Hello all.
Below is an email I received from the Colorado Pilots Association regarding proposed action by the city of Glenwood Springs to curtail or close KGWS. It appears to me that they are of the same intent as Santa Monica was with KSMO and San Jose is with KRHV. I forwarded the details to AOPA’s airport support representative. Posting here for everyone’s awareness, already spammed Beechtalk and the Cessna 120/140 forum. City council Zoom meeting discussing the airport is Thursday 25 FEB at 1700 MST. Hopefully we can affect a positive outcome this time.

Regards,
Ernie Meruelo
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Hi CPA members,

The Glenwood Springs city council will be conducting a special meeting, virtually, beginning at 5:00 PM this Thursday 2/25 to discuss a proposed change to shorten the runway length and close some of the maintenance hangers at the Glenwdood airport so that they can put a road in a bridge near the airport.

This is a high elevation airport cannot stand to be shortened as it is already a small airport and shortening it would diminish its usefulness. Glenwood Springs Airport played a pivotal role this past year and the terrible Colorado fires and is an asset not only to the city in the community with the entire state and needs to be preserved as is.

Details can be found at the city’s official website along with links to log into this zoom meeting on Thursday of this week. https://www.ci.glenwood-springs.co.us/C ... x?EID=1615

Here are some other links that may be helpful:

- Airport Scenario Planning powerpoint slide deck with visual images of the changes and comment form: https://www.gwsco.gov/469/Airport-Scenario-Planning

- The document found here is a very extensive study done for the possible uses for the airport site, including keeping the airport or changing it over to a mixed-use development: https://www.gwsco.gov/DocumentCenter/Vi ... Study-Augu

- News article which includes several reference links to the plan being considered: https://www.postindependent.com/news/fo ... ood-spring

If you have time and interest in attending the meeting to provide a respectful voice in favor of aviation in the area and for this airport, please feel free to attend using the link https://www.ci.glenwood-springs.co.us/C ... x?EID=1615.

The purpose of the meeting was the review of proposals to provide alternate road access to I70 in the event of a wildfire evacuation. The options were to shorten the runway and build a bridge or to tunnel under the runway. Great input by the aviation community. The Glenwood Springs City Council delayed their decision by a week to process factors they did not consider to include airspace impacts and possible FAA funding to assist with the tunnel option to preserve the runway. My take away was that the more influential members were in support of the tunnel in order to minimize impact upon the airport. Fingers crossed. Thank you to all who listened and spoke.

Regards,
Ernie Meruelo

I'd make sure to contact AOPA and keep them in the loop. They do great work advocating for GA airports.

MW

Keep us posted. I just saw this tonight but I'll drive/fly to Glenwood for a live meeting to voice my opinion. I have enough buddies that would participate that we'd need a bus to carpool. This nonsense needs to be fought!

More info on ways to help, we only have a few days:

Hello Pilots and Aviation Enthusiasts -

If you didn’t tune in for the meeting with City Council Thursday night where they discussed the South Bridge’s impact to the Glenwood Springs Airport and the potential shortening of the runway (versus building the tunnel), you can read about it here:

https://www.postindependent.com/news/gl ... ect-plans/

A big thanks to those who made comments, the airport board (current and past members) and everyone else who is working behind the scenes trying to protect our wonderful Gem of the Rockies airport.

After a three-hour meeting, City Council appears to disregard reason, past studies and the wishes of its constituents and airport users. Despite strong support for keeping the tunnel option, they view the “shortening the runway by 43 feet” as a great way to save $6 million. This decision is grossly short-sighted as only preliminary costs and feasibility have been developed for “Option 2 - Shortening the Runway.”


-Removing the tunnel further limits the functional operations and future growth of the airport.
-Removing the tunnel cuts off access to the maintenance facility at the south end of the airport, threatening closure for a successful private business without any compensation.
-Removing the tunnel would eliminate 10 private hangars, without any compensation or plan for relocation.
-Removing the tunnel would result in a loss of valuable land needed for future (potential) airport development (helicopter operations, hangars, new FBO, etc)
-Shortening the runway would move the north end of the runway 250-300 feet closer to the residential and park areas in Glenwood Park without analyzing the feasibility or concerns about doing so.
-Shortening the runway limits the abilities to move helicopter operations further south, away from the residential neighbors.

