Airplanes haven’t made people this emotional since Denzel Washington’s 2012 tearjerker, Flight. Of course, the emotions in Longmont are a bit different.
In Tuesday’s Longmont City Council meeting, councilmembers will receive the results from two separate studies regarding Vance Brand Municipal Airport. One assesses the effectiveness of the airport’s more-than-decade-old (and heavily criticized) noise reduction procedures that are provided to pilots and aviation organizations who may travel around Longmont. The other evaluates how the airport charges for existing ground lease rates and hangar rental rates and compares them to other airports.
In more entertaining terms:
Are pilots dodging the rules that the City of Longmont requested and, if so, what can be done to nudge them into line?
Is the airport making money? And can it make more money?
Locals have long been grilling city council to take some kind of action to slash the volume of noise created by airplanes flying overhead. Tomorrow may yield concrete steps in that direction. Each study provides recommendations for actions city council can take. According to a City of Longmont agenda packet…
The Rates and Charges Study:
Following its research, the aviation consulting firm Longmont used to assess the airport’s financial sustainability, Bolton & Menk, Inc. will provide more than a dozen recommendations for the city to pursue. These include…
Increasing ground lead rates.
Increasing fuel flowage fees.
Consider implementing a landing fee
An important kicker to keep in mind: Legally, landing fees must be reasonable and justified by airport cost and not merely a method to limit operations.
More unorthodox revenue-generating ideas like offering paid snow plowing and grass-cutting services to tenants and hosting more events like fly-ins and pancake breakfasts (The latter is our favorite).
This will be a presentation only. Feedback will be incorporated into a draft rates and charges schedule that will be presented to city council as a resolution later this summer.
The Noise Program Assessment:
Since 2015, the airport has maintained what it calls a Voluntary Noice Abatement Program. This is a guide provided to pilots that outlines the flight procedures the city prefers. Of course, the key word above is “Voluntary.” Additionally, the city hasn’t yet conducted a formal assessment of the program’s effectiveness. To do this, they contracted the services of the airport analytics team, Airport Monitoring Systems. They, too, will provide more than a dozen recommendations, including:
Expand flight tracking to measure VNAP conformance.
Establish a Technical Advisory Group of pilots, flight schools, and representatives from the Federal Aviation Administration and Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association, who will report to city council.
Integrate VNAP guidance into Electronic Flight Bag platforms for in-cockpit guidance.
In other words, convert Longmont’s air procedures from paper documents into electronic platforms.
Based on these recommendations, city council can then direct city staff to take action however deemed appropriate.
In other news…
Councilmembers will also begin tackling three new questions set to be added onto November’s ballot. Two of them are centered on changing the election process for Longmont City Council members to ranked choice voting, while the other gives additional protections to open spaces.
The action begins at 7 p.m. You can attend in-person or follow along virtually here.