Georgetown Airport Capacity Increase Continues

The City is engaged in updating the Airport Master Plan. Following is a letter penned by Carl Norris describing the process. It is clear from the documents that this blogger reviewed that the solution was determined before the plan update was initiated. The analysis and data used was selected to support the apriori conclusion.

"For those who missed the Planning Advisory Committee (PAC) and the public workshop for the new 20 year (2016-2036) Airport Master Plan Update on the afternoon and evening of Tuesday, June 6, 2017 you missed a heck of a peep show.  This new plan is the fourth since 1980 when the old Airport Advisory Board and the council made the secret plan to develop the airport into the predominant reliever airport for Central Texas.  If you don't think this decision has been kept secret, how many full and comprehensive public information articles have you read in local newspapers?  How many are you reading now?
 Citizen visitors to the seven member PAC meeting were not allowed to speak.  The two PAC members assigned to represent the public never voiced a concern regarding continuous community opposition over the years to adverse impacts on the community's health, safety and human environment due to this major community decision nor the cumulative bad impacts being added by this new plan. The airport's location in the planned, densely developed heart of our city and, with its tens of thousands of gallons of hazardous materials totally atop the Edwards Recharge Zone, was of no voiced consequence to the PAC.
 At the public workshop citizen visitors were lectured by representatives of Coffman Associates that the cumulative expansion of based aircraft from their number in 1980 of 48 to the 2036 projected 400 (+733%) and annual operations (take offs and landings) from 31,550 to 133,400 (+323%) and the new projected peak operations per day from current 442 to 764 (+73%) must be quietly accepted by locals as the airport has been federalized for use as determined by FAA and TxDOT.  In other words, the citizens may own and pay local, state and federal taxes for the airport, but they have no say in it's    regional reliever development regardless of its bad impacts on their lives and properties. To the Airport Concerned Citizens (ACC) folks in attendance, that's akin to being told we're all like Ben-Hur and his fellow galley slaves, in this case in a boat they own, being forced into harm's way at direction of Admiral FAA, lashed to the rhythm of TxDOT's mallet beat and forced to go down with our own ship and without any opportunity of heading for a safer and superior location.
 That condemnation is not what Congress intended when it passed the NEPA and why the ACC objects to the proposed new multimillion dollar construction program of this plan without preparation of a fully scoped EIS.
 Everyone should track development of this master plan and its impact on lives of yourselves and neighbors by visiting its web site at “georgetown.airportstudy.com” and documenting your concerns to your elected councilmember, mayor and city council." 

To those who make public statements that this activity is "only maintenance and safety related", and not an expansion of the airport, need a course on the meaning of words.

This activity will clearly increase the capacity of the airport by upgrading navaids and doubling the load bearing capability of the main runway. These improvements will allow aircraft such as the Bombardier CS100 to use the airport. This aircraft has the capability of accommodating 133 charter passengers or the equivalent air cargo weight. It's Maximum Take Off Weight (MTOW) is 133,999 Lb., Maximum Landing Weight (MLW) is 115,000 Lb., its Landing Field Length at MLW is 4,499 LF. Cargo and/or charter passenger weights of aircraft can be managed to stay within the field constraints. If properly managed, the Bombardier model CS300 with increased capacities could also operate off a 5000 LF runway.

What is the old saying? Those who ignore the lessons of history are doomed to make the same mistakes. 

All one has to do is look at aviation and airports in Southern California over the last 50 years. It has been one law suit after another as people rebelled at having airports in residential neighborhoods, even though the airports were usually established before the housing was built.

Will Georgetown not learn from the experience of others?