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HomeMy WebLinkAboutFlying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission - 07/10/2008 APPROVED MINUTES FLYING CLOUD AIRPORT ADVISORY COMMISSION THURSDAY,JULY 10, 2008 4:30 PM, CITY CENTER Prairie Room 8080 Mitchell Road COMMISSION MEMBERS PRESENT: Chair Rick King, Vice-Chair Jeff Larsen, Commissioners: Judy Gentry, Joe Harris, Greg McKewan, Mark Michelson and Kurt Schendel COMMISSION MEMBERS ABSENT: None STUDENT MEMBERS PRESENT: Michael Dennis, J.P. Maslyn VISITORS: Scott Skramstad, MAC Chad Leqve, MAC Warren McVey, FAA STAFF: Scott Kipp, Senior Planner Jan Curielli, City Recorder I. CALL TO ORDER Chair King called the meeting to order at 4:55 PM. King noted the meeting was being held at the City Center rather than at Minneapolis Community & Technical College—Aviation Center as planned due to the power outages at the Aviation Center. He thanked the Commission members for taking time to go on the tour of the airport prior to the business meeting. II. APPROVAL OF AGENDA MOTION: Michelson moved, seconded by McKewan, to approve the agenda. Motion carried 7-0. III. SWEARING IN OF STUDENT MEMBERS King introduced the two new Student Commission members: Michael Dennis and J.P. Maslyn. Kipp then swore in Dennis and Maslyn as Student Commission members on the Flying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission for 2008-2009. King welcomed them both to the Commission. IV. PUBLIC COMMENT There was no public comment. Flying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission July 10, 2008 Page 2 V. APPROVAL OF MINUTES A. May 8, 2008 Minutes Larsen said there are two misspellings in the minutes: the word"bringing" in Sentence 2, Paragraph 4, Page 4 and the name"Sigel" in Sentence 1, Paragraph 1 under Section XI. King said on page 7 the heading for Item VLC. MAC Nighttime Query on Aircraft Type and Count should be eliminated for purposes of clarification. He said the first sentence of the motion on Page 9 should be clarified as follows: "Motion was made by King, seconded by McKewan, that the Commission commend the MAC for its multilateration project and, that as a Commission, they unanimously request that the MAC consider inclusion of Flying Cloud Airport in the current project contemplated to be complete by the end of 2008." MOTION: Gentry moved, seconded by Schendel, to approve the minutes of the May 8, 2008 meeting as amended. Motion carried 7-0. B. June 12, 2008 Minutes Gentry said she thought the last sentence on Page 3, Paragraph 4 was not clear. Chad Leqve, Manager, MAC Aviation Noise and Satellite Programs, said there will be a draft document for the long term comprehensive plan towards the end of the year and they will look to the Commission to provide comments on that. The consensus was to change the sentence as follows: "The Flying Cloud Airport Commission will be involved in MAC's Long Term Comprehensive Plan process as well as the City." Gentry said she was not sure about the reference to the Federal Policy Act in Sentence 2, Paragraph 2, Page 4. Leqve said the reference was to the Aviation Noise and Capacity Act. Gentry suggested the sentence should be: "The Aviation Noise and Capacity Act was passed by Congress in 1990." Gentry asked when the house testing mentioned in the last sentence of the first full paragraph on Page 5 will take place. Leqve said the contours mentioned are in the FDIS, and the monitoring will be completed within two years of the opening of the runway. They would pick out a sample of the homes listed and monitor those to determine the exterior-to-interior noise levels. Kipp noted the homes are on the east side of the airport. Skramstad said it also will be done only for homes built after 2001. Gentry asked about the question raised in Section IV., Page 6 regarding fees. Leqve said they cannot impose punitive fees. Gentry asked if Chair King was able to meet with Stacy Desai per his statement in Paragraph 1 on Page 11. King said he talked with her several times, and he plans to discuss that item later in the meeting. MOTION: Larsen moved, seconded by McKewan, to approve the minutes of the June Flying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission July 10, 2008 Page 3 12, 2008 meeting as amended. Motion carried 7-0. VI. DISCUSSION ITEMS A. Draft Airport Security Report to City Council—Rick King King said the Commission discussed the airport Security Report at the May meeting and asked Scott Kipp to prepare a draft report to submit to the City Council. The draft report was included in the meeting packets and Commission members were asked to read and comment on the report before we submit it to the City Council. King asked for any questions or comments on the draft report. Gentry asked if the Police Department Airport Liaison Officer has already been assigned. Harris said the position rotates within the department,but there is a designated officer in that role. Larsen said he thought the point regarding lighting on Page 2 was important enough to be a separate bullet point rather than being lumped in with the point about new signage and additional fencing. He thought the 13 additional lights and the update of existing lightings would be considered an important