Friday, April 11, 2014

Airport plan to focus more on safety

Hailey mayor pushes for plan to build new facility


By GREG MOORE
Express Staff Writer

      At the instigation of board member and Hailey Mayor Fritz Haemmerle, the Friedman Memorial Airport Authority board on Tuesday agreed to put more emphasis on safety in a document setting out the tasks needed to complete an update to the airport master plan.

     Longtime Friedman consultant Mead & Hunt initially presented a draft scope-of-work document for the $500,000 update to the Airport Authority board in February. The 27-page document proposes an 18-month schedule for completing a plan that would assess projected demand and needed facility changes for five-year, 10-year and 20-year horizons.

     The board postponed taking action on the document at that time in order to give the Hailey City Council a chance to review it.

     On Tuesday, Haemmerle urged the board to include safety considerations in the plan’s “trigger points” for when a new airport would be built at a new site. He said the current airport’s site so close to town is a danger to Hailey residents.

     “The planes fly directly over our schools,” he said. “I think the word safety needs to be used more. I’ve always challenged the north valley to say that word one time—it might make them feel good about themselves.”

     Potential trigger points in the current document include changes in commercial aircraft size, new Federal Aviation Administration guidance on airport configuration and increased demand.

     Board member and Blaine County Commissioner Jacob Greenberg asked whether Haemmerle’s perceived safety hazard means that his proposed trigger point has already been reached. Mead & Hunt representative Scott Cary said that is an issue that will need to be discussed as the update progresses.

     Haemmerle emphasized that the new plan needs to focus on eventual construction of an airport at a new site south of Bellevue.

     “I don’t want anything in the master plan that would throw an obstacle in the way of a true dual-path approach,” he said. “I know there are forces out there that would like that to happen.”

     The entire scope-of-work document can be found on the Freidman Memorial Airport website by clicking on the April 8, 2014, meeting packet. More information on the master plan is contained in a story titled “Proposed master plan takes ‘dual path’” in the Feb. 14, 2014, issue of the Idaho Mountain Express.




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