Meeting on Monday to launch discussion

All sides of a Kalispell City Airport controversy that has been stewing in recent months will have a turn at the microphone on Monday night.

The Kalispell City Council will host a public scoping session at 7 p.m. in the Glacier Room at the Hilton Garden Inn, located at 1840 U.S. 93 South.

Lex Blood, a former Flathead Valley Community College professor and a longtime player in Flathead Valley environmental and nonprofit arenas, will facilitate the session.

Blood will field and clarify questions, while the City Council will be on hand to listen.

All comments that night and all letters submitted in advance or at the meeting will be entered into a permanent record.

The purpose of the session is to provide background information on the airport and register concerns and questions from the public. City Manager Jane Howington said a second scoping session is expected in January to provide answers and take further comment.

“The goal is to get information for the council to begin a dialog on how they begin to move forward when they feel they have enough information,” Howington said. There is no deadline to meet, she added.

At its Nov. 16 meeting, the council tabled a decision on qualifying Stelling Engineers as the new airport consultants. Stelling, the same firm that designed the U.S. 93 Alternate Route around Kalispell, has offices in Great Falls and Helena, and a new office in Kalispell.

Opponents say the city intends to expand the airport without regard to neighborhood concerns for noise and safety. Proponents point out a decision is yet to be made on a plan they hope will update the small general aviation airport and capitalize on its economic benefits to the city.

Kalispell City Airport, with its 43,000 operations a year, runs neck-and-neck with Hamilton’s municipal airport as the two busiest general-aviation airports in the state.

Kalispell Airport Manager Fred Leistiko has prepared a timeline for Monday’s session, outlining actions taken since the city bought 135 acres to establish the airport in 1928. It now stands at 75 acres, as land was sold over the years for business development.

The timeline shows that a 1979 Mini Master Plan presented an engineering firm’s recommendations — buy 8.8 aces of land, put a 2-inch asphalt overlay on the runway, build taxiways and lighted parking aprons, install a perimeter fence, extend the runway 800 feet, develop regulations and hire a manager.

In 1986 one of those was done — the asphalt overlay.

Six years later another study prompted the city to establish an Airport Neighborhood Plan and reiterate the Mini Master Plan recommendations.

A 1996 Kalispell City Airport Athletic Complex Redevelopment Plan Analysis focused on urban renewal and the need to move youth soccer and ball fields off airport property. More land was sold to fund Kidsports along U.S. 93 North, leaving 75 acres for the airport.

Robert Peccia and Associates was hired in 1996 to draw up the first-ever airport layout plan to meet safety requirements and do noise abatement. Federal Aviation Administration officials approved it and pledged 95 percent funding if the city carried out the steps.

An Airport Tax Increment Finance district was established in 1997 to pay for the work. That year the FAA also recommended hiring consulting engineers to do a feasibility and master plan study. Morrison Maierle engineers completed that study in 1999 and in November the city adopted the airport master plan.

The city then hired Peccia again for a site selection study, completed in July 2001. Five sites passed muster — avoiding mountains, Glacier Park International, wetlands, bird sanctuaries, and being accessible for utilities, police and fire protection. The city accepted 90 percent FAA funding for the $160,000 study and an environmental assessment.

In October 2002 public hearings were held and in December the assessment was completed and signed by the FAA. On the same day the government made a finding of no significant impact on the environment.

It approved buying 72 acres; building a 4,700-foot runway in separate stages; building a tie-down apron, parallel taxiways, connector taxiways and hangar access taxiways; installing runway lighting, beacons, wind indicators and a precision approach indicator for pilots to gauge their angle when landing; installing perimeter security fencing and access road; and removing or relocating the KGEZ Radio towers.

Following the assessment the city took a number of actions.

In 2003 it increased the fee structure at the airport. In 2004 it bought two parcels of land at the south end, changed terms of airport land leases to encourage hangar construction, and authorized the use of TIF funds to prepare a new ramp area.

In 2005 it issued $2 million in urban renewal airport tax increment revenue bonds. It proceeded with the first phase, upgrading the west side of the airport land and buying Red Eagle Aviation property on the east. Red Eagle now leases it back from the city.

But in 2008 the environmental assessment “ran out,” Leistiko explained, because the city had not taken action in some time and it didn’t appear it could make progress on relocating the KGEZ Radio towers.

Monday night’s session will formally launch the process of where to go from here. Howington said CDs will be available of the information presented.