[Music] I can't I can't Short reliever right there. We got four o'clock. Did you use the gavl? Okay. Started. I'll call this meeting to order for the
uh airport air lake airport advisory committee. Uh, first what I'd like to do, we'll have a moment of silence for the 911 for the lost pilot at Air Lake and a lot of other things that are going on in this world. So, we'll pause for a
moment. Thank you. Uh we'll first uh go around and start uh the welcome and introductions. I'm Tom Fitz Henry. I'm one of the co-chairs today and I'll be leading it today and I'll go to my right and we'll continue.
I'm a co-chair as well city council. Steve Gddter, a hanger owner at Lakeville. I'm Pat Moyahan. I'm a airport user at [Music] Justin Miller, Lakeville city
administrator filling in for Tina Goodro today. Chris Jack, Lakeville Chamber of Commerce. Uh Dan Walbert, airport user. Thank you all. Uh we'll go ahead and uh
look at the agenda. Um, does anybody have anything they wish to add or any comments on the agenda? Assuming you've had a chance to read it. Any comments? If not, I'll take a motion to approve.
Any the uh we have a first and a second. All in favor say I. I. I. Any opposed? It will go ahead. right to this. Okay. The consent items. In the consent
items, uh we'll handle it as one item. And what we'll do is uh we'll look for approval of the minutes of June 26, 2025 and also the uh aircraft noise complaints in operations.
So, I'll need a motion to approve that. So, moved. We have a second. Second. Thank you. All in favor say I. I. I. And I'll abstain since I wasn't here.
Okay. To the public comment period. Are there any members online first that we see? Okay. Anybody in the audience wishing to have time? Anybody? Okay. Hearing none, we'll go ahead to
the business items. [Music] Thank you. [Music] Correct. Okay. Um so first, uh I'm actually going to do um kind of an update on the aircraft
operations and noise complaints for the second quarter for 2025. Uh just briefly look at those numbers uh for Air Lake. Um, as far as operations go, for the second quarter, which includes the months of April, May, and June, the
airport saw a total of 11,831 operations. Um, that's compared to uh uh 10,696 operations in 2024, if I can read that correctly. Um, April saw 3,648
total operations. May 4,197 and June uh 3,986. Um which the June number was a little bit slightly below what we saw in the last couple years, but we um may saw uh strong numbers as far as operation
levels at Air Lake. Uh and then our noise complaints, we only had one complaint, um for all three months, uh April, May, and June that was related to an operation, uh um associated with Air Lake Airport. Um and
so that one complaint was regarding a helicopter operation um pretty far to the west. Uh it was west of um I35. So um I'm not sure uh what community exactly that's in. I think it's still in the township area, but um it was west of
uh 35. So, just one complaint um for the entire quarter for Air Lake. Can you tell us when that complaint is? I got an idea of who it might be. When it was. Yeah. Um I believe that was in June. Uh but
the exact date uh I don't have, but I can I can Well, are you aware there's power line construction and they're using a helicopter to string the lines? No, I was not. Um but the uh and that could be the uh the reason
they're very low when they do it hover for a long time. So okay and do do those operations operate out of air lake? Yes, the helicopters being housed at Air Lake by their string of the lines. Okay. So that's probably what it is. I just thought it might be associated.
Yeah. Continue, please. Okay. Um, any other questions about uh complaints or operations for Air Lake for second quarter 2025? Anybody on the board here?
Okay. Um, we have uh airport manager update. As you can see, Sam is is not here with us today because last Friday his uh his he and his wife welcomed their new baby boy, Franklin. Um, 8 lb 21 in. A very handsome, healthy baby
boy. told mom and baby are doing well. So, we wish him and the family all the best. Um, the next item I have uh is uh on Mosaic and this is something the co-chair asked to be added to the agenda. Um, for those of you that don't
know, uh, the FAA made an announcement, a big announcement at the, uh, Air Venture, um, convention at Oshkosh this July and that they had made a final ruling on their modernization of special
airworthiness certification. Um and what this means basically is it expands that light sport aircraft category to allow um more participation um from the uh those interested in getting into general
aviation and recreational flying. So it's increased the uh performance limits like speed and weight. Um I believe the light sport used to only be two um two one or two seats and a very limited weight. Now it's up to four seats. Um you could also get into turbines and um
retractable landing gear. Um so this really kind of expands those privileges for sports pilots in the hopes that that original rule that first came out in 2004 last 20 years didn't seem to really capture um uh it seemed to leave a lot of still leave a lot of people out. So
the uh the new rule hopes to uh encourage some more people in participation in general aviation. I believe the co-chair wanted to just bring this to everyone's attention and the possibility this could expand general aviation activity at Air Lake. Uh
I'll add one thing to it. Uh this also allows the senior pilots that are getting older to probably still fly their aircraft. Yeah. Because of the new medical type things that are going on. So it will continue to have older people fly.
