RED ALERT - Boulder Airport Could Be Locked onto the Landscape Forever

From our friends at the Airport Neighborhood Campaign in Boulder:

This Thursday, Boulder City Council could take action to lock the airport in place FOREVER

The need for action has never been more critical.
WRITE TO CITY COUNCIL TODAY, or by 3 PM Thursday April 23 at the latest
If you already wrote to Council, write again because the situation has changed!  
You do not need to be a city resident.

Write to Boulder City Council at this link

The threat is enormous

In a shocking development, the ANC just learned a few days ago that the FAA has changed the terms of the grant agreements that it is offering for Boulder airport funding. Up until recently, most FAA grants came with 20 years of obligations to run the airport. That’s what we at the ANC knew when we last wrote to you.

But now, if Boulder takes any more FAA grants, this will contractually obligate the city to run the airport on Boulder’s land IN PERPETUITY. It is a sneaky tactic to lock up control over Boulder and ensure that the city must maintain an airport on the current site “in perpetuity”.
City Council is under intense pressure to find money. Many city facilities have deferred maintenance and the bill is coming due.

The aviation community from far and wide is coming out in droves telling Council to take the FAA money. Many of these pilots do not even live in our area or use Boulder airport.

Dear supporters, many of you were among the thousands of city of Boulder voters who signed petitions to put the airport’s future to a vote of the people of Boulder. Even more of you were among the county residents who also have made your voices heard and would love to vote on this issue if they could.

However, if the city signs new FAA grants contracts, it’s immediately game over. The perpetual contract obligations cannot be undone by electing a new council and cannot be undone by citizen vote or referendum.

Action and key messages

Here’s the link again to write to Council

Tell City Council:
Do not take any FAA funding!

Boulder must not take a permanent action to give up control of city land to a hostile federal agency without citizen approval. This would be an egregious, undemocratic, and unacceptable betrayal!

No sitting City Council members ran for election saying they would permanently sign away control of the airport site to the FAA. Nobody voted for Council Members to lock the airport in place forever. What if the city desperately needs that land for something in the future that we cannot even imagine today?

Do not try to fix a short-term funding problem by permanently signing away the rights of all current and future citizens of Boulder!
The are many alternative sources of funding that haven’t even yet been explored. The City MUST make every effort to develop non-FAA sources of airport funding such as landing fees, bringing artificially low airport rents up to market rate,
and seeking grants from the Colorado Department of Transportation (CDOT) that do not extend the city’s airport obligations. All of these options are legal, common sense, and used by many other airports in Colorado.


Further background and additional talking points:


On April 23, City transportation staff will be giving a presentation about airport funding at a City Council study session. Staff will be asking Council whether to take FAA funding and plan to run the airport indefinitely.

The city is obligated by past grant agreements to run the airport until 2040 (twenty years from when we last signed an FAA grant agreement with 20-year obligations) but the city has NEVER signed a contract that stated an obligation to run the airport in perpetuity.

The citizens of Boulder deserve the right to decide what to do with the airport site after 2040.
The city's lawsuit against the FAA is still very much alive! That lawsuit is designed to clarify the expiration date of the city’s obligations to maintain the airport. Boulder says our obligations expire in 2040; the FAA says there is no expiration date. This dispute remains UNRESOLVED. The judge said the case was not legally ripe yet, but that the city can pursue the case in the future. The FAA knows how weak their existing legal case is, so they are trying this new tactic to make Boulder sign new contracts with a clear perpetual obligation.


Here are some additional talking points you can use if you choose:

• Average FAA grants to the city in the last decade were about $250K per year. This is less than .05% of the city's annual budget which was $521 million in 2026. This is an insignificant amount of money and is not worth tying the hands of future residents and leaders!
  
  
• The city should make airport users pay their own way through reasonable hangar rents, landing fees, and other appropriate and legal charges. According to analysis of airport data, this has the potential to improve airport revenue by $200K/yr.
• The city can also explore other creative funding and financing options that do not require grants with strings attached nor airport expansion. Just this year, the city got a $450K repaving grant from CDOT without the strings attached.  
  
  
• The people spoke loud and clear in 2024. Within a few short months, over 3400 verified city voters signed an initiative to put the issue of repurposing the airport on the ballot so that Boulderites - not the FAA - can decide the future of the airport site. Innumerable County residents wanted to sign but were not eligible under city rules. Taking the option for repurposing off the table and disregarding the voice of these voters would be an unacceptable violation of public trust.
• There is no public hearing and no open comment at the April 23 study session where Council is being asked whether to sign Boulder up for the burden of running a noisy, polluting, and inequitable airport forever. To make this decision without public deliberation would be a smack in the face to Boulder's democratic values.
• Tell your story about how the airport impacts YOU.
• You can find more talking points about the negative impacts of the airport, and the promise of future repurposing, at the Airport Neighborhood Campaign website FAQ.

 
Thank you, dear friends and supporters, for your partnership!
We at the ANC can be the watchdog, but we need YOU to amplify the message.
We need to unite all of our voices to head off this threat.

Also, please share this message with your friends and neighborswho are also negatively impacted by Boulder airport's operations, or who care about preserving the option for a different future for the airport’s 174 acres of precious public land. Invite them to join you in speaking out and to sign up for our mailing list.


Together, we are keeping the path open for airport closure!

- Your friends at the Airport Neighborhood Campaign