Council pares down options for airport

Perhaps Kalispell City Airport should be operated by a private association of local aviation enthusiasts.

After all, Kalispell Golf Association does a fine job running the city-owned Buffalo Hill Golf Course, City Council member Tim Kluesner said at Monday’s work session. The model could be replicated at the airport.

Maybe it should receive minimal safety upgrades but otherwise be left as is, others suggested during the discussion focused solely on the airport.

Eventually, the consensus that emerged after a 3 1/2-hour work session was to examine three top options:

n Do nothing.

n Realign the runway without extending it.

n Keep the runway’s current alignment and extend it to the south.

The council ruled out closing the airport and decided relocating it was not an option.

But before anything goes very far, several council members said, the city had better talk to adjoining landowners.

“I think we’re over-talking this tonight,” council member Jeff Zauner said after hearing his colleagues talk of a longer runway. “It’s a moot issue if you can’t acquire the property.”

Randy Kenyon begged to differ.

“Before we can go to the landowners we need more information on landowner agreements,” Kenyon said after much more discussion. “We need an engineer to tell us what options are out there. He urged moving forward with an environmental assessment, establishing the parameters of each option, then talking with landowners.

Consensus won out in the end.

So City Manager Jane Howington and her staff will scheduling neighborhood visits in the coming weeks.

Members of the Wise family, whose farm is southwest of a proposed runway extension, have been adamant about never selling their property to the city for an airport project. City officials want to see if there’s any room for talks.

Members of the Monk family to the north of the Wises have indicated they’re interested in selling, but the appraised value is a sticking point.

The Schlegel family, which has lease rights to a gravel pit south of the runway, is said to be interested in working with the city toward a land purchase.

Businesses along the U.S. 93 corridor already are in various stages of working with Airport Manager Fred Leistiko.

Howington also will direct information-gathering efforts on a couple other fronts, taking her cues from sentiments council members expressed.

They wanted some idea what scope an environmental assessment might need for preliminary actions — land acquisitions or easements, a noise ordinance, flight restrictions. So Howington will work with airport consultant Stelling Engineers to set up assessment parameters.

They asked for a Federal Aviation Administration representative to attend a future council session and fill in a few informational holes. Howington said the FAA already has indicated it would do that, and she expects to line it up around the first of March.

By mid-March, Howington said, she should be able to come back with results from all these talks and get further marching orders — including how to handle the first amendment to the contract with Stelling Engineers and what to pay them for that work.

Council discussion drilled down on finances several times. Bob Hafferman cautioned that “we’d better have sustainable financing.”

Kluesner quizzed funds manager Wade Elder, eventually concluding that the airport is pulling from a residual cash balance after 2006 land sales. “It doesn’t pay for itself,” Kluesner concluded.

Howington earlier had explained that upgrades could justify higher fees and charges, thus helping its bottom line. City figures show that in all but three years since 2000, the airport showed a positive balance.

Duane Larson asked if a 5-degree realignment and runway extension improves safety. Widening and lengthening the runway both would help, Leistiko said, as would installing an approach lighting system. Larson was skeptical that the city can obtain land needed for any of these changes.

He also criticized the Quiet Skies group for its insistence that airport proponents must live within city limits if they are to be taken seriously. He decried their study “written by people who are not experts. I think they shot themselves in the foot with their study,” Larson said, “and then they had the nerve to come to our last meeting and tell us we should hire out-of-town [experts] because the people in town would have a biased opinion.”

Mayor Tammi Fisher disclosed her visit to the Wise family.

“I wanted to go talk with the family as to what their intentions for their property are, how long they lived there, would they be interested in going and talking to the city,” Fisher answered Jim Atkinson’s concern.

“I understand that, but I’m jealously guarding the form of government we have,” Atkinson said. “The council needs to know and the community needs to know that the staff has the [assurance] that no member of this council will act on behalf of the city in any realm in which they don’t have responsibility.”