If the airport sponsor sets the minimum standards at a at too high of a level that’s raising the bar to an unreasonable level that can be interpreted as granting an exclusive light as well. We’ve already talked about why the FA doesn’t want exclusive rights. The only time that an exclusive right actually can be granted on the airport is the airport sponsor itself can exercise what’s called a proprietary exclusive rights so they can choose to be the sole provider of a certain commercial aeronautical activity and deny others from competing with them. There are actually over 1200 Airport sponsors that do act as their own FBO. Sometimes those are in scenarios where the airport can economically support private enterprise or investment. And just as out of necessity that the airport sponsor provides us services
Unknown Speaker 1:03:49
are going to get every single slide here, assurance 24. There is an expectation of the FAA to have a rental and fee structure that makes the airport as self sustainable as possible. And the key extra words here is under the circumstances that exist at that particular airport. The FAA is not naive. They understand that a lot of airports especially general aviation airports, are not able to be self sustaining, and many times requires the support of the airport sponsor, whether that be the city or the county, or including the FAA that provides AIP funds, but they want you to strive towards that goal of self sustainability, which means rents and fees should regularly be reviewed, kept either at market or kept at a cost recovery basis to move that pendulum towards self sustaining. That’s the real quick one. Again, there’s 39 of these. A lot of these have to do with What they have to do during a project and AIP project? The other question that lots of times get asked is how long is an airport obligated to these assurances. And that’s sort of a moving goalpost because one, every time an airport receives an AIP grant, then the clock starts over again. And depending upon the type of grant dictates the length of the obligations under the assurances. And there are a few are certain assurances that once you’ve accepted that they go into perpetuity. But the key ones typically are 25 years to the life, excuse me, the useful life of the AIP project. Of what however, that money is being spent, those are sort of the two bookends. Happy to answer any questions. Again, I know there’s a fairly high level, I spent a day and a half on this topic. In my class. Definitely appreciate you condensing it down to a not a day and a half for us.
Unknown Speaker 1:06:21
Anyone have questions for? Or assume that’s just because you covered it all, Jeff, and
Unknown Speaker 1:06:32
I learned if you are bored, um, well, you know, I learned a few things I usually think about some of those in the context of commercial service airports is interesting to kind of hear the the way you apply them to the airport. So probably one point I didn’t state I’ll just add this real quick. Why do we want to stay compliant with these airport sponsor assurances, because we want the AIP money are compliant with the assurances or for found in non compliance. The two threats that the FAA has over an airport sponsor has one ending access to IP grants. Or the other worst case scenario, which has only been triggered one or two times in my memory is where you need to pay back all the money we’ve paid you. So we don’t want either one of those scenarios. I don’t see any other questions. So again, Jeff, thank you very much. Michelle, you have the next item here talk about a pre interview plan.
Unknown Speaker 1:07:47
Yes, I do. So, city council has directed the city clerk staff to bring back a new procedure for board and commission interviews. So um, what we’re going what we’re what we’ve done is we’ve met with all the boards, liaisons to staff liaisons. We’ve discussed the idea to get gotten their feedback to input on how this would work best. Most of the board liaisons were generally enthusiastic about the change and being more involved in recruitment. So the timeline that we’re looking at is, so I’m just gonna move this over here. There we go. Um, we’re taking this to council on Tuesday night for their blessing. So it’ll go to the study session on the 15th. It’ll start with the spring recruitment process, which is going to start in March. And that out some some things. So what we’re looking at is opening border equipment on March 14. We’ll open it for six weeks, ending it on April 22. And then I will compile all of the applications that that make sure that they’re all registered voters, their legal or city residents, excuse me. And then we’ll set board interviews. We send those to a a nominating committee, I guess is what we would call it. So we’d have two board members from the board and the board liaison who would interview these folks. And basically, you’re going to ask pretty much the same questions that counsel asked, asked you when you interviewed. You’ll send those recommendations back to me and then we will then in turn Give those recommendations to council so that they will interview those folks and then appoint. So basically what we’re doing is getting the board’s more involved in the recruitment process and getting the best people on the boards at this point, so that is the pre thing, pre interview process in a nutshell. So if you have any questions, let me know.
Unknown Speaker 1:10:31
Anyway. So, Michelle, any pending pending Council’s approval, we would then have a couple of us moved in that process. And I assume that at a future meeting, we decide who those are correct?
