[BoulderCouncilHotline] Airport Staff Analysis Before We Get to a Public Hearing

From: Kaplan, Rob <[email protected]>
Date: Sat, May 30, 2026 at 3:37 PM
Subject: [BoulderCouncilHotline] Airport Staff Analysis Before We Get to a Public Hearing
To: HOTLINE <[email protected]>

Colleagues and Staff,

At last Thursday’s meeting, we did two important things. We agreed 8 to 1 that the airport decision deserves a public hearing, not a consent agenda item. Five of us also gave direction to staff to come back with both options:  Scenario 1 (indefinite operation with FAA grants) and Scenario 2 (no grants, with the option to pursue closure after 2040) presented side by side, with the financial research needed to actually compare them. I think that was the right call and I want to make sure the analysis that comes back is complete enough to be useful.

The cost comparison we were presented wasn’t apples to apples. The April 23 packet shows a $28M CIP for Scenario 1 versus $12M for Scenario 2 - a $16M gap. Those two numbers represent fundamentally different things. Scenario 1 includes full pavement reconstruction once across the next 14 years. Scenario 2 only accounts for seal coating, deferring the full reconstruction entirely. That’s not a comparison of two ways to run the same airport, it’s a comparison of full maintenance versus kicking a major capital expense down the road. The packet itself flags the risk: if Scenario 2 doesn’t result in closure in 2040, meaning the FAA fight is lost or takes longer than expected, the city would face the full deferred reconstruction cost on top of the $9M shortfall, not instead of it. I’d like staff to present a true normalized comparison that uses the same maintenance standard for both scenarios, so council can see what the actual policy choice costs rather than comparing full investment against deferred maintenance.

I also think we need to be honest about what the no-grants option actually is. It’s not “close the airport in 2040 and we then have control of the land.” Based on the FAA’s stated legal position, that grant obligations run in perpetuity. The 2040 date is the starting line for a federal lawsuit, not the finish line. The $9.9M maintenance figure only gets us to that point. It doesn’t include legal fees, the potential FAA land payback on the roughly 38 acres purchased with federal funds (estimated at around $118M in 2041 dollars), environmental remediation, site preparation, or the cost of continuing to fund airport operations throughout however long the litigation takes.

Just for reference, Santa Monica is the closest parallel we have. They were in active federal litigation with the FAA from 2013 until they settled in January 2017. It took four years in court, on top of decades of prior disputes. The settlement made headlines under the title “Santa Monica Airport Agreement Clears Runway of Mounting Litigation Costs.” Council Member Gleam Davis said at the time: “All I know is that we have spent millions of dollars trying to close the airport and that it is very likely that, in the future, the legal and other expenses would be in the millions.” Council Member Terry O’Day confirmed the costs “run into the millions.” Davis put it plainly: “I gladly would spend millions more if I were certain that the end result of litigation and conflict would be closure of the airport. No knowledgeable person with whom I spoke could make that guarantee.” And critically, even after settling, Santa Monica was required to keep the airport operational for another 11 years, until December 31, 2028.. I don’t think we should walk into that path without a realistic picture of what it actually costs and how long it takes.

At Thursday’s meeting it was confirmed on the record that the legal question of whether accepting FAA grants is an administrative decision or requires a council vote has not yet been researched. I think we need a clear answer to that before we get to a public hearing, given the long-term implications of accepting these grants.
I’d also like to see the Scenario 1 grant assumptions broken out more clearly. The $26M includes FAA entitlement grants, FAA discretionary grants, and CDOT discretionary grants and those carry very different levels of risk. FAA entitlement grants for compliant airports are formula-based and have been awarded consistently for over 75 years through a dedicated trust fund.  Those are about as reliable as federal funding gets. FAA discretionary grants are competitive and carry exposure to the current federal environment. CDOT discretionary grants are funded by Colorado aviation fuel taxes, not federal appropriations, and are generally more stable and insulated from Washington.

However, council needs to take into consideration of a letter CDOT sent to our Director of Transportation and Mobility on May 27th that has significant implications for Scenario 2. Colorado statute - specifically CRS 43-1-109(2)(C) - prohibits CDOT from funding projects that are eligible for available federal funds. CDOT’s letter explicitly confirms they would not be able to fund projects at Boulder Municipal Airport that the FAA determines to be eligible and for which they would be willing to provide federal grant funding. The critical word is “available”. The FAA’s willingness to fund a project doesn’t disappear just because Boulder chooses not to accept their grants. That means under Scenario 2, the city likely loses access to CDOT capital funding as well as FAA funding, for any project the FAA would otherwise cover. The $9M Scenario 2 subsidy figure assumes no federal grants but doesn’t account for losing CDOT funding too. I would ask staff to recalculate Scenario 2 costs with that reality factored in. I’d like staff to break out all three grant sources clearly so council understands exactly where the $26M comes from and which portions are available under each scenario.
One question that didn’t come up Thursday but probably should have: within Scenario 2, does council retain the option to pivot in two, three, or seven years and decide to start accepting FAA grants again? Technically yes, but there are real consequences to that path that need to be part of the analysis. Any maintenance costs the city pays out of pocket while operating under Scenario 2 cannot be recovered retroactively. FAA rules require costs to be incurred after a grant is executed, so money spent before resuming grants is simply gone. On top of that, every year we operate without grants restarts the 20-year clock from whenever we do resume, meaning a pivot in year five doesn’t buy back those five years. And given that Boulder has already sued the FAA and publicly signaled closure intent, resuming grants after a multi-year pause puts us in arguably the most difficult position of any scenario when it comes to the FAA’s discretion on competitive grant applications. I’d like staff to address the pivot option explicitly, what it would actually cost to resume grants after 2, 5, or 10 years under Scenario 2, and whether our existing relationship with the FAA makes future discretionary grants more or less likely after a period of adversarial litigation.

I want to make sure when we get to a public hearing, council and the community are looking at an honest picture of both options.

Respectfully, 

Rob Kaplan
[email protected]

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