Re: Did CDOT say that Boulder airport will not receive future grants without "signaling an intention to operate the airport indefinitely" ?

From: Laura Kaplan <[email protected]>
Date: Sun, May 24, 2026 at 10:14 AM
Subject: Re: Did CDOT say that Boulder airport will not receive future grants without "signaling an intention to operate the airport indefinitely" ?
To: Nuria <[email protected]>
Cc: Winer, Tara <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, Brockett, Aaron <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, Benjamin, Matt <[email protected]>, Wallach, Mark <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, <[email protected]>, Ryan Schuchard <[email protected]>


Hi Nuria, 

Thank you for your response to my testimony at council last Thursdsay night. I hope you've had (or will soon have) a chance to review the meeting video around the 21:30 mark and verify the quote from staff that I mentioned. As Dave Ulane noted in his email to me, this statement that CDOT will not provide grants "without the city signaling an intention to operate the airport indefinitely" is inaccurate, and an indefinite commitment is only required if CDOT funds are used for land acquisition. I am grateful to Dave Ulane for his speedy clarification; he answered my email within about 2 hours despite his out of office responder saying he was on vacation. 

If this misperception is the reason why staff did not analyze available CDOT funding, hopefully that can be corrected in staff's next steps. Fiscal responsibility was a major rationale cited by several council members for their straw poll (now "non-binding nod of 5") preference on April 23.  

It has not yet been demonstrated how the city could pursue Scenario 2 in the most fiscally responsible way possible, including CDOT grants and other on-airport funding mechanisms. This is necessary for council to make a wise decision when one of the options has perpetual, irreversible consequences. 

Boulder's staff's amazing resourcefulness and creativity should be brought to bear to develop the most workable plan for funding pursuit of Local Control in scenario 2 with no FAA grants, avoiding reliance on the city general fund, and minimizing any extension of grant commitments. When the alternative is a commitment in perpetuity, some extension of the grant obligation timeline is a reasonable option for the city to consider. 
 
CDOT funding can be a major source of revenue. Per the CDOT grants table copied below, grants the city would pursue for Scenario 2 come with obligations from 0 years for temporary fuel infrastructure to 20 years for pavement reconstruction or other construction projects. 

Looking at the detailed inventory of airport project needs provided in the 2024 Financial Report for Scenario 2 (see below), it looks like:

• Roughly $6 million of the airport's needs between now and 2040 are periodic seal coating/crack sealing that comes with a 3 year obligation timeline from CDOT. This is the same grant CDOT provided to Boulder this year for $450K. 
• About $2 million would be a fuel farm that Eric emphasized needs to be constructed soon. A fuel farm comes with a 15 year obligation timeline from CDOT, which would put the city slightly past 2040. 
• About $1.15 million is one pavement reconstruction project scheduled for 2029 that would have a 20 year timeline until 2049. Of course, the city could bank other funding for that reconstruction need, or decide it's worth it to push out the obligation timeline, without committing to perpetuity. 
• I believe some of the equipment listed has already been acquired, but equipment and vehicles come with a 10 year obligation. 

Nothing here looks prohibitive for pursuing Scenario 2 and avoiding a perpetuity commitment. The project types and amounts are typical of CDOT Discretionary Aviation grants.

The financial outlook would be even further improved by considering other airport-specific funding sources. CDOT and the Colorado Aeronautical Board who administer the grants consider it a plus in a grant application if they see a local sponsor is maximizing on-airport revenue. These methods could include: 

• bringing airport rates and charges up to present market rate and instituting landing fees (estimated revenue increase of about $100K-200K+/yr), and 
• either selling or leasing the airport land west of Hayden Lake for non-aeronautical commercial uses as described in the 2024 financial report. This use is not dependent on the main airport. 

The airport property west of Hayden Lake is physically disconnected from the main airport's runways and roads. In the photo below, these parcels are out of view to the left. The 2024 financial report estimated these parcels could bring in about $267,273 in lease revenue per year in 2024 dollars, starting in about the year 2030 (July 25, 2024 council meeting packet,  https://documents.bouldercolorado.gov/WebLink/edoc/187418/07.25.24%20City%20Council%20Special%20Meeting%20Agenda.pdf?dbid=0&repo=LF8PROD2 , page 407). Presumably investors would need extended ground leases of 20-30 years, but this type of non-aeronautical commercial use west of Hayden Lake presumably could be continued even if the main airport land use changed at some unspecified point in the future.

It's worth noting that the analysis provided by staff regarding landing fees and airport rents appears to also have some unfortunate information gaps and inaccuracies. I'll send more information in a separate communication. 

It's also worth revisiting the confusing assertion that a big bill would come due to the city if the city performs no pavement reconstruction through 2040 and subsequently learns in court that the FAA's claim to perpetuity is upheld. Why would that bill for pavement reconstruction then fall solely upon the city? Is there a reason why the city would not simply pursue FAA grants (and possibly also CDOT grants) for pavement reconstruction at that time, if the pathway to ending FAA grant obligations is clearly closed by the courts? 

Thank you for reading. Hope you've had / are having a good holiday weekend.

REFERENCES

The figure below is from the 2024 Financial Report p. 357 prepared by the previous airport manager, John Kinney, and consultants. Staff did not provide an itemized accounting of what was changed to update the scenarios for the meeting in April but the total dollar amount staff projected for Scenario 2 ($9 million) was reasonably close to the 2024 projections ($9.9 million, some of which has been accomplished since 2024), so I'm using the 2024 itemized list for reference. p. 357 https://documents.bouldercolorado.gov/WebLink/edoc/187418/07.25.24%20City%20Council%20Special%20Meeting%20Agenda.pdf?dbid=0&repo=LF8PROD2 

and the CDOT grants chart below from Dave Ulane's email, which surely the city is familiar with since Boulder received two grants from CDOT within the past year.