Unknown Speaker 1:10:47
You could you could, we, we, when we talked about it with the other board member or liaisons, most of them said, you know, the chairperson, and one other person, cheap keeping it to two so that we don’t have to have a special meetings. And then live Board Liaison. You’d have one month in order to do those interviews. So first spring, for instance, the board interviews be May 1 through May 31. And then we would need those recommendations back to me by June 1 of who you would want council to then interview, and then they would enter with those interviews. And then they go to counsel for appointment.
Unknown Speaker 1:11:32
Got it. Thank you. Jeff, did you have something there? I was just wanting, we skipped over by airport manager report. And so just want to circle back and let’s get that. I am sorry. About that. I will come back to Molina
Unknown Speaker 1:11:52
for Michelle on the recruitment. So is that to fill? It doesn’t sound like it works with filling empty board seats by June by June or is it? No, it
Unknown Speaker 1:12:04
actually does. So it boards are twice a year once in the spring and once the end of the year. And so since we have a vacancy, it would go we would put that vacancy in for this year. Good.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:17
Okay. Fantastic.
Unknown Speaker 1:12:23
Um, yeah, Michelle, I’m not sure I caught this, the advisory board narrowed down the number of applicants so that they would actually so if there’s one applicants or one position, they would nominate one. Just the one from my okay. So if there’s four vacancies, there would be four, four applicants. Okay, so the council no longer has a choice at all, or the council? Correct back to a person if they don’t find them qualified? Correct? Yeah. And like I said, this is one of the council so we can discuss that on Tuesday night as well. A little more detail if you want. Okay, thanks. All right. So we just want to make sure that like, you know, for March, you guys are ready to you have a nominating board? Who, somebody who you want to interview all the applicants. And then when it comes down to it, when it comes in May you hold, you can either hold your your meeting your board meeting that night for that month, you know, and do applicant interviews, or you can do it separately. You know, whatever you want to do.
Unknown Speaker 1:13:43
Ross Thank you. I guess I thought I understood until you responded to Councilmember Barton. And now I’m confused. If there are four applicants for one board seat, what happens?
Unknown Speaker 1:13:57
You would just get so if there’s four applicants for one seat, you would nominate one person. If there’s four seats for applicants, you would nominate four people. So however many number of applicants, vacancies you have, you would nominate that many people for appointment.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:19
Okay, so let’s say we have four people interested and then, you know, we whittle it down to one, we send them over to counseling counsel says, you know, no, this guy’s no good, what happens then?
Unknown Speaker 1:14:31
Then we go back and start from scratch.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:37
The next opening window or the same window,
Unknown Speaker 1:14:40
there would have to be the next opening window which would be the end of the year.
Unknown Speaker 1:14:48
I guess I would I find this puzzling myself to whittle it down like that and then have the chance of, you know,
Unknown Speaker 1:14:56
and like I said, it’s we’re just taking it to council Tuesday night.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:00
Can we look at first and second alternate, like just give the
Unknown Speaker 1:15:04
council Tuesday night, and so they can figure out all that. That’s it’s Council’s direction. So it’s up to council to what they want to do. I’m only just bringing it to you so that you weren’t aware, you know, coming up in the next couple months, that you will need to do interviews and nominate somebody. So I just don’t want to blindside anybody with Oh, yeah, by the way, now, you got to do this, too. So, Russell,
Unknown Speaker 1:15:35
I think I would move that we recommend to council for their consideration on Tuesday that the idea be changed to a ranking system, if there are multiple candidates, instead of just only sending them the number of board seats available.
Unknown Speaker 1:15:50
So when, you know, point of order, yes, whatever you’re doing. I don’t think we have any validity as an advisor, you went to the airport, to make that recommendation, I think if you would like to make a recommendation to as a citizen, to your council reps.
Unknown Speaker 1:16:09
And one thing I did forget to say is that, when you get the there’s a rubric that we use, that we’ve given the council that has a bunch of questions on it, and and basically you score your applicants. And so to you, we’ve offered board liaisons to use that. Now, and then it, you know, you can score everybody, and then if you have more than one, then you can recommend those to counsel. But it’s not just going to be like, oh, yeah, he’s good. Or, you know, he’s my friend or something like that. They want to keep it pretty. You know, political, not political, pretty plutonic. And just, even so just throw that out there.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:01
Thank you for, for bringing it up and keeping us informed.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:04
Absolutely. Yeah, it’s a positive improvement, because we have felt like, why we weren’t a part of the process. To look at the candidates. Sometimes there aren’t very many. Sometimes there’s, I think there were 12 when I got my seat, it was a huge field. And so it’s really good that the board can actually interview and, and narrow some things down to get removed detractors. We’ve had detractors to the report that have applied in the past. And, and then it’s not really based on aviation experience, we find that that isn’t necessarily the most important. We’ve had members with real estate experience other, you know, development other aspects. So this is good. This is something I think we’ve asked for in the past or ask for that ability. So this is good. But it did sound like a nice little refinement.
