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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFlying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission - 11/13/2008 APPROVED MINUTES FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION THURSDAY, NOVEMBER 13, 2008 7:00 P.M. CITY CENTER Heritage Room 1 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT: Chair Rick King, Vice-Chair Jeff Larsen, Commissioners: Judy Gentry (left at 7:45 p.m.), Greg McKewan and Mark Michelson COMMISSION MEMBERS ABSENT: Joe Harris and Kurt Schendel STUDENT REPRESENTATIVES: Michael Dennis and J.P. Maslyn VISITORS: Scott Skramstad, MAC Gary Schmidt, MAC STAFF: Scott Kipp, Senior Planner Carol Pelzel, City Recorder I. CALL TO ORDER Chair King called the meeting to order at 7:05 p.m. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA Kipp added a newspaper article to the information included in the Commission's agenda material regarding Commissioner King winning the Tekne Award. Maslyn pointed out that at the Commission's last meeting they discussed whether or not they should advise the City Council to allow exceptions to pilots engaged in mandatory night time flights such as the health businesses rather than sending them numerous letters for violations. Maslyn asked if this item would be discussed further this evening. King said they would discuss this under Section VIII. A. of the agenda. MOTION: Larsen moved, seconded by Gentry, to approve the agenda as amended. Motion carried, 5-0. III. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT OPERATOR OF THE YEAR AWARD Prior to the meeting, Chair King presented the Flying Cloud Airport Operator of the Year Award to Executive Aviation. Accepting on behalf of Executive Aviation was Kirk Otteson, Director of Operations and Dave Walker, General Manager. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES November 13, 2008 Page 2 IV. PUBLIC COMMENT V. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A. September 11, 2008 Minutes of Regular Commission Meeting Skramstad asked that Erin Frase's name be corrected to Aaron on both Pages 1 and 8 of the minutes. He also corrected the word "our" on Page 7, VII. A., second paragraph, fourth line, to "or" and the word "limitation" in the first paragraph of Page 10 to "implementation". MOTION: Gentry moved, seconded by Larsen, to approve the September 11, 2008, regular meeting minutes as corrected. Motion carried, 5-0. VI. DISCUSSION ITEMS A. Review and Finalize the Presentation Outline for November 18 City Council Presentation King reported that he will be making a presentation to the City Council at their November 18 meeting updating them on what has transpired with this Commission. King pointed out that an outline of what he plans to present to the Council was included in the Commission's agenda material. He will be introducing those members of the Commission that are in attendance and that this presentation will also address the Council's request that they look into noise and security at the airport. Larsen suggested they include the presentation to Executive Aviation for the Operator of the Year Award that was made earlier this evening. He also suggested that an item on this award be included in the local newspaper. King said they do need to include the outcome of their discussion with the FAA with regards to noise. Gentry suggested that under Sewer and Water they change the sentence to read "reduced fire hazard and increased safety". B. Discuss and Review the Draft 2008 Report and 2009 Goals and Work Plan King explained that the purpose of having this item on the agenda this evening is to give the Commission an opportunity to review this document so that the Commission can officially adopt it in January. The Commission does not necessarily need to make their edits this evening but to provide them to Kipp prior to the January meeting. He pointed out that much of the information in the report with regards to their accomplishments parallels the presentation that will be made to the Council on November 18. King briefly reviewed the report and said in the Airport Facility Directory under Airport Remarks they need to add the noise abatement and voluntary restriction notice. In response to a question from Michelson, King explained that the FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES November 13, 2008 Page 3 Airport Facilities Directory is a governmental document that is looked at when a pilot is doing their pre-flight planning. King also mentioned that numbers on Page 4 under Traffic Count will need to be updated for the entire year including the number of operations. The picture on Page 5 will be updated to include Executive Aviation as Operator of the Year. On Page 7 the picture of the Commission members will be updated to include the student representatives. King said that the goals for 2009 listed on Page 6 include the three goals previously listed the last several years and the goal to reduce nighttime noise was added. King said he would like to discuss this evening the Commission's goals. He assumes the Council will want to know what the Commission is planning to accomplish in 2009 when they have their workshop with the Council in March. The Commission has been asked to do a little more work on nighttime noise. The noise is the most annoying thing to the residents and that is what most of the questions to this Commission are about. King asked that the Commission provide their comments regarding this report to Kipp by December 24. He indicated that he would like the Commission to address their goals and to discuss if there is anything they should approach differently. Gentry suggested that they include a statement in the report that the Commission will continue to work with MAC and the FAA productively to create positive solutions to problems. She questioned if this should be added as a goal. McKewan questioned whether or not they should include anything in the report about focusing on zoning or the appearance of the airport as a goal. King said generally he feels it is better to have fewer goals than too many. He suggested that they remove communications and education and replace those with some of the other goals mentioned. He would like to keep the