05/14/26 Airport Commission Meeting

Chair Peacone, you are on the record. Okay, I would like to call the May 14th, 2026 Airport Commission regular meeting to order. Can we stand for the pledge?

I pledge allegiance to the flag of the United States of America. To the Republic for which it stands, one nation under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.

Can we have roll call, please? Chair Fiekken. Here. Vice Chair Manilga. Here.

Commissioner Zuerl. Here. Commissioner Bielefeld. Here. Commissioner Niesek.

Here. Commissioner Wicker? Here. Commissioner Bremmer? Here.

You have a quorum. Okay, thank you. Is there a motion to approve the agenda as presented? Move. Second.

Okay, any revisions to the agenda?

Okay, are there any objections to approving the agenda as presented? Hearing none, agenda is approved. Okay, moving on to public comment. It looks like we have HDL Engineering with us tonight.

Good evening, Commission. Uh, my name is Eric Jordan. I recognize a lot of you. I'm one of the project engineers and the engineer of record for the Runaway Rehab Project. Um, we are here The active construction schedule and the runway closure is anticipated for tomorrow.

It actually is in effect tonight at 11 PM is when we're going to shut the airport down and convert the runway swap to the temporary runway 0321. It's the reason why you're not seeing a lot of other contractors and construction guys here with me is because they're all probably getting a catnap before they pull a night shift. They have to restring the rest of the temporary lights, install the rest of the temporary signs, And we can't do any of that until we close down the remaining taxiways that were being operated on regularly. So everything is scheduled to take effect tonight, 11 PM, and then starting tomorrow, things are going to get busy at the airport. What you guys will be seeing out there, if you're ever out there, regular operations on temporary runway will be in effect, but the main runway will be chewed up for the next 3 weeks.

They'll be doing all the milling and removal of the existing asphalt. And then from there, you're gonna see demo work, and then we'll start from the bottom and work our way up. Right now, the schedule still shows we're trying to get done towards the end of September. We need all the weather we can get. As you guys are aware, the spring's been a little tough on us.

It's been a little bit cold, and I think you guys got snow last Saturday down here. So that's something we're not usually used to, but the nice thing with this job is there's not a lot of heavy earthwork, so we're not fighting frozen ground conditions like, say, up north in Wasilla or somewhere like that that are dealing with it right now. So from a construction standpoint and operations standpoint, I think things are still status quo. Next commission, when you guys see me out here next month, we should have a better update on progress and schedule. And if there's particulars that you guys would be interested in us presenting on, I'd be happy to take that information tonight and be prepared to speak more eloquently on specific facets.

But as you guys understand, construction changes on the hour by the hour. We dance around the rain as fast as we can, and we try to get work done when it's sunny Bluebird.

I think the other things that we can touch on is how traffic will work on the temporary runway. Um, right now we understand it as visual operation only for, um, how the runway was put together for markings and for design. We are aware that the city also has put together special instrument flight procedures and have had those developed, uh, and to be in place, uh, effective tomorrow. One thing that we conducted last month on the 15th of April was the Safety Risk Management panel where we met with the FAA and we talked about this project in length. Usually what happens at those meetings is we go through the entire construction safety and phasing plan.

We talk about how the work will take place and then we speak to how it will revolve around keeping everybody safe. They identify any risks and they have a panel that goes through hazards and assesses each hazard as they're brought up to the discussion. It's a lengthy process. I think this SRM Mary was 7, 8 hours, somewhere around there. However, where we're at now with the SRM is they have a 30-day comment period, and that 30-day comment period ends tomorrow morning.

What happens after the comment period is they will sign the document that was as a result of the SRM. And what that will allow— and I might overspeak here a little bit, but I'll ask Carrie to jump in if I need to be corrected— but what it'll essentially allow is Air Traffic Authorization to utilize the instrument flight procedures that are currently in place, or that will be in place, um, to the temporary runway. But unfortunately, until that document is signed, authorized, and then approved, the instrument flight procedures are going to have certain conditions tied to them. This is news that was just given to us just a few hours ago, and we're actively working with gentlemen like Dan Koenigsek and other important carriers at the airport to get them aware of some of the changes that will happen just in the immediate future, that meaning tomorrow and possibly the next couple of days. But, Kerry, I might ask you, if you don't mind, to speak a little bit about what it looks like from a tower perspective on the changes with the SRM.