development and should be highlighted a little more. Gentry asked if it was just the security lighting or other lighting. Harris said it was just the overheads. Larsen said the existing lighting was updated for more luminescence, and he thought that point should be added. The consensus was to add a separate bullet point describing the lighting enhancements. King asked if the Commission members were still happy with the recommendation to do the security review every two years. The Commission members said they were happy with that. Gentry asked if the tenants on the field had any comments or suggestions after Mr. Harris delivered the 2007 Updated Security Guide to them. Harris said there were not a lot of changes from the original document, and they worked with the tenants on the edits of the original document. The tenants were part of the process from the beginning. Gentry noted two errors on Page 4. The word "destined" in Paragraph 1 and the word "biannually" in Recommendation 2. MOTION: King moved, seconded by Michelson, to approve the draft Airport Security Report as amended and to ask Staff Liaison Kipp to finalize the report and forward it to the City Council. Motion carried 7-0. B. Follow-up to June 12th Neighborhood Meeting—Rick King King asked the Commission members for any comments they had on the June 12tt' neighborhood meeting. He said we wrote to the MAC leadership and thanked those who presented at the meeting. We also sent our thanks to Warren McVey. He thought we got the information to the 220-230 people who attended the meeting. Our purpose was to Flying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission July 10, 2008 Page 4 inform and he thought we did our job. Michelson said he was amazed how many people didn't know what's going on after all these years. He thought that was partially because there is a continual changing of personnel as new people come into town. He also thought there was a little bit of misrepresentation by the newspaper in terms of what was going to happen at the meeting. He said he couldn't believe people came to the meeting thinking the purpose was to make a decision whether to expand or not. He agreed with Chair King's comments, and he thought the meeting was very valuable and did inform people about what is going on. Kipp said he received a few emails, one of which he included in the meeting packets. There was not a whole lot of comment. He thought the media comments caused people's confusion that this would be an opportunity to put their two cents in about whether the airport should expand or not. Larsen thought MAC did a pretty good job at staying away from jargon. They focused the presentation on what people needed to hear, and he was happy about that. He thought it was about as clear as it could be as far as the various timelines were concerned. Gentry thought they handled the lady who was upset and confused very well. She asked how MAC felt about the meeting. Leqve said he thought it went as well as we could hope for in terms of conceptualizing the meeting. We were sincere and honest with people who came to the meeting and laid out the facts and realities. He thought a misunderstanding of the facts leads to unrealistic expectations. He didn't think we can ever go wrong by providing information, and he thought our efforts succeeded. They understand that there is a litany of things we have to deal with that are very complex. King said the MAC upper management folks got good reports from various people, and they seemed to feel the meeting was positive. Harris said it was an opportunity to unveil the plans about what is going on over at the airport with the sewer and water project and the runway project. It was an opportunity to share timelines with them so people don't feel we are operating behind the scenes. It was a great opportunity and a couple of people came up to say they are going to take the opportunity to come out to the airport. Harris said the airport management took some of the feedback to heart regarding the appearance of the airport and other issues. King said at some point we will have a DVD that the City is planning to make available. He said people can sign up on the City website to receive copies of the Commission's agenda and minutes. Michelson asked if the meeting was filmed. King said there will be a PowerPoint along with the presenters on the DVD. King said he talked to and met with Stacy Desai a number of times. She is anxious to propose to this group that setting up informational meetings in a different way will get more interaction amongst the group. He said part of their discussion was about human behavior issues. Ms Desai would be prepared to come here and present some of her thoughts. She does these kinds of things at her work. He told her he would bring it up at Flying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission July 10, 2008 Page 5 this meeting and see what the Commission members thought. Michelson asked if she was the one that stood up and said she could run the meeting better. King said that was her. He didn't promise her anything except to bring it up to the Commission. Her idea is that we could bring people who are both pro and con together. King told her we would discuss