list of goals short and include the most important ones. Kipp suggested that they include improved aesthetics at the airport as a goal and not necessarily the design. King said he would like to have three goals listed that are most beneficial to the residents. Gentry said she feels education and information are very important goals. Michelson said he would like to see the goals listed as education and information, monitoring the final agreement and reducing nighttime noise. McKewan said he agrees. Michelson pointed out that working with MAC is covered in other places in the document. King said they don't have to make any final decisions this evening and he would like the Commission to get their comments back to Kipp by December 24. Michelson said he is not opposed to adding other goals. Larsen pointed out that they may get some feedback from the City Council after their presentation on November 18 that may need to be added as goals of this Commission. Gary Schmidt, MAC Representative, explained that with regards to the aesthetic issues, the MAC ordinance is sitting on his desk and they are trying to ensure that they can enforce it. This is something that will happen in 2009. Schmidt indicated that airport aesthetics is part of their goals. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES November 13, 2008 Page 4 Larsen asked that on the bottom of Page 5 his name be corrected from Larson to Larsen. Kipp said he would e-mail everyone an electronic version of this document. King asked that the Commission provide Kipp with their changes by December 24 so that a final document is ready for adoption at their January meeting. C. City Ordinance to Establish Airport Zoning District Kipp reported that recently there were some questions about how this ordinance fits into the City Code. Included with the Commission's agenda material was a copy of the City Code with the changes highlighted. Kipp further reported that they are looking to apply zoning authority in terms of building standards for hangar construction or other buildings at Flying Cloud Airport. This is the only land use in the City where they don't regulate building materials or setbacks. Kipp explained that they are also looking at changing the land use at Flying Cloud from public quasi public to airport and to also define airport safety limiting any kind of building at the ends of the runways to accommodate approach corridors. He stated that MAC is beginning to look at this ordinance and the City is looking at the zoning of the property to keep approach areas clear and to address land use and building structures on the airport. Staff has met with MAC and will be moving forward with additional meetings. Kipp said they would be looking at how they can merge the City's ordinance and MAC's ordinance to work to both MAC's and the City's benefit. Kipp asked that Commission members provide him with any comments and/or changes to the proposed ordinance. King asked what the proposed timeline is for getting through the process. Kipp responded that their goal is to address this in 2009. They need to digest it and see if they are on the right track. If there are significant comments or issues brought up, they can be discussed at their January meeting. He asked that Commission members get their comments back to him before December 24. The Comprehensive Plan is moving forward and they hope to have it wrapped up within the next two to three months. Any new zoning would occur after that. VII. EDUCATIONAL ITEMS A. Web Trends Report on City's Airport Website McKewan explained that included with the Commission's agenda material was a report showing web activity for the last three months of 2007 and the first six months of 2008. This information shows that the hits on the website were up from the year before. McKewan pointed out that there were a high number of hits for their June meeting. In 2007 the top pages included the history of the airport and MAC airport expansion along with the audit of the Final Agreement. In 2008 for the first six months the top pages were the meeting schedule for this Commission and Flying Cloud residential information and maps as well as new airport related postings. McKewan indicated that FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES November 13, 2008 Page 5 visitors appear to be more focused and they can find what they are looking for rather quickly. McKewan reviewed with the Commission the hits made on the website. McKewan said that the report shows that they have accomplished what they wanted to. One of their goals was to make the information readily available and simple to use and it looks like they accomplished that. King said that in looking at other Commission pages this is by far the most elaborate other than the City Council information site. Kipp pointed out that this site is one of the pages that comes up as a popular site. He also mentioned that some of the information on the airport section needs to be updated. McKewan said he would be happy to take a look at that section of the site and see that it is updated. He said they will also need to determine what they want to take off of the site and what should be archived. McKewan suggested that they keep information on the site for no more than two years. Kipp said it is important that they keep the site fresh and that they may want to determine what items should be highlighted on the site. For example, they may want to keep information from the June meeting and Lanner's visit on the site for a longer duration. McKewan said he would work with Kipp in updating the content of this site. King said they should also figure out some archival strategy. McKewan said he would attempt to get the site refreshed prior to their next meeting and that he would bring any new ideas back to this Commission at that time. VIII. FINAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN CITY AND MAC A. Meeting with FAA on Noise Abatement Ideas King reported that the Mayor had asked this Commission to look into ways to reduce nighttime noise at the airport. City Manager Scott Neal, Kipp and King met with two FAA representatives to discuss things that could be done to eliminate nighttime noise. They talked about whether or not curfews could be