Additional evaluation and an Airspace Study are still needed before this decision should be made. The EA process has been a public process since 2007. City Council’s attempt to change the plan now is ignoring the voice of the citizens.

Council is divided and some members view the savings of $6 million as a no-brainer. Shelley Kaup is actually in favor of keeping the original EA and tunnel plan. Ingrid Wussow and Paula Stepp could be swayed either way. City Council postponed their decision to vote for *Keep the Tunnel Option* or *Option 2 - Shorten the Runway* until next week’s council meeting on Thursday, March 4th.

Click here to see the agenda. https://cogs.us/129/Agendas-Minutes Item number 12 is the "South Bridge Design Options Impacting the Glenwood Springs Airport” where you can view the slideshow presentation.


WE NEED DIRECT COMMENTS TO CITY COUNCIL ASAP!!!! - Council decided last night that there will be no further public comments at the next meeting. Please take the time to Call the councilors. Email them. Write letters to the Editor of the Post Independent. They need to hear from us. Especially those who reside in Glenwood Springs, so please, get your neighbors to act as well! See link for councilors contacts: https://www.gwsco.gov/280/About-the-Council


We all know how valuable property is in our valley. We also know how irreplaceable emergency-services and fire-fighting operations are to our community. At the end of the day, the pilots would much rather have a shortened runway, than no runway at all, but as the airport is a community asset, we are asking for the community’s help to save it!


Thank you for reading this long-winded email (hopefully you made it this far).

Kind regards,


Amy Helm

KGWS Airport Advocate

There is something that needs to be remembered here, the Rulers of the City of Glenwood Springs want the airport closed, we know this from experience. In the last 12 months, the airport has been closed 3 times. The city arbitrarily closed the airport for about 6 weeks, under the auspices that we pilots, if allowed to use the airport, would contaminate the city with covid 19. Then it was closed again, by the city, so the high school graduation could be held there, they even had the nerve to ask us pilots to do a "fly by" to support the students. Then in the summer, the airport manager offered up the airport to the firefighting helicopters for the Grizzly Creek Fire, I believe the idea was to show the value of the airport to the community. But, once again we were not able to use the airport for an extended period of time, and the runway was damaged by the helicopters.
The sales pitch of how little the runway will be shortened, is just that, a sales pitch. A sales pitch that any unscrupulous used car salesman would be proud of. The reality is that the approach end of 32 will be moved hundreds of feet, and instead of a couple hundred feet of flat ground prior to the threshold, there will be a concrete wall. Which means that the usable length of the runway in the real world will decrease many hundreds of feet. I also suspect that the proximity of airplanes to cars will result in the city asking for the threshold to be displaced after the work has been done.
In the City's plan, there will be 10 hangars orphaned. Has the City made any offer to allow new hangars to be built elsewhere to offset the loss? Not that I know of. Has the City made any accommodations to relocate the repair facility hangar? Not to my knowledge. Has the City responded to the request by the Valley View helicopter to build a hangar and fuel farm? Again, not that I know of.
Make no mistake, this is the first bite by the City. It is the beginning of the end. After this first hatchet job of the airport, the usability will be decreased, the safety will be decreased. And, the city will note the decrease in safety, and use that to close the airport.

Recently there were surveyors on the field, there was a request to close the airport while they were working. When the actual work begins on the road, regardless of the option chosen, there will be equipment at the approach end of 32 for many months, I suspect that the City will close the airport during that time due to the proximity of airplanes to the construction work. That closure could easily be for a year or more. I suspect that all of this is known and has been discussed by the Rulers of Glenwood Springs, it is not an accident that these downsides have not been spoken of. They know that closing the airport is not popular with the people. But, they do not care, they have their agenda and we are simply obstacles to their desires. If it were put to a vote, the King and Queen would lose, they will not allow that to happen. So, they pretend to want to save the airport, but everything they are doing is to achieve their end goal. Their end goal is to redevelop the airport into something that pays more taxes.

Update for everyone’s awareness. The Glenwood Springs City Council narrowly voted to proceed with the Southbridge access tunnel option that would preserve the runway. The no votes were swayed to yes due to the unprecedented and one sided feedback in support of the airport. Thank you to everyone who reached out and commented. They also discussed setting up a game camera to track flight activity in order to justify supporting the airport. Some cross country flights to KGWS may be in order soon.

Ernie

That’s great to hear Ernie. Thanks for the update and well done!

Good work folks!