Little River Airport Advisory Committee Minutes: 9-21-01 1. Open meeting: 0901. 2. Attendance: A. Present: Tim Scully, Tom Goncharoff, Trey Loy, Dave Brewer, Willow Trent, Susan Winding, Dick Ahrens. B. Visitors: Tom Peters of DOT, Naomi Jarvie, Steve Schoolman. 3. Minutes of previous meeting: approved. 4. Correspondence: A. T.S. to Clerk of the Board. B. C.Boyer to TS C. T.S. to Boyer D. Handout to BOS E. Hangar Project: assigned engineer. 5. Tree Trimming: discussion to provide background to Tom Peters. 6. Hangars: discussion to provide background to Tom Peters re site preparation and hangar alternatives. 7. Dog Park: the dog park people need to plan the removal of dog wastes, DOT needs to develop an agreement for use of the land. 8. FAA Grants: discussion of background. 9. Meeting closed: 1102am. The committee's next meeting will be from 9am to 11am on Friday October 19 at the Clubhouse at The Woods, 43300 Little River Airport Rd. The agenda for this meeting is: Approve the minutes of the last meeting Communications (letters, FAXes, etc, sent/received since last meeting) Tree trimming, cutting and/or lighting of tall trees near the airport may be discussed further. The status of additional hangars at the airport will be discussed. A Dog Park at the airport will be discussed further. We will work on a draft update of the Airport Master Plan. We will discuss FAA grant funding for the airport and MCOG Reports from subcommittees Public comment Agree on a date, time and place for the next meeting Agree on agenda for next meeting Members of the Little River Airport Advisory Committee ------------------------------------------------------ Dick Ahrens pilot, airport neighbor Dave Brewer pilot, lives near airport Tom Goncharoff Trey Loy non-pilot, lives near airport Tim Scully inactive pilot (lost medical), computer programmer, lives near airport Willow Trent airport neighbor, non-pilot Susan Winding airport neighbor, non-pilot, business owner ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tim Scully Sent: September 12, 2001 1:31 PM To: 'Heike Arnold'; Tim Scully Cc: Janelle Rau (E-mail) Subject: RE: Public Resources Committee Meeting and Airport Advisory Committee Can you let me know if we are agendized for Monday's Public Resource meeting and if so, roughly when we will come up on the agenda? Thank you. > -----Original Message----- > From: Heike Arnold > Sent: August 15, 2001 2:07 PM > To: tim.scully > Cc: Janelle Rau (E-mail) > Subject: RE: Public Resources Committee Meeting and Airport Advisory > Committee > > > Hi Tim - We have not had Committee meetings this month - as a > result your > issue will most likely not be agendized until the September > 17, 2001 Public > Resources Committee Meeting. We will keep you posted. Thanks > so much - > Heike > > -----Original Message----- > From: tim.scully > Sent: Wednesday, August 15, 2001 9:55 AM > To: arnoldh > Subject: RE: Public Resources Committee Meeting and Airport Advisory > Committee > > > > I wrote to you on July 27 asking if the Little River Airport Advisory > Committee could be agendized for the Public Resources > Committee. Can you > tell me for which meeting are we likely to be agendized? > > Thank you! > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Tim Scully Sent: September 14, 2001 11:17 AM To: 'Chuck Boyer'; Tim Scully Cc: 'Gene Calvert'; 'Ben Kageyama' Subject: RE: Additional Hangars at Little River Airport Good morning Chuck. I hope to see you on Monday at 10AM at the Public Resources Committee meeting. Did you get the agenda? I'm appending two reports from LRAAC. One describes the type of hangar we recommend while the other gives our cost estimates for hangars, construction and utilities. With respect to site preparation, we believe that stump removal should probably be done first. Once that's completed it will be possible to more accurately estimate site preparation costs. Or, putting it another way, if there are nasty problems with stumps, the site prepartion costs will be higher. The LRAAC is willing to do more work on the hangar project, if there are tasks you want to delgate to us. We are all looking forward to seeing a block a new hangars! I feel fortunate that my brother wasn't in the Pentagon when it was attacked - he sometimes works in the Army Aviation offices that were destroyed. Respectfully Yours, Tim Scully, Ph.D. Chair, LRAAC > -----Original Message----- > From: Chuck Boyer > Sent: September 14, 2001 10:46 AM > To: 'Tim Scully' > Cc: 'Gene Calvert'; 'Ben Kageyama' > Subject: Additional Hangars at Little River Airport > > > Tim, > > In researching my notes and the files, I cannot find