Yeah. Good point. Yeah, and that would be my question too in terms of how would we expect this would impact air traffic at at our airport here lake. Do you have any idea? I I honestly don't have any idea. I
mean, it's the the final rule just came out. I know it was um eagerly anticipated by a lot in the community, especially as co-chair Fitz Henry noted. um my father being one of them. He was uh you know kind of he kind of uh lost
his medical um for various reasons and wasn't is not someone who was able to get a private anymore. He's he's the light sport aircraft just wasn't going to fit what he needed. So this was an opportunity for him to get back into aviation. So, it could encourage both
both uh those that have no um prior experience getting into it, an easier path to get into recreational uh flying as those that are um have been doing it for a long time but um don't no longer meet the more stringent medical requirements of a private or or other uh
certifications. Thank you. Okay. The next item uh which was another item that the co-chairs asked to be added to the agenda is um uh we were asked to look at uh non-local training flights at Air Lake and specifically
uh if we could quantify any training flights that originated from the uh Minnesota State University aviation program in Mano that were operating and coming to Air Lake to possibly do
training flights, whether it be touchand goes or or anything else. And so, um, it just so happens our intern, uh, is a recent graduate of the aviation program in Mano. And so, we were able to get all of the N numbers for their fleet. Um,
which I was really surprised at. Did you Was it 50 around 50 aircraft in the fleet, right? Yeah. Um, so they have a very large fleet. They partner with Northstar Aviation um uh for their aircraft training and so
they have a fleet of Piper Seminals and Archers as well as Cessna uh 152s I believe. Um, so we looked at the months of July and August and you can see there there were about 17 operations in July,
38 operations in August that um those aircraft did come to Air Lake and and perform either an arrival or departure or a touchandgo. Um so August did see some activity 38 operations and most of those were during the day.
Just one question. Uh you said arrival, departure, touch and go. We don't know if they do approaches. That's kind of been the issue. Yeah. I I don't believe that we would be able to discern um specifically if they're doing a
instrument approach or not based on the data we have. I mean, we could make a kind of a guess based on the flight track and and you know, what it's doing, but um it's really just a guess. Okay,
thanks. Uh so, uh are there any other questions or comments? Sure. Um there's two two items that we've talked about in the past uh that are
still kind of in process and pending. Uh that's the uh the roadway uh from Cedar to uh Maynard Lane and then into the hangar. um if we could get a status on that project and then the runway extension.
Yes. So um we actually have Michelle Ross, director of stakeholder engagement for the MAC can help respond to those. Thank you very much for your report. Y Hi, thank you for the question. Um,
Kayla Harris was on his way to help give some updates on that as well, but uh, he was going to be a little bit delayed, so he's on his way, but if he comes in, he can give some updates as well. But, uh, my name is Michelle Ross. I'm the director of stakeholder engagement. So, in terms of the road and the runway
extension, I just first really want to start off with the MAC and the and the tenants and the community is aligned in wanting to see this development move forward. We're in the business of developing our airports.
We want to make this happen. We're trying to get to to make it work. Um and so in terms of the road, we are exploring options to be able to um complete the new alignment and repaving of that road as soon as
possible. There are several uh steps that are are necessary in order to make that happen. And so we are working through all of those steps. Um and in in terms of the runway alignment, we are continuing to
coordinate with the pipeline companies um to fulfill the FAA's incumbrance requirements in order to be able to um begin that EA process and complete in order to complete the runway um extension.
