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10/19/09 Eckels CommentsCouncil Comments 10/19/09 Steve Eckels — Airport Issue I want to thank Nancy Kimball and the Daily Interlake for the excellent article on the citizens' concerns about the city airport. Because of space limitations of the article, I feel some important points should be added. First, the members of the citizen's committee are not "foes" of the airport. What we oppose is noise. If someone could guarantee that the airport expansion would result in less noise and greater safety over the city center, then so he it. In the article is was mentioned that the city would need to sign off on 39 "assurances" to the federal government if we were to accept funding for the airport expansion. Conversely, it seems reasonable to me that the city should be able to guarantee "assurances " to its' citizens. What follows is a draft list of assurances that may set concerned citizens at ease. Citizen Assurances: 1. The expansion of the airport will result in noise that is equal to or less than the current amount of noise. 2. The expansion of the airport will result in greater safety to people on the ground. 3. The expansion of the airport will not have a negative affect on Kalispell's "charm factor" or property values. 4. In the event of a crash, the city and federal government will assume financial liability for damage or injury to people on the ground. Why should people on the ground be responsible for accidents that they have nothing to do with? 5. The city will generate money from the airport in the form of take off and landing fees, and the money will be reinvested in the airport -affected zone to upgrade neighborhoods. (There is a fee to use the Buffalo Hill Golf Course, would it not be similar to charge a fee for the airport. There would be a city office at the airport to collect fees and answer complaints). 6. The city will re -zone all training and touch and go flights out of the city before the expansion takes place. The assurances could be agreed to in writing with signatures by the Mayor, City Manager, etc. A second omission of the Interlake article is that although Scott Davis and I have "spearheaded" the citizen's efforts, we were called to action by three high-level city officials who wish to remain anonymous. They are concerned, 1) that the airport advocates have had a disproportional influence in the decision - making so far and 2) that the enforcement of laws pertaining to the airport are not being carefully monitored or enforced. The third omission of the article is that the committee members are both men and women with a variety of concerns. While we all are concerned about noise, here is a sampling of other concerns of our membership: 1) We include a pilot who is passionately concerned about the danger and noise of jets flying over main street, 2) A school teacher who is concerned for the safety of children at the local elementary schools, 3) senior citizens who are "fearful" when they hear low flying planes over their homes, 4) a person who owns property adjacent to the airport who has carefully studied state legal codes and is concerned about the ethics of declaring low income housing as "blighted" - to force people to move - in the name of urban renewal - when the renewal is really about airport expansion. (It may sound extreme, but do we really want to force people out of their homes to make it more convenient for the likes of health insurance executives and banking CEOs to fly in on jets? 5) an economist who is concerned about the effect on property values. When Weber & Associates of South Carolina did their economic impact study of the City Airport, were the negative effects on property values factored in? (Weber & Associates is in the airport business - engineering and design. They are not city or economic planners. Their motto is "moving your project forward". Many of us feel that their interpolated financial impact of two million dollars a month is far fetched), 6) There is the youth services professional who wonders about having a year round water -park, Olympic pool, hockey- Eckels Page 2. rink and other recreational/cultural facilities in the airport location. This would also support our hotel and the visitor business. After forty years of effort, Kalispell is finally ready to break ground on a highway by-pass to alleviate downtown traffic. Does it seem logical to anyone else that that we would also have an airport by-pass to alleviate "Big Sky" nuisance and congestion? We all have looked out the window on commercial flights and seen the seamy and tawdry parts of town surrounding the airport. Does the city want to abandon the historic districts on the east and west sides in the name of a questionable financial projection? On the one extreme, we would shut the airport down arguing that there are better land uses, and that Glacier International Airport had made the City Airport obsolete. On the other extreme, we expand the airport and the facilities around it, and make aviation the centerpiece of the south -side economy. In either case, the citizen's concerns should be communicated, and addressed for the good of all. These are critical considerations for the future of the city, and because of the immensity of the decisions, they may be irreversible.