where > the LRAAC made a > recommendation to the Public Resources Committee as to the > type of hangars > that should be built at the airport. If a recommendation has > been made and > approved by the committee, do you have estimated costs for hangar > construction, site preparation and other > construction/preparation costs? > This information is needed for the loan application to Caltrans > Aeronautics. Thank you for your time and help in this > matter. I hope that > everything is going well for you, especially with everything > that has been > happening recently. > > Chuck > > CHUCK BOYER, Deputy Director > Administration & Business Services > Department of Transportation > 340 Lake Mendocino Drive > Ukiah, CA 95482-9432 > ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Little River Airport Advisory Committee 9/17/2001 report to Public Resources 1) We have agreed on a detailed and specific recommendation for an interim dog park on airport land that is already designated for non-aviation use. We hope that this will prove to be a permanent location, when we evaluate all non-aviation uses of airport land. PROPOSED LOCATION The new proposed location is 4 acres East of Albion Airport Road located on Non-Aviation County owned Property. This property is less dense with trees and shrubs, but is considerably smaller than the prior location. 2) We have agreed on a specific recommendation for handing the trees that are penetrating the airport height limits. This is a three-part recommendation that includes: a) Either start the abatement process described in 20.112.050 of theInland Zoning Code with respect to certain trees which are on land not owned by the airport, or, better yet, move quickly to execute the land swap recommended in the existing Master Plan and then remove the trees at the approach end of Runway 29. Note that planner Pam Townsend says that a General Plan amendment will be required to rezone the land to be traded and that this process will take about 6 months. The FAA has to release any airport land to be traded. The FAA Airports District Office in Burlingame would like a County representative to visit and talk this over at some point. From a telephone conversation, it sounds as though they are in agreement with the concept of trading non-aviation land to secure the runway safety areas. The FAA said they would not approve trading any of the aviation area of the airport. Parcels 9 and 10 above are the ones to be traded. b) Simply remove the problem trees to the South and the East of the runway. Recent changes in FAA Advisory Circular 150/5300-13 (Runway Design) Appendix 2 have increased the size of the approach trapezoid for non-precision GPD approaches with night straight-in approaches from an initial width of +-200 feet to an initial width of +-400 feet. The starting point of the trapezoid has been moved 200 feet, effectively lowering the height limits by 10 feet. This change does not affect the transition area at the side of the runway, where there are many excess trees. Before this change there already were many trees on the airport and on one neighbor's property which exceed the FAA height limits (and the County AH ordinance limits). After this change, more trees in the approach trapezoids are excessively high.The Committee agreed on a recommendation for a "tapered cut" of the transition areas at the sides of the runway, cutting trees in zones so they are at least 10 feet below the height limit. The Little River Pilots Association offered to survey and stake out the strips.The Committee agreed that the Airport Supervisor should guide the CDF crews. I spoke to Dave Thorpe. He said that he is willing to do this. He said that he can only work with the CDF crew chief, it is illegal to speak to the inmate crew members. He also suggested that he should be the sole contact with the CDF crew chief. He expressed some doubt that the CDF crew would be able to do very selective cutting since they are not professionals. I suggested that if the CDF crew is unable to safely cut some of the trees, these should be left for later, perhaps to be removed by professionals using FAA grant funding from the $150,000 per year they have offered. Neighbors of the airport have expressed concern over silting and water pollution that may result from tree cutting. The neighbors at the northwest end of the runway had serious problems with wind damage to trees on their property the last time trees were cut near the pond, and they have asked that the trees which screen them from wind be should be spared. The committee agreed on lighting these trees as an alternative (see c) below). c) Install