So, okay. Um, in terms of the road, is there anything specific that we could expect to see happening in the coming months? Yeah. So, our goal is to have some definitive information about the schedule very very soon. Um, so within
the next few weeks, we should have additional information about the timeline and schedule for that. So we are moving everything forward as quickly as we can in order to have a firm timeline and schedule which again we can share out with this group within the
next few weeks I would say before in advance of the December ALAC meeting. We should have some additional updates that we can share. Thank you. Um that's just that gets a lot of attention because it's important um you know economically it's important for our community. It's
important for the airport users. Well, thank you for uh the work on that and the progress that we're starting to see. Absolutely. And again, we just we do really appreciate it's not every airport that in our system that has such strong support from our communities and so um
we are really trying to make this work as as quickly as we can. You any other questions while we have her? Cloud one. Dan, uh, do you have any other details on
the, uh, negotiations on the pipeline or any more granular details because that's been floating? Absolutely. I completely understand. I know it's it is frustrating that it is taking as long as it has. Um, and so I don't have any specific details on that. Again, I'm hoping to have some more
details soon. I know that um, our senior leadership has been meeting with all of the pipeline companies. they have been meeting with FAA um trying to resolve this issue in order to re start that EA process. Um the latest that the the latest was that
they were continuing to kind of fine-tune that with both the FAA and the pipeline companies um to come to a resolution. Thank you. Yeah, absolutely. Any other questions? Thank you very very much for bringing
Absolutely. Thank you. So, I think we're down to member announcements. So, um I'll start part of another organization. Go ahead, Pat. Um yeah, I guess one of the questions I have is, you know, I
understand that there's a a franchise fee that's being opposed to the various people including my home and everybody else's. But um what I'm trying to understand is it seems to be inconsistently applied and I when I try to investigate as to why I don't
understand the process and I don't know I don't know if there's somebody that can speak about the process because for example the um franchise fee that the gas company charges me is is based seems
more reasonable. is a um it's a $6 fee and that's consistent with the residential fee but but my hanger is $16 and the the residential or that service fee is more than I pay for the electricity by quite a bit. I mean I only pay like5 or so dollars a month for
electricity there. But um anyway, when I call the power company, I they say it's the city and I've seen email traffic saying no, it's the power it's the power company and and I all I want to know is what the process is for assigning the the three categories that are listed in
the ordinance. I think it's 1097 or 1094. Um who determines what's what category um various power various services are applied in? Um because clearly it says in in there that it's a commercial
industrial and my personal property or my income tax here says uh it's a storage hanger. Um I can't have a commercial business there. Uh and it's just personal property. So again, yeah, it's you know $120 a year or so
difference, but it's still it's the paint it's principle the thing that I just trying to understand. So I don't know who is if there's someone in the city you could direct me to or if perhaps you even know. I mean I could try to answer now Mr. Chair if if you're fine with that. So if you would.
Sure. So the city assigned when we did the franchise fee development and I think um you might have been on the email train chain on that and we still have a lot of information on the city website about how this whole process went about. It was a a year-long discussion. Um the way franchise fees
are assigned is based on how the um utility companies whether it's electric or gas meters that property. And so it's a the terms residential, commercial, and industrial. While you might not be
operating it as a commercial venture, it's clearly not a residential residential venture. So there is nothing besides residential, commercial, and industrial. And so it all depends on the type of meter that the utility company
has assigned to your property. The city does not make that determination whether your property is residential, commercial, or industrial in the eyes of the utility. It's all up to them. The city sets the rate based on if it's a residential and then
commercial industrial and even within commercial and industrial projects or properties. There's various levels that actually changes between each utility as well because not all the every utility charges especially on the commercial
industrial side differently um based on how they set up their billing system. Okay. Like see here's my gas bill and it's $6. When I look at the for your residential, this is the hangar. Okay. So, they're char the gas company
is considering that a residential meter. Sure. Yeah. But then the power company says it's commercial industrial and you know, I mean it I guess I'm not sure why these are different, you know, different companies and they determine it differently. I mean,
so you're saying then that if I wanted to ask the process for the how this was assigned by the power company, I need to talk to somebody there. That's right. Because I I've called them twice now and I keep getting they keep telling me no, it's the city and I, you know, and so it's I'm
writing that the city established the fee. I understand that part. No, I'm just How do you was assigned the category? That's my specific question to them. Yeah, we don't we don't have access to their property. I mean, we didn't say this property is residential. Okay. We give them the the rate structure and
they apply that based on their meters. I guess the question would be then how do we get that reviewed? It it feels like you're passing the buck to the utility company. It's not the utility company that's put this bill in place. It's the city. Do you think it's being done
appropriately as Mr. Moyahan is showing out that one utility company is saying this property is residential? One utility company is saying this property is commercial. Clearly, these are not commercial properties. None of us are allowed by the MAC to run businesses out
of our hangers aside from Mr. Forsber. So, what what do we do? I I I hear you passing the buck back to a utility company. the city has done this. How can we engage with the city in order to have our properties classified properly
properly by the utility company? If you give me your particular addresses or the um if you send me your a copy of your bill, we have contact we have customer service people that were uh that we can reach out to. I'll just be
honest though, I don't know um if you're not living there. My guess is I don't know why that one is classified as residential. Maybe it's just because of the size of the meter um or how it was installed. That's what they're going to say. You
know, they're going to say if it's not a residential in nature, it goes into the commercial and industrial. There is not a hanger designation or anything like that. So, from the city standpoint, you're telling me you feel it's appropriate
that these properties are classified as commercial properties. I'm saying it's appropriate that they're not classified as residential. So, if I can ask Go ahead, Dan. Another question. Uh, you had said the rate was determined by the style of the
meter by the account. By the account, how the utility company determines your account. Okay. So, is the whole thing just a matter of semantics? If it's not residential, we don't live there.
