Thanks to
all who have helped the Association during the year – it has been a relatively
quiet year as far as the Board is concerned so this report will be
appropriately short and to the point.
·
We
want to recognize the work of Craig Cowles and Lynn McDonald for the time spent
mowing, spraying and for taxiway maintenance contractor supervision as well as
the volunteers who have helped with Ditch clean-up this year.
·
Thank
you as well to Eleanor Cowles and her helpers for the effort on the Ice Cream
Social.
·
Sincere
appreciation for Shirley Horn’s support of the Block Herald Network and to all
of the Block Heralds for their dedication to the Airpark.
·
Robert
English for his support of IAHA as our Webmaster.
·
Board
members – who contribute time and effort and provide guidance, ideas and
feedback as we work through issues for the good of the Airpark.
Items of
interest to summarize for 2013 are:
n Believe we are all aware of the
Federal Legislation providing Congressional guidance and direction to the FAA
regarding Residential TTF agreements for airports receiving Federal Grand
Funding which was passed and signed in February of 2012.
To summarize, that
legislation modified FAA statutes by specifying that the existence of a
Residential through the Fence (RTTF) agreement was not to be used as grounds
for the FAA declaring an Airport owner (in our case the State) out of
compliance with Grant Assurances.
By way of perspective, the entire text of the legislation
regarding RTTF took about 6 column inches on one page in the 3-column format
that the Federal Register is printed in.
Following passage, the FAA worked on revising their Administrative Rule
which is also known as a “Compliance Guidance Letter” for something around 18
months to arrive at the final version – all 48 or so pages. That document provides the instructions to
FAA Offices as to what is now expected from RTTF agreements.
We expect there to be some formal communication from the
Oregon Department of Aviation regarding their view of and how they expect to
operate under those newly developed guidelines. That may come in the form of a letter to IAHA or it might be sent
directly to our homes – we will know more about that process after the first of
the year.
One of the things we are aware of is that the FAA’s CGL –
and the Federal Law itself – are quite specific regarding the conduct of what
could be described as “commercial aeronautical activity” and while our Board
has spent some time this past year and the year before, addressing that issue
the understanding is that there will be heightened awareness of (and attention
to) that issue from both the Federal and State view based on the language in
the Statute and the CGL, For the
moment, however about all we know for sure is that there will be more to come
in 2014.
n Taxiway work during 2013 was limited
to seal coating the remainder of Skylane (about the eastern 2/3 which wasn’t
done last year) and the entire length of Cherokee Taxiway. There was no crack sealing or other repair
required in 2013.
A few of years ago the Board took a longer run look at the
potential for resurfacing the Taxiways on a planned basis and whether or not
reserves were adequate to sustain an effort aimed at that size of a
project. At the time we determined that
it appeared as though the existing program focused on maintenance was working
fairly well and there were no apparent signs of impending surface-related
issues.
During the preparation for our 2013 maintenance program we
were informed that it might be time to look at grinding and resurfacing as a
longer-term solution to the coating efforts we’ve been relying on. For this past year we decided not to begin a
resurfacing program and to get better information before any major decisions
were considered. During the coming year
we will have to take another look at the potential costs/benefits and funding
available if a closer look by engineers does indeed point to needing more
aggressive steps for long run preservation.
n Last year it was reported that we had
been working with the City and our local City Council member, Forrest Peck, in
an effort to make sure the storm drainage system is cleaned out and working
properly to avoid the flooding situation experienced two years ago on Mooney
Street. A lot of work has been
accomplished in the last 18 months toward that end. The City has cleaned out the retention pond at the corner of
Hoffman Road and Stryker along with cleaning out the blocked lines to the south
of that location and repairing or replacing damaged lines discovered in the
clean-out process. They have also
lowered the drain opening in the retention pond and doubled the culvert size at
Hoffman and Airport road from 12” to 24.”
Following an engineering study of the drainage in the
vicinity of the Airport additional work has been done to clean out the ditch on
the southwest corner of the Airport and also clean out and groom the ditches
across Hoffman Road from the SW corner of the Airport. More work remains to be done on cleaning out
the rest of the ditch running to the south into Ash Creek from the north end of
the ponds to Ash Creek. It is expected
that the Ash Creek Drainage Board will assist with that effort.
The ditch running along Skylane Taxiway to the east is fed
from culverts on the west side of the Airport and the study determined that it
was presently at capacity to carry water from the Airport property. There has been a new collection vault
installed on the east side of Stryker Road where construction has been
underway. The ditches running north
from there and then east have also been cleaned and graded. This part of the system carries water from
the Skylane Ditch and our northern taxiways away from the area and out through
rail yard to the east.
We also have been told that the ditch carrying water from
the North Airpark via the ditch along the RR Tracks and then through private
property to the east has been groomed to help the flow away from the area. There is still work pending on the ditch along
the RR Tracks and north of the rail crossing at Stryker to gain the full
benefit of cleaning out the private property drainage.
n Finally, the Board has exchanged
emails with ODA regarding a couple of items.
The first is that ODA (to comply with State insurance requirements) has
asked that they be included as a named insured on our Taxiway Liability
Policy. That policy is new this
year.
The second item is that a dialogue has been opened by ODA
regarding possible replacement of the traffic control gate at the north end of
the restaurant parking lot. They have
an interest in traffic control as does IAHA.
The inability of folks to imderstamd traffic signs and/or close the gate
when they go through it has resulted in unauthorized vehicles on our Taxiway
property and the ODA is concerned that they could also find themselves on the
parallel taxiway or the runway. At this
time, however, both conversations are pending matters which will be addressed
during the coming year.
Thank you for being
here and for your support. Wishing you
a “Merry Christmas and a Prosperous New Year !!!
Gary Van Horn