obstruction lights to mark the trees at the northwest corner of the runway, near the pond. The FAA says that it is sometimes possible to install obstruction lights as an alternative to removing the obstruction. In this case, they want to review the proposal to see if they will approve it. We recommend sending a proposal to the FAA once the other trees have been removed. Obstruction lights have to be mounted on special towers which can easily be climbed to change the bulbs. Type L864 slowly pulsing red lights can be used to minimize the number of towers required - these can be more widely spaced than steady L810 red lights. Obstruction lights have to be controlled by a photocell and are on all night or in dim overcast daytime conditions. It might be possible to install as few as 4 of these lights. The lights use a 620 watt bulb. The light fixtures cost about $1150 each. A controller panel is required. We haven't obtained a price quotation for towers, but guess that the installation of 4 lights with metal towers might cost approximately $50,000. If we could use very tall wooden telephone poles, it might be considerably cheaper. The committee discussed alternatives to lighting. One alternative is to limit the use of the proposed instrument approaches to daytime only. This would limit the availability of the airport in night-time emergencies. Another alternative is topping trees to try to leave a wind barrier while meeting the height limits. 3) We have obtained and studied copies of the FAA advisory circulars relating to airport master plans and have agreed on a process for producing a draft update of the airport master plan. Although we believe that we will be able to do most of the work, there are a few parts of the master plan which are so technical that it may be necessary to get help from a consultant. We expect to hold a number of public meetings to discuss various aspects of the master plan. 4) The committee is still available to help move the hangar project forward, if there is anything we can do to help. We have had queries from several of the pilots who have put down deposits, they are all anxious to see signs of progress. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- On Monday September 17 the Little River Airport Advisory Committee made a presentation to the Public Resources Committee of the Board of Supervisors. The handout above was given to them. These sketchy notes are my impression of the results. There will eventually be official minutes from the Board's secretary. With respect to the Dog Park the Supervisors expessed concern over how dog poop would be handled. It should not go to the dump with regular garbage. They also wanted it to be clear that the Dog Park would have to move if the airport needs the land for another purpose. Otherwise there was no opposition. Staff work remains to be done to draw up an appropriate agreement. With respect to the tree cutting issues, after listening to everyone's concerns, the Supervcisors said that safety is the highest priority. They asked DOT to investigate professional cutting and/or topping. They asked DOT to check to see if a THP is required and to pay attention to the silt and sediment issue that was raised. With respect to parcels 9 and 10, DOT was directed to investigate the possibility of outright purchase of these with Federal grant funding. Meanwhile abatement proceedings may be initiated. With respect to the Master Plan update, the Supervisors said that they are not sure they want the update done so soon - it is only a year past the due date and there are many other updates which are more pressing. In any case, the committee needs to work with DOT and DOT can then bring the issue to the full Board. With respect to the hangar project, DOT will work with the committee to start moving the project forward. A DOT representative will come to the next AAC meeting (on Friday) and there will be a representative at future meetings. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- From: Chuck Boyer Sent: September 17, 2001 3:45 PM To: 'Tim Scully' Cc: 'Tom Peters'; 'Ben Kageyama' Subject: Little River Airport Advisory Committee (LRAAC) Meetings Tim, The DOT representative at the LRAAC meetings will be Tom Peters, Civil Engineer, who works for Ben Kageyama. Please send him an agenda for this Friday's meeting and future meetings. Thanks, Chuck CHUCK BOYER, Deputy Director Administration & Business Services Department of Transportation 340 Lake Mendocino Drive Ukiah, CA 95482-9432 ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------------------------------------------------------------------------