Mhm. By law, it can't be commercial. Can it just be non-commercial, non-residential, and you come up with a new category? It would have to be a category that the utility companies have for their bill. So, can we negotiate that as a group?
If you can convince the utility company to come up with the new rate category for this, then we would apply a separate we'd have to determine what the appropriate rate would be on that utility category. Well, if you were to reach out to the utility company, I think you'd probably have a fair amount
of power. I could do that. I don't know if they're going to I mean, these are big companies. I don't know if they're going to come up with a a rate just for say airport hangers. I don't know. We could we could certainly ask I I think there's I don't know how many
hanger owners, but uh a big contingency of us in a big group that aren't being represented well at all. It would be nice if we could have some sort of conversation with them uh just to tell them what we got going on.
Here's a question I got. So, if I wasn't at Air Lake, but I have land here in Lakeville, but I have a house and then I have a pole barn with a separate meter, how is that handled? It's charged by the account. So, um if
there were two accounts, you would be getting build. Depends on how again what how the utility company classifies that pole barn. Okay. And we have that I mean we have several properties in the city that have
multiple meters, multiple accounts and we've asked all the utilities if they could combine them and they say it's on a case by case basis. Okay. Maybe we need to get together as groups. Maybe I don't know if this is the proper format since we're kind of in
the MAC, but we're our issue is with power company, which is I think our issue is with the city. Uh it it really sounds to me like the city is passing the buck to the power company because of how they run their business. Okay. Well, we'll do note that, but be
fun to find out or nice to find out from the Excel. I'm assuming everybody's got Excel. Yeah. At the hanger. Yes. at the hangers to see if we can get together with them as a group and maybe I can one of me or John will get together see if we can
have a meeting with them find out about it and if I can offer one assumption too I can't imagine that anyone that owns a if they are aware that they're being charged as a commercial property would agree with it I I think this has been under the radar no pun intended
yeah and I agree with Pat here some of us it's just open the door on the hanger half the time With LED lights, my bills usually light except for when they plug in the plane for winter. So, I'm paying more in franchise fees than I am for
electricity. Okay. Well, as Duly noted, we'll have to get together and figure out how to do that. Uh, could could we have a followup at the next We can put it on the agenda.
Just got a question of the MAC folks. Is there any way to find out if Lake Elmo has the same situation or any of the other airports? It'd be nice to know if uh yeah, we'll we'll go back and ask uh the airport
managers um for our other airports if they've heard of this issue with any of our tenants. Thank you. I appreciate that. Okay, so we're done with Pat. Okay, Justin, do you have anything you want to add? Thank you. Next.
