Editor’s note: This is the first of two stories relating to interviews with candidates for seats on the new Airport Advisory Board. The second installment will appear in Saturday’s Aspen Daily News.
Pitkin County commissioners have started the lengthy process of interviewing candidates for the new Airport Advisory Board — a volunteer entity that 75 community members sought to join as of the Sept. 9 application deadline.
Subsequently, commissioners privately gave their initial choices for the seven-member board (with two alternates) to county staff, which then tallied the most popular picks to help narrow the field to 15 names. Commissioners in October then decided to schedule 15-minute interviews with each of the 15. The first eight interviews were conducted on Wednesday and the remaining seven are scheduled today.
County officials say they can’t remember when an advisory board seat has garnered so much interest. The creation of the board follows the lengthy ASE Vision community process the county kicked off in late 2018 to study Aspen-Pitkin County Airport redevelopment concepts. ASE is the Federal Aviation Administration’s three-letter identifier for the airport.
That “visioning process,” both lauded and criticized within the community, resulted in a list of recommendations that one of the ASE Vision committees approved in March 2020. The recommendations include reconstruction of the terminal building to make it more passenger and employee friendly; a controversial runway widening that would allow larger commercial and private planes to use the airport; and other initiatives, including the goal of making the airport more environmentally friendly in terms of noise and emissions. They also expressed a need for an airport advisory board. In the fall of 2020, commissioners evaluated those recommendations and expressed their general agreement with them, along with a few concerns, but pressed the pause button with regard to the question of runway expansion.
Advisory board members will meet monthly and serve three-year, staggered terms. While they won’t be involved in day-to-day airport operations, they will be tasked with looking at big- and small-picture airport issues, including redevelopment and the question of a runway widening. Their collective opinions, though advisory, will be passed along to the Pitkin County Board of County Commissioners, the ultimate deciders of how the county tackles the airport’s future.
Here are a few details from six of eight interviews conducted on Wednesday. The two interviews not represented in this story will appear in a report on the remaining candidates in Saturday’s Aspen Daily News.
Meg Haynes: The Carbondale resident’s resume shows extensive experience as a management consultant, including international companies. She also recently retired as executive director of the Starwood Metropolitan District. In addition, Haynes served as vice chair of the lead ASE Vision Committee that developed and approved the extensive “Common Ground Recommendations” in early 2020.
Haynes said her top priority for the airport is its safety. She said as a management consultant, she flew in and out of ASE to at a level of more than 100,000 air miles annually for many years. She promised to listen objectively to diverse opinions with the goal of helping to find consensus on the board.
As an advisory board member, “I would not lobby for any particular cause, not have any vested interest, nor hidden agendas,” she told commissioners. Amid the changing environment of the air-travel industry, she said the board will have to be continually educated by industry experts “before we decide how to go forward.”
Nicky Byrne: His resume shows he directs a local nonprofit, Radical Relief Fund, which focuses on providing emergency relief to single parents, educators and artists. He’s also a member of the Aspen Next Generation Advisory Committee, a former Skywest Airlines customer service agent and a private pilot who “understands the logistical and operational nuances the airport faces.”
Byrne said there should be “no strong rush” to widen the runway. He said he grew up in the shadow of the airport, near the Aspen Airport Business Center, and had a first-hand image of the private plane crash at Shale Bluffs three decades ago that claimed several lives.
“The airport has always deeply influenced my life,” he said, noting that the image of the crash has forever remained within him.
Byrne said the airport “has plenty of enplanements right now,” noting the massive increase in flights over a recent 10-year period. To him, “baby steps” should be taken with regarded to airport expansion.
“It’s a privilege, not a right, that we have this airport, and we really need to ensure that all of the recommendations that have been put out are carefully looked at and understood before we make any firm plans — specifically with regard to the runway.”
Amory Lovins: The renowned physicist and co-founder of the Rocky Mountain Institute spoke out during the ASE Vision process in early 2020 to stress his belief, based on his own research, that the CRJ-700 aircraft serving commercial airlines in Aspen would not be phased out as quickly as many runway-expansion supporters were contending. The issue of the future viability of the CRJ-700s, and the perceived need to accommodate the next generation of jets, was the driving impetus behind the creation of the 15-month ASE Vision process.