her coming to the September Commission meeting. Michelson said he could take it or leave it, but if we can possibly expand our horizon, maybe we should ask her to attend. Gentry asked Chair King what he thought Ms Desai can offer. King said she could help if we were working on a project team where we want everybody to get in the same boat. He thought as a group the Commission works together okay,but an audience of 200 people won't all be in the same boat. Michelson said we have players we can't sway one way or another, and we are just trying to make it go smoothly here. King said Ms Desai also talked a little bit about some management presentations such as the fact we need to have a mission statement. King said he could ask her to write a description of what she thinks she can do and then we can send that around to the Commission members. He thought she is a very enthusiastic person and wants to help, so it was worth his time to meet with her. Harris said he thinks she sees it from what she observed at the meeting,but there are many other stakeholders that are part of this who have competing interests. It is more than just the Flying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission, the community, and MAC. C. Republican National Convention Update—Joe Harris King said he noticed some kind of bulletin about this in the training area. Harris said there is nothing official but they are throwing out preliminary information on the convention impact. He said there are more meetings being held with the focus on the Minneapolis and St. Paul airports, and they will probably make the decision about how everything will work around August 20. He anticipated that Flying Cloud will not close but he does expect there will be some increase in traffic. The businesses are offering their services for the convention. There is the new development at Anoka and there are questions as to whether Holman Field and the Minneapolis airport will have restrictions. There are a lot of issues including logistical ones yet to be worked out. Warren McVey, Manager, FCA Air Traffic Control Tower, said he faxed an email to Kurt Schendel indicating that Flying Cloud won't close and he expects St. Paul will be open 24/7 during the convention. There will be security at outlying airports for TSA screening and then they will be free to land at MSP. Schendel asked if there was any mention of Flying Cloud Airport. McVey said it will be pretty much business as normal. Harris said businesses that handle corporates will staff their businesses as needed. King asked if the FAA will widen the tower operations. McVey replied they will not be widened for the convention. St. Paul will probably be open 24/7. King asked if the Flying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission July 10, 2008 Page 6 possible impact would be more flights. McVey said he understood there will be no change in our hours. King noted this is the last time we talk about this before it happens, and he thought it would be good if he or Scott Kipp could get copies of those things as they are issued to share with the others. McVey said there is a group that is coming out to brief businesses. King thought we should have someone attend the briefing. Harris was not sure if it will be open to outside people. McVey said it will be a FAA/TSA/Secret Service group, and he thought it would be open to Commission members. They want compliance so they are trying to educate people. Harris asked what they are briefing. McVey said TFR's and answers on Touch and Go, flight schools and helicopters. King asked Harris if he normally gets that information. Harris said if they are having a meeting of that magnitude they will have to secure the tech center for it. VII. EDUCATIONAL ITEMS A. Visit with Airport Businesses and Airport Tour Prior to the business meeting the Commission toured Flying Cloud Airport and visited several of the businesses at the airport. The consensus was it was a good tour. King thought we might consider doing that every year. Kipp said all the businesses were happy to see us and happy to show us their facilities. Harris thought the Commission should work in a trip to the Airport next year because the runway will be underway and the second phase of construction will be going on. King said it was great that everyone was willing to take a half day off work to dedicate the time to the tour. People appreciate our taking time to show an interest in their business. He thought it would be a very positive thing to do something like this every year. Schendel asked if anything on the tour surprised any of the Commission members. Gentry said she had never seen the inside of a hangar and she learned a lot of things about airplanes she didn't know before. King thought it was unique that we nearly experienced a tornado during the tour. He noted there was an interesting landing scenario while we were there. We got to see a departure of a larger jet that operates there, so we got a sense of the noise profile for that aircraft. He said they took off to the east and turned on the noise abatement turn so that was about as good as it gets. There were several Excel jets there, and they are a pretty typical kind of jet and are one of the types that will