made mandatory and discussed what was happening in other cities. The FAA indicated that they cannot make the curfew mandatory but offered to cooperate and support actions that they could to reduce noise. The FAA explained that Air Traffic Control turns the jets southbound when departing Flying Cloud as required under the IFR rules. King said they asked MAC to ask the FAA to have MSP air traffic control give turbo props a southbound heading. MAC raised the question that if they turn all of the aircraft southbound, would they be ready for more southbound noise complaints. They discussed the idea of going to that area versus the idea of dispersal. The idea of a dispersal policy seemed difficult for both the FAA and MAC. Both groups thought it would be better to ask for specific routing and felt the southbound routing was the correct way to go. King said they also asked MAC to ask the FAA to have the Flying Cloud tower add a noise abatement and voluntary restriction notice to its Automated Terminal Information Service message and to have MAC include details about the voluntary nighttime curfew and noise abatement procedures to its language about Flying Cloud Airport. King further reported that MAC will be conducting one-on-one meetings with the ten top operators at Flying FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES November 13, 2008 Page 6 Cloud to discuss the noise reduction ideas and to solicit their ideas. He stated that they are also looking at whether or not they will request a modification to tower hours. If the tower is open during the early morning hours they will make sure that more traffic is directed to a runway that is friendlier to noise. This is something they may want to look at. King explained that MAC is in the process of writing a letter to the FAA requesting the items mentioned. Hopefully they will be able to do some of these things to reduce noise. Naturally, when they do the construction on the south parallel the north parallel will be open and that will change the noise patterns. Kipp pointed out that this construction will be an education item for 2009. Maslyn said that at the last meeting they agreed to look at requesting the City Council and MAC to include a written clause in the Final Agreement granting those industries involved in late night operations, such as medical flights, an exception pass from the voluntary nighttime curfew and noise abatement procedures. They would be required to go through a certain process to qualify and this would eliminate them receiving hundreds of letters throughout the course of the year for violations. King said he agrees that this would be a good idea and it has been brought up to the City Manager and there appears to be some interest in it. It has been indicated that they want to wait until the new City Council is on board and this is something that may be addressed in January and may even be brought up at this Commission's workshop with the City Council. King asked that this item be included on the Commission's January agenda for additional discussion. King said he feels this is something they need to take a stand on to adjust the volume of letters that are sent out. Skramstad pointed out that one operator has received over 100 letters to date. Michelson said he believes this is a waste of time and that those letters lose their effectiveness. King said that both sides agree that to continually send letters to the same operator is not effective and a simple amendment to the Final Agreement would be appropriate if it is written correctly. McKewan pointed out that this could be construed by people that they can change the Final Agreement and he asked if this is something they want to do. Schmidt explained that this would be more of an addendum to the Agreement. Michelson said this is something worth discussing in greater detail. King said if no one is opposed, this item will be included on their January agenda. B. Noise Complaint Summary Report from Student Representative Dennis explained that he compiled noise data from 1997-2007 including FCM Tower Traffic Count and noise complaints. He reviewed the information pointing out that complaints increased from 36 complaints in 1997 to 808 in 2007. King said the ease of reporting noise complaints through the web may have contributed to the increased complaints as well as the construction of Hennepin Village. Dennis also pointed out that traffic dropped from 198,199 operations in 1997 to 118,178 in 2007. King thanked Dennis for compiling this information and felt it was helpful to the Commission. C. Noise Complaints/Stage 2 Operations Report (September-October) FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES November 13, 2008 Page 7 Kipp explained that at the last Commission meeting the Commission asked that Skramstad send the helicopter complaint and Lifelink flight track map to Lifelink for their review. Since that time, Skramstad noticed that Air9 (Channel 9 News) helicopter flight tracks were included on the map and he had inadvertently reported that the map was exclusive to Lifelink operations. At the meeting it was reported that there were a total of 273 Lifelink operations. The correct number of Lifelink operations should have been 152. Kipp explained that the revised Lifelink helicopter flight track map appears to be more consistent with what was observed immediately after implementation of the preferred noise abatement routes. Kipp asked the Commission if this revised map should still be sent to Lifelink. He suggested that they send a letter thanking them for their efforts and encourage them to continue the pattern and activity. The letter could be drafted as a positive reinforcement. Larsen said he feels they should include the map for their information and show them the type of data they gather. King said he has extended an invitation to the new head of Lifelink asking him to come and visit with this Commission. He also agrees that a positive letter is a good idea and that it should be sent from the City. Larsen asked if anyone has talked to Channel 9 about the helicopter flights. Skramstad said he talked to the owner/operator who is contracted for Channel 9 and Skramstad explained the situation. The owner/operator was very receptive