Schedule takes shape for airport decision

The Kalispell City Council is gearing up to try to decide what to do with Kalispell City Airport, a question that has vexed the city for more than a decade.

Charles Harball, city attorney and interim city manager, said he plans to hold a public work session on the issue Monday, April 9.

The work session will include Gary Gates, a program assistant with the Federal Aviation Administration’s Airports District Office in Helena.

It will also include Jeff Walla of Stelling Engineers, which is putting the finishing touches a $97,000 master plan update for Kalispell City Airport.

The study is being funded in large part by the Federal Aviation Administration, which also is reviewing and commenting on Stelling’s findings.

Following the work session, Kalispell would publish the completed master plan update on its website. The lengthy document, which updates a master plan in place since 1999, will include a recommended course of action for the Kalispell City Council.

Meeting on Monday, April 16, the Kalispell City Council then would be asked to set a formal public hearing on the master plan update for Monday, May 7, and to take action at its next regular meeting Monday, May 21.

“Hopefully that gives enough time for the abundant information to be digested by the public so they can respond, and council can consider that before taking action,” Harball said.

After working through more than a dozen preliminary alternatives, the master plan update is evaluating five final alternatives for the 83-year-old general aviation airport in south Kalispell and laying out preliminary cost estimates.

Those five options include:

n A “do-nothing” option that closes the airport as the pavement deteriorates over the next five to 10 years.

n Closing the airport and moving users and tenants to Glacier Park International Airport.

n Upgrading the airport in its present location to meet B-1 airport standards but not make it eligible for federal funding, leaving all of the costs to be paid by the city.

n Upgrading the airport in its present location to meet B-II airport standards and making it eligible for federal funding, the course of action recommended by the Kalispell City Airport Advisory Board.

n Relocating the airport to a site near West Reserve Drive and West Spring Creek Road and making it a B-II airport eligible for federal funding.

A draft master plan update has been available for review since December on the city’s website, kalispell.com, under mayor and City Council agenda items.

According to Stelling, closing or moving Kalispell City Airport would require the city to buy out existing lease holders, an expense currently estimated at $4.8 million.

Kalispell City Airport Manager Fred Leistiko has said federal and state funding could pay for 95 percent of the improvement costs. It also could reimburse the city for $3.1 million already spent on improving the airport and provide $150,000 in annual maintenance funding, he said.

Federal funding would come from the Airport Improvement Program, which funds airport improvements around the country with money generated by passenger ticket fees and aviation fuel taxes.

Because of earlier efforts to upgrade the airport to B-II standards in its present location, Kalispell City Airport is already listed in the National Plan of Integrated Airport Systems, one of the requirements to be eligible for Airport Improvement Program funding. That was done in November 2005.

Reporter Tom Lotshaw may be reached at 758-4483 or by email at tlotshaw@dailyinterlake.com.