Editor's Note: This is an open letter to Douglas County Board of County Commissioners Chairman Doug Johnson
by Dieter Meun
I hope I can convince you, and through you, the other commissioners to take matters in hand directly regarding both the current process of getting to a new airport master plan and the consultants' product to date.
I had previously communicated to you that it looked inappropriate, perhaps dangerous, that county commissioners had decided to keep "hands off" and to let the process run its course. This work product No. 3 shows that this indeed requires the county commissioners, our policy-making representatives, to step in to avoid wasting more taxpayer money as well as time (in which perhaps irreversible damage is done to the future of our airport).
When I looked at work product No. 3 I was flabbergasted. How in the world could we wind up with something that so blatantly stepped around the May 2007 commissioners' resolution? I really wondered who was driving this process in this manner (no, I am not a paranoid who subscribes to endless conspiracies, but looking at this ...). Overall, it looked to me a slap in the face of the county commissioners.
You probably want some specifics about what caught my eye that makes me object so strongly. So, I will give you the main points.
1. One would have expected that the Airport Master Planning Working Group would "huddle" following the May 2007 resolution to gauge its impact on what they were doing. Instead, they did not do so and waited another 5 months before even meeting again. No formal input into the process, no discussion beforehand to make any changes.
2. The listed primary assumptions and goals in work product No. 3 have not materially changed (other than some lip service to the resolution), and are still pursuing welcoming all comers ("full range of aircraft," "all aviation types"), increasing revenue, increasing "improvements in instrument approach" to accommodate planes other than small general aircraft. The phrase that "the role of the airport will not change" (assumption one) conveniently ignores that the current course of airport development and capital improvement plans on the books already goes way beyond what the residents of Douglas County have said they want.
3. When I looked at the projections of airport operations, I noticed that there is a gaping hole in what the consultants have worked up. That hole removes the credibility of their work. That is, there are Piñon Aero leases in place with plans for many, many jet hangars to be built. Although these leases have been in default for several years of their terms to start building within two years from the start of the lease contracts, I heard that the county attorney is of the opinion that Douglas County should not pursue this default to terminate these leases (I was told that Piñon Aero would use "an unfavorable economic environment" as an argument to escape and avoid termination of the leases - and that in the best economic environment in many years over that period of default). Anyway, I heard that the commissioners decided to not do anything about it and treat these leases as an existing fact. Now, the near-future presence of that many jet facilities is entirely absent from work product No. 3 and the 20-year projection of less than 10 percent increase in operations over that period is therefore just not credible. The near-term plan of Hutt Aviation to bring more than a dozen additional jet planes to Minden-Tahoe Airport is not mentioned either and still has to be added into the consultants projections. Do the projections sound believable? I think not.
The consultants' stated goal (during the meeting on Oct. 17) is to develop Minden-Tahoe into an eminent airport of recognized international stature (whatever that means).
4. In order to accommodate the tacitly expected vast increase in jet operations, it is not surprising that the consultants in their plan foresee the need to get all non-power activities out of the way to the east side of the airport. Well, they certainly should not mix with unconstrained increased jet traffic. So, under the guise of necessary planning for safety, the consultants lay out several new or re-located runways. Oddly, the consultants require land purchases for their recommended layout to be made with (significant, millions of dollars.) County funds even where they state also that the airport is bound by rules that say it may not operate with such funds and must be self-sufficient. There is no indication how this can be reconciled.
Please note that this attention to the needs of the non-power aviation community, especially soaring, looks just great at first glance. Currently, east side facilities do not exist. Funds to make the most minimal facilities available there are hard or impossible to come by and unless a miracle happens, those activities will not be served even minimally for the next couple of years (an Airport Advisory Committee member told me that they hope that some of the needed work (access away from the main runway, toilets, water) might be in place in about 11Ú2 years). At the rate this is going, do you really believe that the last remaining soaring operator will then still be in place?
Do you believe that soaring can then be made to come back to Minden-Tahoe after they have been so obviously treated as a nuisance and have been pushed out? Not very realistic, right? To me it sounds that the reality is that soaring interests have been mortally wounded in the past several years and that by the time the airport would do something to counteract this, the game will be lost for them and they will have disappeared.
It would leave the residents of Douglas County with an airport they do not want. Where that then may lead is singularly unattractive (see what is happening at Truckee Airport, where the citizens now want to have done with the battles over control and talk about just closing the airport).
5. There is no mention made in work product #3 regarding how to deal with a major need that now has existed for years without any progress toward solution. That is, the need for so-called T-hangars for smaller airplanes. Oh, I am aware that the waiting list has been shortened impressively, but what you may not know is that this came about by an Airport Manager's ploy of imposing a hefty fee for just being on the waiting list. As a result, several aviators opted not to pay and were removed from the list. Neat, eh?
That need for T-hangars persists and such hangars are essential to providing services to one class of the targeted primary airport users: small powered aircraft, including sports aviation. As of now, they are under-served because of among others the airport manager's preference for jet traffic and related activities. Elsewhere, county-built T-hangars have proved a good investment for rural airports, providing a steady and adequate source of income that allows both pay-back of the investment and support of financial operational self-sufficiency. This would be much more compatible with the commissioners' resolution than the current plans because it unambiguously serves local interests.
Anyway, I think the ball now belongs in the commissioner's court and I sincerely wish that you and your colleagues pick it up. We need you to do that and urge that you put a comprehensive review on your agenda. It appears that nobody else in the organizational structures that have been created to deal with airport issues is even willing to do that. We should have clarity about the agenda that is being followed and how that agenda is going to be implemented. Currently that is painfully lacking.
-- Dieter Meun is a Minden resident.