and the procedures developed with Lifelink were sent to the operator. If they have to fly during the nighttime they were encouraged to use the same procedures as Lifelink and the operator said he would pass this information on to his flight crews. King indicated that the Lifelink helicopters have a different profile than news helicopters or other training helicopters and it would be a good idea for the Commission to go out and look at those helicopters again. Skramstad presented an overview of noise complaints for Flying Cloud Airport for September and October, 2008. There were 644 total complaints from 88 total complainants with 544 of those complaints filed via the internet. Skramstad stated that at the last meeting they talked about complaints received during the RNC. He reported that during the RNC 117 complaints were received from 41 different residents. Many of those complaints were a result of an operation that relocated to Flying Cloud and would turn south from the airport. King asked Skramstad to summarize the RNC data for him prior to his November 18 presentation to the City Council. Skramstad indicated that this reporting period has the most complaints in any two month period. From September 6 to the end of October there were 547 complaints. In 2008 there were 939 complaints for the first six months. Through the end of October there have been 2,225 complaints with 53 percent of those total complaints coming from five households west of the airport. Skramstad said he could put the top five complainants on the map and show where they are located. King said that would be helpful and if they are all located at one location this is something they will need to discuss. FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES November 13, 2008 Page 8 Skramstad further reported that 24 operators received one letter each and typically they respond back favorably. Whenever possible, they try to minimize flying during the nighttime hours. Michelson said that the previous map did not show that many different households in Hennepin Village complaining. Skramstad said that a lot of the complaints received this time were RNC related and he would pull the RNC information onto one chart. Most of those complaints were the result of one operator who had flights coming in between midnight and 1:30 a.m. and between 4:00 a.m. and 5:30 a.m. There were between 10 and 12 departures per day. McKewan suggested that they include information on the airports voluntary restrictions on the ATIS message. Skramstad pointed out that the FAA is not in favor of putting non-standard information on the ATIS but he would ask. IX. NOISE ABATEMENT/AIRCRAFT INCIDENTS A. Life Link III Helicopter Flight Tracks (September - October) As mentioned earlier, Skramstad explained that last month's map did include flight tracks from the Channel 9 news helicopter. The Lifelink flight tracks from September through October are similar to what they saw about a year ago. There were 74 departures and 75 arrivals. There were 26 helicopter complaints from 13 complainants, very similar to what was reported for July and August. Eleven of the complaints were directly related to Lifelink operations. Four complaints were related to training operations. X. NEW BUSINESS XI. OTHER BUSINESS Larsen pointed out that the City's Fire Chief has a blog on the City's website and includes a video showing the airport crash vehicle fighting a UPS truck fire. He felt the video was very impressive and suggested members of this Commission view that video. This is a piece of equipment that provides additional security to the airport. Various FYI Items: • Article on Chair King winning the Tekne Award • Approved FCAAC minutes and notes of July 10, 2008 • Report to Council on Review of Airport Security • New Hangar under Construction at FCM • MAC Commission Memo on status of Federal and State Grants and Bonding Funds (Flying Cloud) • Thank You Letter to MAC Commissioner Molly Sigel • Various airport/aviation related news articles FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION MINUTES November 13, 2008 Page 9 • Letter to Parents of Student Representatives from Mayor • Next Commission meeting is scheduled for January 8, 2009 Michelson mentioned that the TSA has developed a 260-page document about security at reliever airports and general aviation airports. He asked if this would have any effect on Flying Cloud Airport. Schmidt explained that the report refers to 12,500 pound aircraft and those aircraft are defined as large aircraft and the operators of large aircraft may be required to follow mandated security. Schmidt said there is no question that this may become the rule and there are some aircraft that are 12,500 pounds at Flying Cloud. It may be burdensome for some smaller operators but for the most part they are in favor of enhanced security. King asked what would be different at Flying Cloud. Schmidt responded that this has been a recommended procedure for several years and has not been mandated but most operators have been doing this. The change he sees is that it will be mandatory and not recommended. McKewan asked for an update as to where they are with the Multilateration Project. Skramstad responded that they have finalized negotiations and are in the process of determining 8 sites to be used. They are trying to use public tower sites which are significantly less expensive than private sites. They are looking at different options for the best coverage. Skramstad said the project is moving forward and they hope to have all sites installed at the end of the first quarter next year or the early part of the second quarter. King said he felt their public meeting held in June worked out well. He said he is not sure they need something like that again but suggested they discuss this further at their January meeting. King said they may want to do something similar or they may even want to have an open house at Flying Cloud Airport to show the public what is going on at that site. They could conduct a tour showing them upgraded hangars, etc. XI. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Motion was made by Larsen, seconded by McKewan, to adjourn the meeting. Motion carried, 4-0. The meeting adjourned at 8:50 p.m.