After a long hiatus, the Tuolumne County Airports Advisory Committee held their first meeting yesterday since February 7, of 2010.
In attendance for this meeting: Jim Thomas, TC Airports Manager, 4th District Supervisor John Gray (representing Pine Mountain Lake Airport), and 5th District Supervisor Richard Pland (representing Columbia Airport).
Other members attending the committee meeting: Dick Collier and John Brunk, representing PML Airport, Greg Thompson of Aero-Resources and Nick Cretan representing Columbia Airport.
Jim Thomas had a long agenda of items to discuss at this meeting. He presented the current year’s airports budget and also up-dated the committee on Caltrans Division of Aeronautics August safety inspections, including their request that an accurate obstruction survey be conducted at both airports to determine which trees adjacent to the runways may be considered for trimming or removal.
Also discussed, airport improvements for a waterline extension project at Columbia Airport, gate card access concerns, pay phone removal, the hangar waiting lists, and hangar inspections at both airports.
However, the main topic was the FAA’s Residential Through-The-Fence access policy which applies to the Pine Mountain Lake Airport.
On March 21, 2011, the Federal Aviation Administration issued a Memorandum Compliance Guidance Letter.
This letter said in part that the airport sponsors (Tuolumne County) will be required by the beginning of the Fiscal Year 2013 with an existing residential through-the-fence access arrangement and will be required to demonstrate evidence of compliance with this policy prior to notifying the FAA of its intent to apply for additional Airport Improvement Program (AIP) grants.
The airport sponsor with existing residential Through-The Fence access will be required to develop an access plan which describes the measures that the sponsor has adopted to mitigate existing and potential problems associated with these agreements.
A more detailed report on the Residential Through-the-Fence story is published in this Winter Edition of Tuolumne County Aviation News.
Tuolumne County Airports Advisory Committee Meeting Report
By Joe De Nunzio