Airport letter 2-03 A
February 10, 2003
Honorable Conrad Burns
575 Sunset Blvd.
Kalispell, MT 59901
Dear Senator Burns:
We are requesting your assistance in completing two projects that the City of Kalispell has been
pursuing for several years. These two projects are both intended to improve the southern end of
Kalispell and to promote public safety. They are the widening of US Highway 93 South where it
crosses the southern entrance to Kalispell and the improvement and upgrade of the Kalispell
City Airport.
All required engineering and funding are nearly in place for both projects. There are still some
right-of-way acquisitions to be made for Highway 93 and it is projected to begin construction in
spring of 2004. The Kalispell City Airport completed an FAA Airport Layout Plan in 1998, an
FAA Airport Master Plan in 1999 and an FAA Environmental Assessment in 2003 leading to
the issuance of a Finding of No Significant Impact (FONSI) by the FAA in 2003. One million
dollars has been allocated by the City of Kalispell for the airport project match and 2.4 million
dollars has been allocated for the highway 93 project (sewers, curbs and gutters). We are
excited to see both of the projects so close to construction.
Both projects have been significantly hampered by the KGEZ 600 AM site. Currently the radio
towers for KGEZ are in the runway protection zone for the Kalispell City Airport. The FAA has
stated that funding for the Kalispell City Airport project is subject to the City of Kalispell
paying to remove these two radio towers from the runway protection zone. The owner of the
station has stated that his cost to remove these two towers is $700,000. We can use some of our
city allocated airport money for tower removal however to use all $700,000 would leave us
without funds to match the FAA for the rest of the project. We are $250,000 short of necessary
funds.
Because the City is involved in funding portions of both the highway project and the radio tower
removal, we can be flexible on where funds are received from the State or Federal Government.
Could Senator Burns appropriate any funds ($250,000) to help us with either the airport or
highway project? The amount of $250,000 does not sound like a lot compared to a 7 million
dollar airport project and a multi-million dollar highway 93 project but it appears to be the
difference necessary to get both of these important public safety projects off dead center.
The Kalispell City Airport is the busiest general aviation airport in Montana. We have been
working with the FAA for over seven years in order to obtain Federal status and funding for our
airport. Please help us overcome this hurdle to making both of these projects happen.
If I can provide any further information to your office concerning either of these projects, please
feel free to contact me at any time.
Sincerely,
Chris Kukulski
City Manager
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