Thank you. Uh, couple updates for um right now visit our visit Lakeville Convention Visitor Bureau is working with Adam. We're going to we're working on some um welcome center signage out at um the new hanger. Still calling it the new hanger. Uh, and so we will have some
welcome center with some a charging station and some brochure racks and then a beautiful um some beautiful artwork I guess we should call it right up on there. So that's coming soon. So we're excited about that. Uh, and then we are working on uh we'll be working on our stepping into the future event again in
January that we had last winter. If you all remember, we bring all the eighth graders out to the airport and they have uh some career exploration experiences. So a huge thank you to Adam for donating that space. there's no other space that we have that's large enough to do that. And so he's been very gracious with that uh space to do that. Um so again, a huge
thank you to him on that. And uh thank you on behalf of the the chamber and the uh and visit Lakeville. Thank you to the MAC for expediting this discussion on the road. Obviously for us tourism and and the more that we can make this a welcoming community for uh those that fly in and and hopefully those who are going to be visiting a restaurant in the
near future, uh it's it's really important to our community to have those amenities. So, thank you for continuing to work on that and working with our city and and with Adam. Yeah, Dan, you got
[Laughter] Okay. Are you sure? Okay, Adam. Um, well, hello everyone. Sorry I was a few minutes late. I was taking more care of a customer before coming here. But I would just like to actually say some
positive things. Okay. You know, it's kind of had a negative feel the last few months that the gettogethers that we've had this. So, we do really gratefully appreciate when the ball is actually moving. Okay. And we feel that there's
some genuine progress. Okay. So, I will say that um on a positive note, we have Cirrus coming in and it looks like we'll become a limited Cirrus service center and also a Cirrus training center. So, they're
coming the end of the month. Um we're also receiving a Noble Flight simulator, which will be a sidebyside Cirrus SIM, you know, with the parachute bowl. So, we'll be able to offer simulator training, Cirrus training at the airport. So, that was kind of another
plan, something that we've been trying to implement for a while. Um, I guess uh it I guess I'm kind of proud. You know, I was looking at the airport today and there was a lot going on. I was late today because there was so much
stuff going on. Okay. And that's a good feeling. So, you know, every single month we sit there and we look at these noise complaints, but it also tracks which airports are growing, which ones are not in the cities. You know, and five years ago, Lakeville was dead last,
okay? And you we're knocking on the door of number three. Okay? We're more than St. Paul. You know, we're right behind Crystal and realistically, we're talking three to five operations a day passing
them. Okay. So, it's it's exciting to see that. Um, you know, the benefit of the road coming in, it will benefit the restaurant and Jason back there. All right. It would allow us to have a very nice arrival departure area for people
coming into Lakeville and they're not going to be getting on a a muddy road. I mean, yesterday we had a meeting out there and everybody that drove over there left looking like they were just in a Baja. So, um, and that's just cuz it rained a little bit and you know it's
washboard and it's it's not maintained well. Okay. So, anything that we even do in the interim to improve the road. All right. I I I understand putting the right road in, not having to do it twice, but anything that we can do, any
type of suggestions that we can entertain to actually make it uh a road that's a little more passable for people would be greatly appreciated. Um, it's really hard for me to spend $10 million at the airport, which I've done, okay,
and expect customers that come in and put them in a rival departure building with the chamber and tourism and then they have to get on a damn gravel road. So, that sucks. Um, so I appreciate the fact that it's moving forward. Um,
barbecue, the Mac's having a barbecue. We don't know the date. 22nd. Is it 22nd? Yeah. Okay. Of 30 to 6:30. So, for all those that don't know, MAC usually has a barbecue and I got it listed. I didn't bring my postcard, but
it says um it's on the 22nd from 4:30 to 6:30. And is that at the MAC uh the maintenance hanger maintenance building? So am I don't know if anybody on the staff knows about that or if I'm correct, but we're assuming I am.
It's definitely at the maintenance building. Okay. So we got it down for the 22nd uh 4:30 to 6:30. Is that what you got? Um yes. Okay.
And then I have I guess I have one more thing. And this kind of maybe goes to you, Joe. Um, I know that we're an advisory committee. You know, we're not a board. I mean, we could sit here, we can advise, tell you how we feel, but really we don't have
any teeth, you know, none whatsoever. Okay. Um, I think I would like to potentially recommend that maybe a representative from the city and a representative from the airport be able to attend the board meetings up at the MAC regarding the
operations at the Air Lake Airport. you know, how the decisions are made, how the money is spent, why why things are happening, because, you know, we ask questions down here and we get answers, but some of them are rather vague. Okay?
There's not a lot of detail. Um, why do we why do we make the decisions that are made down at at the airport? you know, is is kind of important to us down here. And it would be it would be nice to be included in those in those
decisions, okay? Or at least informed. Um, you know, how long have we been negotiating with the attorneys for the pipeline? You know, this is now years. Okay? And then we ask and and we get an
answer that, well, we're still doing it, but there's no there's no real answer. We don't know where where things really stand. Okay. And it just doesn't it feels like sometimes there's a lack of transparency. So, but back on the positive stuff, we
we're going to become a serious training center. You know, the flights are up again 10% this quarter and it keeps growing, you know, so that's that's all good news. So, and I want to thank everybody that supports me out at the airport, too.
I'm done. Okay. Steve, do you have anything for the group? Nothing for me. Okay. Anybody online that uh we should uh acknowledge? Okay. Well, then I think we're down to adjournment, aren't we? Uh so, I'm not
sure we need a motion to adjourn to. So, I'll go ahead unless we have any other comments. I'll go ahead and journ the meeting. Thank everybody for coming. [Music]