Unknown Speaker 1:17:59
Yeah. And like I said, we’ll work counsel refine, though, they’ll tell us what they want. And then we’ll bring it back. So nice. Nice. Thank you. And I can email you all on Wednesday morning. And let you know kind of what what was decided and go from there instead of working session or will that be televised? It stays there. All
Unknown Speaker 1:18:19
televised. It’s a public session. Okay. And it’s next Tuesday. Just do that. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 1:18:27
Thank you, Michelle. Thank you. I don’t know if anyone else hears I have weird feedback, at least on my end when I’m talking and I apologize for that. It’s better now. It was just for a minute, but it’s I don’t know how to fix it or what I did to make it worse. So I apologize. And I really apologize for skipping you, Jeff. I keeping track I’m making tick marks off and I got too excited in tech to off. So I’ll turn it back in for updates. Thank you. So as Melinda had reported, about three weeks ago, our Vassy was brought back into service. As I think I may have reported it is owned and operated by the FAA. Different airports have different scenarios. But it when I got onto the airport, no one was really for sure. And so I did hunted down and figured out that it was the FAA I had the extra benefit since we just got done managing the boulder Municipal Airport, and my employee that got hired up there. I was just mentioning to him about our basket and he said, Hey, I’m pretty sure I’ve got a basket sitting in our storage shed. So they wouldn’t look than they did. And so the FAA went and grabbed that and brought it over here too long but got it installed. So that’s up and running. Hopefully no one wipes it out. Which brings me to my second topic. We did have an aircraft accident at the airport yesterday. Fortunately, it was As far as I know, not serious. Unfortunately, no one has formally reported it to me. He’s not on the airport yesterday, one of the city ops people had come across it as the airplane was being lifted by a large forklift. It was landing on Runway two, nine. I do not know what happened. But I believe from what I have speculated and observed that there may have been a landing gear collapse on it. We have cameras that face the runway and believe it or not, as I was watching it from my home to try to figure out what happened. First camera, you can see the plane landing, then there’s a little gap in the two cameras, and then all of a sudden the plane is careening off the runway. So I was like, Well, what happened in between there? But I’m hopeful that no one was injured. No one it didn’t get reported. Obviously, if there is an aircraft accident with an injury, you’re supposed to report it to NTSB, supposedly the aircraft where it is none of that happened. So I’m assuming that it was, other than looking bad, wasn’t bad. They did take out one runway like I did. I don’t have a specific answer. But from the last meeting, there was a question about restrooms on the south side. I did do just some preliminary discussions within the city. The department that builds a majority of the restrooms around the city is Parks and Recreation, because they build those restrooms, at parks. And so they do this quite often. I was quite shocked at the potential cost of a restroom facility, depending upon, you know, the design and stuff anywhere from 150 to $300,000.