So the only correction I have is there's two documents that have to be signed. The first document gives us authorization to use the taxiway as a runway. At that point, we're allowed to clear airplanes for takeoff and departure. However, the stipulation is that it only applies for VFR, which is the pretty weather outside, and sunrise to sunset, which won't affect us at all. And so that's the only difference.

Then when the second document is signed, which is the actual waiver, then we can start using the instrument approaches. But everything else was correct. Um, from a standpoint of air traffic, what it'll look like is the first day or two until everything is signed, we won't be able to issue landing clearances or departure clearances, but we will be able to utilize the runway as an open surface. It— everything will just be at the pilot's risk. And we'll have to reiterate that to each and every operator for each and every operation.

We anticipate that only lasts for a few days at the most. And like Eric was saying, once the first document's signed, then I'll be able to issue the landing and departure clearances, and then when the second document's signed, everything will be as normal, just on 3-2-1.

Are there any questions about—. I have a quick question, um, just a clarification. I know we all spoke about this earlier and went through all the fun with it. The one confusion I have based on this was you— it's basically the, the tower can't give a clearance to land or clearance takeoff, but we as operators, if we have approvals for the special instrument approaches, we get our clearance from, say, Tao Center or somebody, and we can still fly the instrument approach, you just can't give us clearance to land from the approach, correct? Yeah, that's correct.

Because the way it was explained to me was—. Yeah, the way it was explained to me was the FAA has to give us approval to use it for other than VFR conditions.

So if you're going to do an instrument approach in IFR conditions, then we have to have that waiver approval. But if you're going to do the instrument approach in VFR conditions, then I can still issue a landing clearance after the first document is signed. Sorry, that's what I didn't know was because that wasn't discussed earlier. So basically we're VFR only until Until that document is signed, correct? Okay, I thought it was just landing clearances and departure clears.

I didn't know IFR, VFR was in this. Okay, does that mean when you say VFR, if Kenai is 1,003, then we can do an approach? Okay, yes, as long as we meet the basic VFR minimums, then We're good. Okay, so we pick up our approach clearance from center and we're good to come in as long as Kenai's 1003. Correct.

Good.

Okay, question for you. Is this— and you're talking the instrument approach, you're talking about the special instrument approach that has been developed for the project? Yes, the RNAV procedures that were developed for the two ends of the runway, that's the procedure I'm talking about. Yes. Okay, yeah, you're not talking about the ones that are published right now.

No, those We won't be using those at all. Okay, I was just gonna— because the verbiage there was clear, saying, wait a minute, we went down this road a lot in the previous months. I just wanted to make sure.

So that's interesting about the instrument approach, because at an uncontrolled airport it has instrument approaches, but they don't have a tower to tell them that they can't land or not supposed to land. I'm unsure as to why, why the differentiation there, why you can't go down to minimums if there's— the tower is non-operational. So I think the difference is here because we converted a taxiway into a runway, right? So the FAA has to give us authorization to use that taxiway as the runway. So once they approve it to be a runway, then we just— it's as operations go back to normal.

Okay, now, okay, sounds good. Thanks. That's right. And the waiver you're talking about is the Cat 3 waiver, correct? For—.

Okay, so if you were on that conversation earlier, that was a miscommunication. Okay, um, that was a runway separation issue that's internal, so it doesn't apply.

Okay. Any other questions, concerns?

Thanks, Gary. Yeah, and I guess I would offer any other— if you guys had questions on construction-related stuff, I can speak to that much better than I can on air traffic. I do have a question. I just did a quick drive around the airport here before the meeting, and I noticed that there's There are 7 airplanes. One looks like a guy was trying to get it started.

