Loading...
HomeMy WebLinkAbout2006-01-26 Airport Advisory Board meeting minutes • City of Dania Beach Airport Advisory Board January 26t6,2006 Dania Beach Airport Advisory Board met in the city hall conference room on Thursday,January 26w,2006. Chairman Jay Field called the meeting to order at 7:00 PM. Members present: Zachary Adams Billy Phipps Thomas Allen Clive Taylor Beulah Lair Bud Witz Dick Sokol Betty Sokol Rae Sandler Don Hill Ed Summers Loretta Murray Jay Field Members absent: None Others present: Larry Coleman-Leigh-Fisher Julie Gueho-Leigh-Fisher Commissioner Bob Anton-Dania Beach Dottie Anton-Dania Beach Sheryl A.Dickey- Dickey Consulting Services Sady Diaz- Dickey Consulting Services Allan Siegel-Broward County Aviation Dept. Beth Posada- Broward County Aviation Dept. • George Jason- Davis Isles Homeowners Assn. Ed Summers,Jr.-Dania Beach Brenda Chalifour-Save Our Shoreline Derrick Hankerson-Dania Beach Suzanne Witz-Dania Beach Chairman Field welcomed new member Loretta Murray and also welcomed long time member Ed Summers who has been absent from the board for several months due to illness. Beulah Lair said she wanted to make an announcement before the meeting started. She wanted the board to know that Chairman Field had a severe heart attach just three days ago. She said he was released from the hospital late yesterday and present tonight for the meeting,which proves you can't keep a good man down. Following a round of applause,minutes of the November 17's meeting were presented for approval. Motion to approve made by Bud Witz,seconded by Thomas Allen. Minutes approved as written. Chairman Field moved on to agenda item 4.1,presentation by Leigh-Fisher,Consultants to BCAD Master Plan. Mr.Coleman introduced himself and his associate. His presentation was done using slides projected on a screen and no hard copy was available to those present. The slides had drawings of possible terminal locations in various areas of the airport property Mr.Coleman said presently the focus of his group is to look at the terminal areas and number of gates as well as the Part 150 Study that will be considering noise mitigation policies. He briefly explained the terminal configurations having to do with location,passenger service and number of gates. He said this presents a picture of what the airport could sustain in terms of number of gates and sets up a debate for the County to determine just how big they really want the airport to be in the future. Each of the options his group develops will present cost implications,how they could be funded and what the 1. • cost per passenger would be under each scenario. Ft. Lauderdale Airport is presently a very low cost airport and,as such,attracts carriers like Spirit,Southwest and Jet Blue. What his group will be presenting in Phase II of their work is what happens to that cost per passenger. That's another decision point for the County. These are some of the issues that will be debated during the coming months. His group will continue to refine the options and will come back to meetings like this and update the people on any additional information his group has obtained and what feedback bus been received.He will be going back to the County Commission probably the latter part of 2006 regarding the Master Plan. The EIS Workshop was last week Next week there will be a public workshop on the EIS at the Convention Center. His group is anticipating a workshop on the Part 150 issue with the Commission in the March/April time frame. That will be the first discussion concerning how the County is going to approach mitigation for the activity being projected and a decision on the Master Plan is expected by the end of 2006. Chairman Field opened the meeting for discussion,first calling on members of the board for their comments. Tom Allen called attention to the slide showing a new terminal in the northeast corner of the airport. He said it is his understanding that is going to be the cruise passenger reception area. He inquired how it is to be funded. Mr.Coleman stated it is on all the plans and all the development of the airport will be funded by revenues generated by the airport or through grants funded by FAA. Mr.Allen then requested Mr.Coleman to tell the County that if they are going to construct a terminal dedicated to the cruise passengers it would be appropriate for them to look to the cruise industry for partial or full funding. He commented the chance of cruise passengers spending money in the County is zero since they are normally in the area for a total of only about four hours. Zack Adams said the flaws he sees in the presentation are based on the scale to which they are drawn. They are not compatible with any aircraft that exists and it doesn't make any sense without a great deal of additional detail. He also pointed out this airport doesn't need to provide for the extremely large airplanes because it doesn't have that kind of traffic. That is the bailiwick of Miami • which is an airport that has the necessary domestic connections. Ft.Lauderdale is presently a manageable airport. Possibly for safety reasons primarily,a little more pavement for the south side is needed. A 6,000 foot runway on the south side would be an ideal