Airport ordinance the better choice

The recent letter by Terry Burnes (Against airport plan) responds to my earlier column which explained and supported the new airport ballot measure. He basically concludes that it will be an ineffective ordinance (I disagree) and attacks the 2008 airport master plan because it "takes things in the wrong direction."

We seem to be in agreement that the present voter enacted airport weight ordinance is itself ineffective. For that reason alone, and because it has never been enforced, the present ordinance should be amended by the voters. The proposed ordinance is a more effective substitute and, if passed by the voters, will be enforced according to the district attorney.

The real solution, according to Mr. Burnes, is to not do anything; keep the current airport weight ordinance, even if ineffective; allow the FAA to cut off funding for airport maintenance and improvements - let the airport remain non-compliant with FAA rules. The obvious result, in my opinion, is that without such funding the county will not be able to maintain the airport on its own in the long term. Eventually there will be a gradual deterioration of the airport's basic infrastructure. Although the county will be required by the FAA to maintain the airport on its own for the next 20 years, to do so will likely mean additional taxes. Nonetheless, according to Mr. Burnes, such a stance will serve as his "protest" to the current airport master plan.

So what is wrong with the current airport master plan adopted by the county in 2008? According to Mr. Burnes, the plan essentially establishes a "new" airport on the east side onto which small general aviation and soaring will be shoved, leaving the west side of the airport open to the "big guys." He doesn't mention that the old 1993 airport master plan envisioned the same thing - that soaring infrastructure would eventually be constructed over on the east side. There is no prohibition in the proposed ordinance to keep small powered aircraft from using the main runway.

Mr. Burnes holds to a concept that keeping small aircraft scattered about on the west side will make our airport unattractive (e.g. unsafe) for the "big guys" to operate at the airport. There is something inherently flawed about such an approach. All it takes now is for one significant collision incident to occur on the westside for the FAA to take steps to separate out the small aircraft operations from the "bigs."

Nevertheless, the fact of the matter is that the number of airport operations hasn't grown more than 10 percent over the 15 years between the old and the new master plans and 80 percent of such operations are soaring related operations. The market simply hasn't been and won't be there for the "big guys" to come in any significant numbers in the foreseeable future and the proposed ordinance should itself discourage the "bigs" as many of their essential requirements will be subject to further voter approval - something Mr. Burnes doesn't mention.

Look for more discussion.

John H. Garvin is a Minden resident and co-chairman of the Sustainable Growth Initiative Committee