For those of you not aware the Kalispell City airport is in the middle of some controversy. The FAA, among others, has recommended that the city upgrade the airport to meet existing standards. There is a small but vocal group in the city that would like to ultimately shut the airport down. Those of us that have been there know how great this little airport is. The local MPA president asked myself as the state MPA president to do what we can to support the airport.
Our webmaster Willie Stene and I have put together some info and are looking for your help. Please take the time to write a letter to the editor at the link provided. The points to hit are that you prefer this airport over GPI as it is convenient to town and that you are from out of town and use this airport and go to the nearby businesses.

Scott Newpower
MPA President




MPA is an organization committed to assisting communities in promoting and securing aviation resources for the use of pilots around the state. Currently the city of Kalispell is actively engaged in a local ballot initiative to upgrade their airport facilities and the local pilot community along with the Kalispell Chamber of Commerce have been diligently working on educating voters on the value of this aviation asset.

The time to vote is coming near and the local supporting airport group, "Save Our Airport", can use our support to assist in getting the word out to voters on the value of such an asset to the community. To assist in their efforts we can provide financial support to assist with mailing flyers, newspaper advertising, or even personally writing a letter to the editor in support of the Kalispell City Airport.

To donate financially to the "Save Our Airport" organization follow the attached link:
http://www.kalispellcityairport.org/#!donate/c1vud

Or submit a letter to the editor to the local newspaper by following the attached instructions:
"LETTERS TO THE EDITOR: The Daily Inter Lake welcomes letters to the editor from its readers on subjects of general interest. Letters may be submitted for consideration to the Daily Inter Lake by email at [email protected], by mail at PO BOX 7610, Kalispell, MT 59901 or by clicking here. Letters should be kept to 300 words or less, and must include the author's name, address and telephone number for verification purposes. Only the name and hometown will be published. Not all letters will be printed. Letters that engage in profanity, name-calling or address narrow personal interests will be rejected. The Daily Inter Lake reserves the right to edit letters for brevity and clarity."

MPA with the assistance of "Save Our Airport" has assembled a webpage to provide our members and others a location to easily read up on the facts of this campaign and what it means to the Kalispell City airport facilities and pilots. You can view this page here: http://www.montanapilots.org/kalispell.asp

Donation made.

Haven't flown to Montana yet - next year.

And I love small town airports so am happy to help out. Hope it all works out. Please keep us posted.

Sent a letter to the editor.
Good Luck!

We stayed right next to the airport on our family trip up there. We didn't land there as it wasn't easy to get a rental car, but knowing what I know now, we could have walked to everything needed (hotel, food, restaurant, coffee, etc). It is a very cool and unique airport located near some awesome backcountry strips. I talked to a few folks at the airport and they were wonderful people.

Please do as I did and give a few bucks or write a email/letter to support a great cause.

-Matt

Letter emailed, money donated, and posted on facebook.

Like Pacific City it would be a real shame to lose Kalispell City Airport.

Cheers...Rob

Why do they want to shut down the airport? Do these nuts give any reasons?

Fisherman wrote:Why do they want to shut down the airport? Do these nuts give any reasons?

The persistent vocal few anti-airport people are getting the pot all stirred up again. Their not so hidden motive is to have the airport completely shut down. The big vote coming up here is whether to take already approved FAA funding and improve the airport OR to not take the funding and keep things going the way they have been using local money (that the city does not have). That would leave the city to pay for long overdue repairs.

The reasons they give are all over the place and are easily dis proven. The big one is that the "improved" airport will be more dangerous because "bigger" planes can fly in, which isn't going to happen due to the runway only being realigned (for safety) 5 degrees and about 200 feet added to both ends. This goes back to their ultimate desire of shutting the airport down through any means necessary including spreading completely false information to a generally GA ignorant public. Their true colors really shine in the comments sections of our local paper any time that they cover this story.

A good example:

http://www.dailyinterlake.com/news/local_montana/article_89f7b852-33a1-11e3-804e-001a4bcf887a.html

Great little airport I flew in there with my son and daughter-in-law with their 170 (robw56) and my Stinson this past summer after the Johnson Creek fly in. We let our dogs run around a bit while we were gassing up the airplanes. The first time I flew in there was back in the 70s and boy has the area changed a lot. We need these little close in airports to towns that are within walking distance of different services. Glacier international is just too far outside of town, it's very inconvenient.