get fuller operation by having a longer runway. He said Joe Harris stopped so we could listen to the Excel, and they made a nice southerly turn at the right altitude. Those jets get up fast whereas it takes the props more miles to get higher so they are over houses at lower altitudes for a longer period of time. Michelson said he was pleasantly surprised that the businesses are big and very clean on Flying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission July 10, 2008 Page 7 the inside. He didn't expect that to be the case from the outside appearance. Kipp noted we saw every type of aircraft in operation during the tour. McVey noted the jet coming in had to use reversers. King said those are louder. Kipp said it was interesting to note that controllers use binoculars to verify that the gear is down. He thought that adds an extra safety feature. Gentry said the control tower has to be in a place where they can see wheels coming down on the tarmack. McVey noted that if we can't see an area, we don't control it. VIII.FINAL AGREEMENT BETWEEN CITY AND MAC A. Noise complaints/Stage 2 Operations Report (May - June)—Joe Harris Skramstad said it has been a busy two month period for noise complaints. We received the most complaints ever in a two month period. He thought that may be because people are outside more in the spring and summer months. He noted there were also a lot of phone calls and internet complaints shortly before the meeting and also after the meeting where people who attended learned the internet address or got the phone number to call with complaints. He said there were a total of 605 complaints for May and June which makes a total of 939 to date for 2008. As a comparison, there were 808 complaints in total for 2007, and 220 complaints in 2006. Of the 605 complaints during the period, 416 were filed for operations conducted between the hours of 10:00 PM and 7:00 AM. Skramstad reviewed the violation letters sent, noting there were 20 operations that received one violation letter each. These are usually itinerant pilots that are not based here, and we usually get a very favorable response from them because they aren't aware of the restrictions. Skramstad said,based on FAA counts, the total traffic is down 11% from the same period in 2007. He said the number of night time operations has decreased 22% for the first half of this year. The top five households made up 68% of the total complaints. He noted there were a number of phone calls on May 14, the date when a World War II plane with an engine break-in requested staying close to the north end of the runway. That flight was noisier than normal. Gentry asked what type of aircraft it was. Skramstad said it was a T6, a World War 11 vintage aircraft. King noted at the meeting on the 12'h there were a lot of questions about why more teeth couldn't be put in this. He thought residents are very interested in voluntary restrictions. He said the fact that the itinerant pilots are influenced by the letters we send them brings up the notion of the directory the pilot looks at. We have discussed what is in that directory before, and Mr. Harris reported back on his conversations with Mr. McVey regarding whether some information could be added. King said there was some action taken by MAC relative to the airport directory. Harris said we published the web address link to the noise procedures and Scott Flying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission July 10, 2008 Page 8 Skramstad's name and address were included. The next facility directory will be published in the next few days, and he will bring copies to the September meeting. King thought more specificity would help the itinerant pilot know about the restrictions. He thought it would be good to see the before and after versions of the directory. Harris said he will do that. Gentry asked if the control tower is able to say anything when an itinerant pilot lands a plane. McVey noted they close at 10:00 PM and they don't give them the noise policy. J.P. Maslyn left at 6:15 PM. Kipp noted Scott Skramstad has a lot of good data and asked if there is any spreadsheet compiled that would show trends. King thought it would be good to show operations against complaints and some key milestones. He thought we might see some interesting trends if we looked at it that way. He suggested we find someone that could take the data and put it into a spreadsheet. Skramstad said he could send the data via email. King suggested a student volunteer might be interested. McKewan said it seems to be the same people complaining month after month. Skramstad said a lot of people are new to the area, and this is the first year we have seen complaints from the Hennepin Village area. He thought a lot of people got information regarding the complaint process at the meeting. He noted we typically see the same people complaining. Kipp said it will be interesting to see if this tapers off again because he thought we got more complaints right after the meeting. Harris said we have to weigh the number of complaints. We have the least number of night time operations in the last ten years,but the complaint data is higher than it has been. He noted there were a lot of articles in the