Still 7 airplanes in the south parking there. Is that going to impact operations for that? No, I have been working with the Airport Alaska District Office at the FAA about that. We have expressed to them that we are underneath the approach and clear of it by about 40 feet vertically. We fall inside the runway protection zone.

But we have promised that as soon as the ground conditions allow us to move aircraft, that we're gonna keep them in the back rows of that south apron. Okay, so just contingent upon the conditions improving where the parking is going to be? Yeah, yeah, there's still, I guess we are seeing a little bit late of spring break up here in Kenai, so yes. Nice. The ground conditions are still pretty soft, and as soon as we can safely relocate and utilize that area in front of CAP, we will.

Yeah, I noticed there's a few more airplanes that transient parking in Soldotna. Yes, yep.

If no other questions about construction-related stuff, you're going to see me and my project engineer Jackie daily working around here very often. We have a project website with comment cards and places that you guys can reach out, but it also has our contact information. So if you have questions later or curious about what's going on between now and the next commission meeting, feel free to ask. Okay, thank you. Thank you for the update.

Are there any members of the public that would like to speak to any item not on the agenda? And I assume we don't have anybody on Zoom. Okay, thank you. May I have a motion to approve the March 12th, 2026 minutes? Move.

You have a second? Thank you. Is there any revisions to the minutes?

Is there any objection to approving the minutes? Hearing no objections, the minutes are approved. Unfinished business, we have none. New business, may I make a I— we are going to discuss a special use permit to Rock River Outdoors. May I have a motion to recommend council approval of the special use permit to Rock River Outdoors?

Move. Second. Okay, can we have a staff report?

Um, for River Rock, all's good. Okay, is there any commissioner discussion? I looked through it, it didn't look like there are any changes from last year, so no.

Anybody have anything else?

May I have a motion to recommend council approve the special use? Oh well, did you do that? I guess I did.

Uh, if there's no other comments or, or anything, I will ask for unanimous consent unless there's an objection. Okay, see none. Thank you. May I have a motion to recommend council approve the special use permit to Crowley Fuels LLC? Move.

Second. Okay, thank you. Mary, you have any comment on that? Again, um, I think you could defer to my memo that's in the packet. Again, it's Crowley Fuels and it's for the apron space that the planes park on while they fuel them at the— on the tarmac there, just north of the terminal.

I'll be happy to answer any questions. Okay, Commissioner, discussion?

Okay, if we have no discussion, I'm going to ask for unanimous consent.

Okay, thank you. So, Mary, we're back to you again. Do you have an airport report? I do have— I do have that.

Uh, so on May 2nd, uh, I met with city council on a Saturday and went over our budget. Um, it was a good session, a pretty mild budget. I hadn't planned on being here for that topic, but I had to— the budget. So that was done on Saturday, May 2nd. We had visits from different divisions of the FAA on May 5th for their remote tower program.

I believe in your packet there's some slides that we attended the telecom, and I'll have more to report on that in a couple weeks. The last day for the cafe in the terminal building is May 23rd. Today Julie and I got the RFP to City Hall for review. I don't think we'll probably have any— hopefully we'll have somebody in the cafe July 1st. Alutiiq Air sent an email and they gave notice that they're terminating service into Kenai.

Monday the 18th, Glenfarn is bringing about 60 people to Kenai on the Alaska Gas Line development. So we'll have 3 King Airs and a Merlin coming in on Monday the 18th. They've asked to have our conference room for just short periods of time over the next 3— those 3 days. Also, I got another call from the United States Marine Corps. They will be here on the 19th.

They need a command post for an exercise in the spring of '27. It's their Arctic Edge. We could potentially have 2 F-18s and 2 C-130s here. It's about a 3-week exercise. And they're— we're also coming to meet, like I said, next week.