Lovins was asked why he would advocate taking “a step back” from the recommendation to widen the runway. Lovins said that seemed to be the direction county commissioners expressed by not endorsing or opposing the runway expansion when they examined the ASE Vision recommendations in late 2020.
“The industry has been in extraordinary flux [since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic] in technology and business models and underlying assumptions,” he said. “Although I don’t know what’s the right solution on the air side, I don’t think anyone else does either, and so we [need to] learn more.”
Lovins said his main message was that the county is at risk of “building the wrong thing” by deciding the runway issue “before we have the right information.”
Jackie Francis: The founder and director of the nonprofit Global Warming Mitigation Project spoke virtually from Scotland, where she and other local residents — as part of her delegation — have been attending the United Nations’ international COP26 conference on climate change.
Francis said she believes that over the next few years, great amounts of public and private funds will be funneled toward development and production of more environmentally friendly aircraft, which would bode well for the goal of reducing carbon emissions at ASE.
She was asked how she envisions the airport’s future if larger aircraft are not accommodated through a runway widening. Can the community live without an airport?
“It’s definitely going to hurt a lot of people if we look at things that way,” said Francis, who, like Haynes, was a member of the overarching ASE Vision committee.
It’s a tough question, Francis admitted. The future of aviation is “like looking into a crystal ball.” While environmentally friendly aircraft, including electric planes, would fit into Aspen and Pitkin County’s goals of becoming greener, the truth is that those types of planes might not become reality for another 20 or 30 years, she said.
Aside from the runway issue, Francis suggested that her top priority for airport redevelopment would be improving customer experience with a better terminal and related systems.
“I don’t believe it needs to be super elegant, but I believe it needs to be a good experience,” she said of the airport. “I think that safety [improvements] is a given.”
Debbie Braun: The president and CEO of the Aspen Chamber Resort Association noted that she’s been involved in previous committees. She served on the Community Character committee during the ASE Vision effort.
Braun opened her interview with a statement about her previous involvement on airport-related committees. Through that, she said she has “learned to be respectful of diverse opinions.”
ACRA’s vision “is to create an environment for Aspen to thrive,” she said. “And as the destination management organization for the Aspen community, people-moving is of really great importance to us.”
Braun added that if chosen as a board member, she’d be able to solicit and relay feedback from a broad base of local business leaders. She said she also has regional connections and would be able to relate those concerns to the board and commissioners.
Asked if she’d be representing ACRA or herself on the board, Braun said that while like others, she “wears a lot of hats” in the community, she’d be representing herself. However, she said it would be a good idea to see an ex-officio member of the board who would represent ACRA.
“… I want us to have this beautiful gateway [to Aspen] in a new terminal building; I would like to see electric, smaller aircraft flying in and out; and honestly, I’d love to see a letter to the editor in 20 years from Woody Creek and Starwood thanking us for the hard work we did on the committee,” Braun said.
Michael Solondz: The Starwood resident noted that until two years ago, he was a pilot for Skywest Airlines, the third-party commercial carrier contracted to handle flights for the airlines serving Aspen.
He also said he served on ASE Vision’s Technical Committee and that he also has a background in real estate. He said he’s not working full-time at the moment and he has plenty of time and availability to serve the advisory board.
Solondz said there’s a misperception that if the runway is widened and the terminal is expanded, more people will be coming into Aspen.
“When I look at the data, that’s not what I see,” he said, noting that there are “approximately 20,000 pillows” for guests in Aspen-Snowmass.
“You have to have a place for them to stay, and we’re not developing much here,” Solondz said. “So I don’t see a rapid increase of traffic just by widening the runway and fixing the terminal here.”
Editor’s note: Comments from Wednesday’s interviews with Andrew Doremus and Bruce Gordon will appear in Saturday’s second of two installments relating to the 15 Airport Advisory Board candidates.
"complete" - Google News
November 12, 2021 at 05:00PM
https://ift.tt/3c7ydZS
Pitkin commissioners complete first wave of interviews for new airport board - Aspen Daily News
"complete" - Google News
https://ift.tt/2Fvz4Dj
https://ift.tt/2YsogAP
Bagikan Berita Ini
0 Response to "Pitkin commissioners complete first wave of interviews for new airport board - Aspen Daily News"
Post a Comment