and sensible solution because it could accommodate all of the regional jet type aircraft with rational safety margins. If a parallel south runway is added the noise footprint will be more than doubled. The real bottom line is who is going to pay for all this. The FAA has said this will be paid with grants while at the same time they are saying user fees for the US air space system should be considered. The US is the only country that doesn't charge foreign operators user fees for its air space and as long they are not being charged for that,there is no reason to build to accommodate foreign carriers. Ultimately it is the tax payers who will have to supply the money. The money that comes from the State could be used for more publicly oriented projects instead of being used to accommodate airlines. The airlines cry about their desperate straits. Nothing should be done to accommodate the airlines until they put in place irrevocable bonds to guarantee payment for the facilities. That is the only way we should allow any money to be spent on this airport. Lastly,there should be a landing fee for general aviation,not for the small flight school user but for the private owners with their fifty million dollar jets. Presently there are a lot of these users that are getting a free ride. Referring to page 17 of the FAA/BCBCC Workshop handout,the short list of airfield alternatives, Clive Taylor asked if there is any order as to how one alternative could be evaluated over another. Mr.Colman's answer was a no,not yet. Mr.Taylor then asked what chances does alternative C-1 or D-2 have of making the cut. Mr.Coleman replied the FAA defines purpose and need. Mr.Taylor commented the County is already built out. Chairman Field next asked if anyone from the audience would like to ask a question or make a comment. 2. • • City Commissioner Bob Anton was the first to speak. He said he attended the recent County Commission meeting when the alternatives were being discussed. One of the options mentioned was working with Miami International.This would certainly affect the Master Plan. He asked Mr. Coleman if he had been instructed to look at regional opportunities. Mr.Coleman replied this may be considered in the future when work on Phase II begins. Commissioner Anton pointed out that Miami certainly has the capacity for expansion. In fact their recent expansion is under utilized. In addition Palm Beach is also under utilized. He pointed out that spending two billion dollars on an expansion such as is being proposed is a waste of money when the capacity is already in place at two other airports within a thirty mile radius,regardless of where the money comes from, Commissioner Anton also inquired if anything is being done to mitigate the current impacts of the airport that have never been mitigated. He stressed he wasn't talking about any type of expansion,just about what's happening at the present time. Mr.Coleman said they had been charged with looking at what exists today as well as what is in the future and will be reporting on that in a couple of months. The next to speak was Brenda Chalifour. She said she was surprised there was no hard copy. It would have been more helpful if the documentation had been available prior to the presentation. She then inquired if other presentations of this information have been made and,if so,where. She was told presentations had been made to the Ft.Lauderdale Airport Advisory Board,the Ft. Lauderdale Chamber of Commerce,the airlines and also in Davie. She asked if there were plans to go to Hollywood or anywhere else and was told a presentation is planned for Hollywood and also the Melaleuca Gardens Homeowners.At the present time there are no other meetings scheduled. A public workshop may be scheduled later. Ms.Chalifour commented the documentation and dates of all meetings should be available as quickly as possible. So far there has been very limited public involvement and the public has a right to a clearer picture. Ms.Chalifour asked how many gates there are presently and was told there are 57 but there will be 5 additional with concourse A. That's the base assumption. Ms.Chalifour stated she had a problem with a Master Plan not starting with what is actually present. Basically it's making assumptions that things will go in even thugh they • may never.She then asked if they could stop where they are right now. She was told that's a policy issue the County Commission would have to handle. Ms.Chalifour said one of the slides mentioned having to go to Congress for a PFC rate increase. Mr. Coleman said that has to do with potential funding and one of the issues to be explored is taking the PFC from 54.50 to$6.00. At present nobody is over$4.50 and it would mean the ceiling would have to be lifted.Ms.Chalifour said it was previously mentioned there were a number of issues and decision points the Commission will have to address and it would be very helpful to know those times especially in regard to the Master Plan and the Part 150. The public needs to be aware of those decision points that will guide the Master Plan. Initial assumptions that were made maybe shouldn't have been made. In regard to the Part 150 a clearer picture of what's going on is needed. Chalifour