Engineers hired by Kalispell to evaluate options for the future of the city airport hosted their second public meeting Tuesday, though the public outreach doesn’t seem to be assuaging the concerns of a core of west side residents, thus far.
Jeff Walla, of the Kalispell office of Stelling Engineers, along with Mike Beckhoff and Mitch Stelling from the firm’s Great Falls office set up multiple stations around the lobby of Kalispell City Hall where the roughly 30 people who turned out could ask questions regarding the feasibility, cost and funding sources for any planned improvements or expansion of the airport. The open house-style meeting was part of an 18-month study, approved by the city council in July, with the aim of determining the most suitable future for the city airport.
“We’ve identified the problems,” Walla said. “Now, we’re going to look at creating alternatives to rectify those problems.”
This question has developed into one of the most contentious and complicated issues for the city council over the last several years, and the new study is, in some ways, an attempt to dispel tension over the eventual answer. Among the options under consideration are leaving the airport as is; having Kalispell pay for improvements that don’t expand the airport; moving the airport to another location; or accepting FAA dollars and undertaking an expansion and runway realignment. Walla said the FAA would not pay for any airport improvements that did not include an upgrade from its current B-1 status to B-2, which would allow for larger planes.
The Federal Aviation Administration has funds available to Kalispell, through its Airport Improvement Program, to upgrade the facility – including safety improvements Airport Manager Fred Leistiko and many pilots say are badly needed. (Those funds are paid for through taxes on aviation fuel and passenger tickets.) The study itself is costing Kalispell $4,890, with $92,910 coming from the federal AIP program.
But opponents of the expansion say taking the federal money will inevitably lead to bigger planes and more frequent air traffic, causing greater noise and safety hazards for residents of the west side neighborhood adjacent to the airport.
Coloring the meeting was the recent death of Doug Wise, who owned property adjacent to the airport, necessary to its expansion, but who would not sell it. When a woman in the crowd asked Walla about it, he replied that buying the land was necessary for some of the airport’s expansion alternatives. “Pretty greedy,” the woman muttered.
On a large map showing the necessary “object free” zones around the airport, it is also apparent several buildings in south Kalispell would conflict with airport airspace, like the back of Rosauer’s grocery store, if the expansion called for by the FAA moves forward. Walla said engineers will spend the next three months continuing to generate alternatives for the airport.