Unknown Speaker 1:22:02
The Yeah, it’s I was shocked. And I’m not advocating that we spend that kind of money. But I’m not going to stop either. So as part of the South Side utility projects we are working on, including a t where a a restroom facility could be teed in to the utility line project. I’m again I did very preliminary discussions with Park and Rec and they connected me to the company that they use most of all, so I’m trying to gain more insight to Okay, what do you get for that? And how can you pare that cost down. So, I will, I will or the next manager will report more. On February 1, the state Aeronautics Board did approve our grant for $54,000. For pavement, marking improvements basically repainting runway taxiway lines at the airport, I did have our PD firm do some preliminary budgeting to do everything that needs to be done is about $85,000. So we started are a little short of what we need. However, as I believe I mentioned in our last airport advisory board me, we are going to be excuse me, we are going to be receiving some additional funds through the infrastructure funding mechanism that will open up about $295,000 for the airport. And we will be able to tap into that my understanding I’m actually going to attend a webinar next week with the FAA where they’re going to describe the process and what is eligible for us I mean that but my preliminary discussions is that we should be able to bring in that extra 30,000 into this project so we can do everything at once we continue as any airport does, getting complaints about noise. And as I tried to educate people that call that the city does not control the airspace that the FAA reserves all jurisdiction to controlling airspace so if they have issues of low flying airplane, which has probably half the discussion that they should contact the FAA directly on that. I do try to embrace the concept that whether or not we have control of the airspace, we do want to be a good neighbor. You know if they’re able to provide me more information about when were in the airplane I even pointed to the app called FlightAware where you can identify you know tail numbers and height of aircraft flying, you know more information they can give me the better I can reach out to the air craft if it was even flying out of Longmont, just to encourage them to be a good neighbor, one this weekend, called, he’s in the apartment complex. I still don’t know my roads very well, but the road that parallels target, basically on the base turn to two, nine. There’s a apartment complex there and I get I there’s about three residents there that call me regularly. And there was one plane that I went on to fly to where to look, cuz he said has gone over my house again. They did 20 touches and goes that day. And I, you know, I’m a pilot, I get it, you know, we do our training. But we need to be cognizant that 20 times over one house in the same plane with the same engine noises can be annoying. So it’s just a battle. That’s an ongoing battle. And, you know, trying to balance the needs of the community and the needs of the airport users. And we all try to be good neighbors.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:07
I’ve been that person. But I do angry like, so you get on a roll, and you just you’re in the zone, and you just got to keep doing it. But I go to great lengths to do it.
Unknown Speaker 1:26:19
There you go. Steve, did you have something? Yes, Jeff, regarding security and changing the codes for the gates and all that. What do we do about the gate that’s continuously open when the skydiving operation is is going on? Yeah, no, it’s it’s something that needs to be addressed. And I’m also hoping that with the extra Infrastructure Fund monies that we can not only finished the fencing on the airport, especially on the north side, where you can literally drive onto the airport off of st brain road. But also that gate, which is not an automatic gate, it’s a manual gate, that they propped open. And so I’d like to get it to be at automatic gate that they can control, you know, with, you know whether that we put a speaker there so that they can control the access versus just blocking it open. But no, granted, we have some security holes in our airport that really do need to be addressed before we change the code. Thank you. Anyone else have any other questions for Jeff? Maybe I’ll just draw one, one more out. And and I’ll look for criticism if I’m wrong. But my friend, I’m not a stakeholder. I don’t own an airplane. I don’t own a hangar. So I’m not considered a stakeholder. And all of the HOA plays on the airport, they send out letters to their, their members and all of that, but my my friend sends those to me, which I understand we shouldn’t get those. But I know that UGF have sent letters out to stakeholders a couple of times, and I’ve gotten those letters through my friend. And I’m just wondering if we on the on the board should get those letters as well. Absolutely. And I’ll consider that my bad. Harris and I were talking about that earlier when we were doing the agenda setup. And I realized that I didn’t have all of the board members in my I have 275 in my email master list. And so I’ve added today, all of the board members, there’s actually going to be one going out tomorrow. And we’ll make sure that you all are included. And your stakeholders are beyond aircraft owners operators lessees, it’s anyone that wants to know what’s going on at the airport. There’s no reason people don’t have access to that. Well, thank you for that. I know that’s, that’s more out of our purview. It’s more day to day stuff, but it just keeps us in the loop. Absolutely. Yeah. Okay. Thank you.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:07
Yep. Thank you, Jeff, are you sure that you don’t want to sell your consulting business and just stay on as their PR manager?
Unknown Speaker 1:29:18
All in favor? What’s the old adage? I don’t think you can afford me.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:28
Salary. But thank you for the sentiment. I do appreciate it. Anyone else now that we’ve tried a couple times I think we will just keep
Unknown Speaker 1:29:46
we’ve got last final public invited to be heard. Unless I’m missing something. Michelle. I don’t think anyone’s joined us from the public.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:56
No, there has been nobody asked them on.