This was based off of a phone call, but they'll also be here next Tuesday to meet with us at the airport. They were looking for a private, you know, hangar location. And I told them, you know, all the hangars are privately owned. It's my understanding, did they do an exercise out of your hangar, Scott, last summer? Last summer was that drone operator that did it, and I don't know who they were actually tied in with, but I think it was that same operation, yeah.

Okay. They're excited to be back. They're excited to use Kenai. And so I'm looking forward to our meeting on Tuesday.

We're busy working on the end of the year projects, our POs and our budgets. Fiscal year is winding down as of June 30th, and the new budget hopefully is all in place on July 1st, and we'll be issuing all new purchase orders and looking to get our projects rolling for fiscal year '27. And I just wanted to let Grant Aviation know you'll probably be the first one coming in on that runway tomorrow morning.

Yeah, probably. Yeah, I imagine we will be. We're going to have the fire trucks.

Now, will that be Commissioner— would that be Commissioner Bielefeld flying in? No, Saturday. Okay, I'll be happy to answer any questions.

Any questions for Mary? Okay, thank you so much. And we do not have a city council person today, so we'll be moving on. I don't see any additional public comment unless I'm missing it.

So our next meeting will be June 11th. Is everybody going to be here?

Okay, we'll look forward to seeing you then. Yeah, do we have commissioners' comments, questions?

I do, of course. I've got my note here. It wouldn't be a meeting. First of all, yeah, Mary, uh, any movement on getting, getting relief for you? From your position?

They're re-advertising. I think it ends June 7th. Okay, fingers crossed.

What a way to spend retirement. Yeah, it's not that we don't want you and love you. I do. I looked around the float pond and I looked at the dock, looks really great. I saw that the guys were out there and they painted it and put new tires up and new stuff out there.

I did notice the fuel pump's out, out of service. Is that gonna—. Yeah, and we're not sure yet. The guys went to FireMap. We're not sure yet if it's just the credit card.

So whoever processed the credit cards changed both their numbers and didn't tell us. So We also— it's when you put your card in, you know, and then the pump starts working. So we're not sure if there's something wrong with the pump in addition or if it's related to the credit card processing. But tomorrow I have to make a couple phone calls. Apparently I'm still the only one that can do that account.

Wow. So I have to— the finance director called me down and said, Mary, can you get our names on there? But yeah, I guess I was the only name on it. Interesting. Yeah, I found the, I found the information from 2011, was in the folder, and I'll be calling them tomorrow.

And, and hopefully it is that, hopefully we get new numbers, those cards will be processed and it'll turn on. Hopefully that's all it is. It looked good, everything was all tidied up and everything, the hose looked really great and all that stuff. So that was good. Um, the, there's, uh, the picnic tables there are a little sad in the trees there.

I don't know if you want to pony up for a couple new picnic tables out there, but they, they, one of them didn't survive the winter very well. But I know you guys got a lot going on, right? Right. Yeah. And I noticed that the float pond, the water is really muddy.

I don't know why. Is that— I don't think I've ever noticed that before. Now, is it due to all the rain? I mean, it's all groundwater. I mean, is it due to that?

No, I just never noticed it before that it was that. I mean, it's really turbid. You know, I don't know why is it— what's that? Yeah, yeah, there are float planes out there and they're doing it. But yeah, it's up to level, so it might clear up.

I was just looking at it, I thought, wow, that was different. I know we had ice in there a lot longer than we normally did. I mean, big chunks of ice. And then I know the guys ran the boat around quite a bit making sure there was no ice before that. I don't know if that had something to do to do with it.

That could be. Yeah. And then I was— too bad City Council was here. Do you know about the natural gas storage? They're talking about natural gas storage on airport land.

I don't know if that's actually here on the airport or—. No, I know a little bit about it. Yeah, that's right. Okay, here we go. But no, I can, I can answer.

The location is on Marathon Road in the industrial park. Yeah, and then last but not least, at the very end, we got the employments, the numbers on there. If you look at it for February and March of this year, you're not including the Aleutian in the totals for 2026.