newspaper. Schendel said the internet makes it easy to complain. King thought the trend is interesting. If people are upset, there is a vehicle to register that. He would conclude there was a tremendous under-reporting of noise previously, but then we made it easier to complain, publicized how to complain and now people are doing it. Larsen said some people are new to the process because they are using the phone. He thought that indicates a number of people were at the meeting and figured out how to report noise. That means we provided a benefit to those folks. He said he knows of at least one person who called just to see what happens. He said there was one person who didn't realize the calls were tracked. Gentry asked how we handle the letter regarding one plane. Skramstad said each complaint gets entered in and is mapped to the flight. The operator will receive one letter if it is the same operation. We track duplicate complaints by different residents for the Flying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission July 10, 2008 Page 9 same flight. Michelson asked if the letter states the number of complaints. Skramstad said it just states that there was a complaint made. IX. NOISE ABATEMENT/AIRCRAFT INCIDENTS A. Life Link III Helicopter Flight Tracks (May - June)—Joe Harris Skramstad reviewed the chart showing the helicopter noise complaints for May and June 2008. He said the flights to the northeast are those going to and from the Minneapolis and St. Paul area hospitals. He said there were 36 complaints from 14 households, and they looked at each one to be sure they were complaining about a Life Link flight. Some people complained about news helicopters or mosquito control helicopters. He noted the mosquito helicopters fly very low. He said 15 complaints correlate to Life Link flights. There were 11 complaints where we couldn't identify the operation, five complaints regarding the mosquito control flights, one complaint related to a news helicopter and three related to training flights. He said they talked to the individual who operates the news and mosquito flights, and it is rare that they fly out during the night. He said we were able to forward the same information to that operator that we gave to Life Link, and he agreed to have the pilots review the information. Larsen said there seem to be more flights departing straight west. Skramstad said they usually go to rural Minnesota to pick up premature infants and take them to Children's Hospital. Larsen said he didn't remember having that many green lines. Skramstad said there were 263 flight tracks, with 129 arrivals and 134 departures. Harris asked if these are all helicopters. Skramstad said these are just Life Link flights. King said noise is the issue and this is the core of us understanding it. He thought we should probably consider what else we can do about noise that we haven't already done since noise was the number one issue raised. He said we have a lot of data and thanked Mr. Skramstad for the information. X. NEW BUSINESS A. Air Expo King said Wings of the North is having an Air Expo on August 16 and 17. He can get tickets for the event for Commission members and their families if anyone is interested in attending the event,but he needs to know who wants tickets today. Gentry asked if there will be any flyovers. King said these are World War 11 planes that are loud, so this will be a day that has some noise. Harris said the Air Expo is a really good community event, and 25,000 people will pass through the airport if we have two nice days. He noted either rain or heat is often an issue at this time of the year. A lot of the planes participating in the event are based at Flying Cloud, and a lot of local businesses participate in the event. He said this group does a great job of attracting other World War II aircraft to the event. They will also have VIP Flying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission July 10, 2008 Page 10 people who speak about their experiences. We are starting to get a little more into the Korean and Vietnam era now. Gentry said she went a couple of years ago and it was very interesting. King noted they decided to come back to Flying Cloud rather than relocating the event. Harris said the biggest issue is parking. They coordinate with Grace Church, Hennepin Technical College and C. H. Robinson so that people can park at those locations and take the shuttle to the airport. XI. OTHER BUSINESS (various FYI items) Kipp reviewed the items under Other Business, noting he included memos from the MAC Commission regarding the budget process. King asked if it was correct that the Commission will start using the Heritage Room for meetings. Kipp said the Heritage Room is larger and will provide an opportunity for people to visit the Commission meetings. • Next Meeting Guest Speaker—Molly Sigel, MAC Commissioner • Approved minutes of March 13, 2008 Flying Cloud Airport Advisory Commission • MAC Commission Memos on FCM/Reliever Airports • Various airport/aviation related news articles • Next Commission meeting is scheduled for September 11, 2008 XII. ADJOURNMENT MOTION: Larsen moved, seconded by Gentry, to adjourn. Motion carried 7-0. Chair King adjourned the meeting at 6:37 PM.