addressed Capt.Adams,saying she just wanted to let him know the FAA said they will not put restrictions on the use of the crosswind runway. Capt.Adams said he was not certain why that had to be a decision of the FAA when decisions have been made by other states, counties and municipalities and in many cases the courts have made decisions those restrictions will stand. Ms.Chalifour then suggested Mr.Coleman revisit the Broward County Commission before his group proceeds any further with Part IL There were no more comments from the audience so Chairman Field asked the board members if they had any additional comments or questions. Capt.Adams said some time ago he had brought up the subject that a lot of the delay numbers at the airport were contrived by mismanagement of traffic mixing of compatible aircraft types. There has been a significant reduction of that recently,putting the small aircraft on the south runway. • 3. Compared with last year,the delay statistics have gone down substantially,even though there were more total movements.That probably should lead to questioning all of the statistics generated by the FAA and all of the statistics used by the County. Anybody who has studied statistics knows that statistics can be manipulated.If we continue evolving in this way it isn't necessary to spend millions on increasing the amount of pavement on this airport. What is needed is better utilization of the pavement. Another interesting point if this airport needs all of these runways presently being considered,how can we have a project where we would build a south runway that is elevated and close the diagonal runway.Considering the time it takes to build a runway it would make Ft. Lauderdale a one runway airport for at least mine to twelve months. If there should be any kind of an incident on the one runway it would become a no runway airport. Recently a commuter type airplane with a landing gear problem was allowed to land on the longest available runway and closed that,causing all the jet traffic to be diverted to the diagonal. If there hadn't been a diagonal,the airport would have been closed. When you have to close an airport like Ft.Lauderdale it snowballs and affects traffic at LaGuardia,at Kennedy,at Dallas,at Chicago,etc. It would be absolutely irresponsible to allow Ft.Lauderdale to become a one runway airport. Mr.Allen asked if it had been taken into account the fact there are several airlines just limping along and flirting with bankruptcy. They will consolidate,they will go out of existence and will form other corporate manoevres. As they reduce hubs,reduce airframes,reduce passenger loads,it will certainly free up some gates at many terminals,therefore making the need for more gates a less pressing reality. He asked Mr.Coleman to take that fact back to the attention of the County. Mr.Allen then asked Mr.Coleman to go back to alternative Option One which is the most representative of the present footprint except for Terminal Four. Regarding international gate development,the only US Customs Clearing Point right now is the east wing of Terminal Four and only the east half of the east wing is presently being used. Kennedy has an International Arrivals Building. That is possibly what Terminal Four would turn into. But other airports have other • solutions. Many airports put a customs gate or two at all their terminals and agencies can man more than one arrival.That might be a practical alternative to building a big IAB. To sum up,Chairman Field asked Mr.Coleman why this airport has been so successful. Mr. Coleman replied"probably its low cost". Chairman Field next asked why is this airport considered a better airport to go to than Miami International. Mr.Coleman replied"convenient access and low cost'. Chairman Field added"and also inexpensive fares". Mr.Coleman agreed. Chairman Field then asked"When you get up to%gates as presently proposed.is this still going to be an inexpensive,friendly,easy to use airport?" Mr.Coleman replied"the system can accommodate it but there will be increasing costs and what that translates to for the airlines and the user is the question of how big you want to be and also how expensive you want to be. Chairman Field said the other question he has was concerning the remarks made about needing more land. He wanted to know where more land is available. Mr.Coleman replied it would probably be to the east Chairman Field pointed out that would involve the wet lands. Chairman Field then mentioned comments that had been made by Ms.Lane (FAA representative)to the effect that the FAA is not bound by the interlocal agreement Mr.Coleman said the FAA has said there are no use restrictions. It was pointed out to Mr.Coleman that the use restrictions are a part of the interlocal agreement between the various cities and the County of Broward so the County of Broward should notify the FAA that they are so bound. Chairman Field said he felt the FAA is acting irresponsibly. Chairman Field reminded those present the next meeting of the Airport Advisory Board will be Thursday,February 23r4. There being no further questions or comments,Chairman Field adjourned the meeting at 8:35 PM. Respectfully submitted, Jay Field,Chairman • Suzanne Witz 4.