Unknown Speaker 1:29:59
All right. Thank you. So then I’ll move us on to board Council and staff comments. I’ll start with the board. I’ve got a couple items for me, but I’ll entertain anyone who wants to go first on this one. All right, you want to just keep hearing me talk. So, first topic, bylaws, we talked for these last month, I will own the fact that they’re not on the agenda this month, because I went on vacation before I got them to the city manager city attorney’s office, and we couldn’t meet the five day turnaround time to get it in front of all of you before voting. I had a discussion with the city attorney’s on this week is running together, I think it was Tuesday. To talk through those, we uncovered the annual report that we hadn’t caught before that says we delivered in February, we’re going to adjust that to give ourselves some more time, we are going to incorporate most of the changes we talked about as well. As part of the meeting. There’s two things I want to flag and you will see this next month on the agenda and you can choose to accept them or vote them down. One is, instead of having the language be that the chair sets the agenda, it will be that the chair coordinates on the agenda with the city man with the airport manager. Since I’ve been informed that we can’t direct city staff to take action, including setting an agenda. So we will coordinate with them instead of directing them. And to fill out a phenomenal suggestion for our standard or just general agenda. And I can’t remember the word the the proceedings, I think is in the bylaws. What we have now with old business and new business, the suggestion is to clarify it as informational items such as just presentation today, and action items where we actually need to take a vote to recommend. And so it keeps us very clear on what the purpose of the item is. Honestly, the old business new business seems to blend together in these discussions anyway. So you’ll see those in the bylaws along with a handful of the other changes we discussed, and a handful of just grammar cleanups. Russell was especially helpful in flagging some of those just really awkward sentences that have been in there for a few years. But we’re making make logical sense now. The other topic I just wanted to bring up and Jeff hinted at this in his update. But as part of my day job, I was at the Colorado airport operators Association meeting in in Denver last week, where they had the Colorado Aeronautics Board approve our grant. We also had one other call out from the CDOT aeronautics had, who mentioned specifically that they are really trying to reengage post COVID and get back out to airports. And one of the things they really enjoyed was airport expos and called out Longmont as a particular favorite of their team. And something that they always appreciated being a part of. So I just wanted to kind of make it known that that that, you know, those of those of you who have worked on in the past years, it was appreciated, it was called out specifically at the meeting. And just more broadly, the CDOT team is really trying to push being more engaged, there’s a ton of funding coming down, really want to make sure that we’re using it the right way. So for the next airport manager, there’s an engaged group at the state level that is looking for local airports to be plugged in with them. So
Unknown Speaker 1:33:37
can I add to that, that the airport directories that they produce, they produce the map and then the spiral. For the last three years, I’ve flown down to pick those up, and it’s really fun to do it. So we picked them up for other airports while we were there. And you fly in and you taxi in between the hangar row and they bring them out to you and you’re right next to the state Patrol’s division of aeronautics activity. And so it’s kind of a running joke for me because I have a little problem with speed. Usually, you know all those people. And so, but you just taxi right up and then like Sean Soderbergh will come out and they’ll bring out the cases and so we I’ve done for three years gone down and pick them up, brought them back to Longmont, Boulder. Lake Erie is some of the smaller fleets around us. And so if you have that opportunity or feel like going down to get a director you can taxi right on up to the door and let them know you’re coming and they’ll take your picture and make a big deal about it and take you on a tour of the facility and treat you like a VIP. So they’ve always been very welcoming and very engaged. And Shawn does all the photography that we see he does. Most of the photography I think that we see on the covers and they appreciate getting to see the people that are out and out in the field. So I encourage you to they’re down at Colorado spaceport. So you just get cleared and taxi over there. And you can have a fun little adventure and excuse that you don’t have to go find food. You can go find directors.
Unknown Speaker 1:35:15
One Thank you, Melinda for adding on to that. Those are my comments. Did anyone else think of anything you wanted to talk about? Why was droning on councilmember Martin, do you have anything for us this evening?
Unknown Speaker 1:35:32
I’m not really very much, um, have been been talking about sustainability issues that we might be adding to the airport improvement plan. But I haven’t had my meeting with Jeff yet. So I think I’ll save those for next time because I don’t want to speak out of school. How you feeling, Jeff?
Unknown Speaker 1:35:59
I’ve got Thank you. For those that don’t know, I came down with COVID did not up here last week because of that, and just turn the corner probably on Monday or Tuesday of this week. But thank you, Marcia, and I’ll follow up with an email to you. We’ll get our BD rescheduled.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:18
Good. All right. I look forward to it.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:21
Thank you. Thank you, Councilman. Blast. I’ve got city staff comments, Jeff, Phil, anything else that we haven’t covered already?
Unknown Speaker 1:36:33
I’m gonna just thank you again, for letting me kind of sneak in here and listen to appreciate it.
Unknown Speaker 1:36:40
We’re glad to have you. Alright, I don’t think I’ve double marked anything. I think we’ve actually hit the German section of the agenda. So everyone, thanks for a good discussion tonight. Appreciate it and hope everyone has a good evening. Well, we’ll call the meeting adjourned. Thank you. Thank you.