Okay, so they didn't fly in April and May. It doesn't include. No, there aren't any. But for January it is, you include dilution, so it's $5,444. And then if you go to February, Grant is $4,872, and then total $26,472, but you should add dilution to that, that's $193.

So just for February and March, right? I read that last year, all of last year the same. Yeah, allusion's just not included. Yeah, because we were looking at one of the months in July, it should be over 10,000 where we were showing -12 as a total year over year. But allusion, it's just allusion's being left out from the total.

And so we had an extra 900 passengers. We'll look at it. I don't know if that affects the numbers for reporting to wherever, but you know. No, usually our numbers differ a little bit from Rev numbers too. I'm not sure why, but Julie can look at that spreadsheet and see what's going on.

Maybe an equation got messed up or something. And as far as the remote tower, that's an interesting concept. I know it's been around a while. I was really kind of surprised. Do you know if there's going to be any interface with flight service on that since They're technically on the field or field facility.

Wow, pro money at stuff, I guess. Yeah, we had about a 3-hour meeting with them at the operations facility, and, uh, that was pretty interesting. It's not new. I know they were doing a lot of airports in Europe, and it's successful. In the lower 48.

Yeah. Not in Alaska yet. And so they're excited of having Kenai as their test site.

So yeah. And the only other comment I have is it's just—. It's—. I was asked to bring it up and I'll bring it up again. So if there's any way that we can make provisions for people with tundra tires to land on the grass somewhere, I don't know if that's even that's even a thing to be able to be done with the construction going on and all the hubbub and all that stuff.

But that's always been a real concern with the folks here. So, you know, kind of, you know, allowing something to happen. I don't know if it's—. I know. I was asked a question last week and I said, and you know, it's not this summer, you know, something can be looked at later on, but There's just too much going on.

There's no place. Okay. Okay. Sorry. That's okay.

Compost happens. It's just a construction environment. It's just, it's just we have a lot going on.

Any other comments, questions? I got a quick question more geared toward you probably. So we, uh, couple of float planes that are over in the basin right now. We hauled them over there today and dumped them in. Is there going to be any way to make any type of arrangements during the summer, during your construction, to— if we have to move a trailer and a float plane over there, can we coordinate with you to be able to do that?

Okay, yes. So I will get in touch with the right contact, but I think the contractor can accommodate that kind of service. Okay. I would say that earlier coordination is better because at some point here they're going to start digging out the entire runway. So to get you to tow aircraft back and forth from the water strip to the gravel apron or to the paved apron would take some coordination.

Okay. How they do that, but I would say early on. Okay, yeah, sounds good. Thanks, appreciate it.

Okay, anyone else?

If not, Councilmember Sonnart has joined us, so we're going to back up and have her report.

Oh, you weren't prepared. I just wasn't expecting to have to jump in the hot water so quickly. Okay, so at our last council meeting last week, we tasked the administration with pursuing a contract with Fox Air because, as you know, right now we only have Grant, and Aleutian is doing limited flights this summer. Actually, they're not doing anything because of the fuel prices.

There has, there has been a citizen complaint lodged against Fox Air, and so we have tasked the administration with moving forward towards, towards a contract with the caveat that some questions are asked and these allegations are asked about and laid to rest one way or the other. And that's all I'm going to say at this point. Okay.

So thank you for your report. And if we have nothing else— go ahead, I'm sorry. Just a question about the natural gas storage on airport lands. Where is that? I know it's like 3517-2026.

Is that over by Walmart? Yes, it's by Walmart. Okay. Yes. And looking for to develop it or to be able to—.

There are two interested parties in developing it, and that's all I can say at this point. But yes, they're looking to develop it. Will it be something similar to what's over there On the other side by the boatyard, sir? To my understanding, yes. Okay.

Yes. It's empty caverns or something. Is that correct? Correct. Awesome.

Okay.

Do we have anything else? If not, we're adjourned. You got here just in time. I rushed. I mean, I really did.

I'm sorry. That's why you got thrown in.