Carson City Airport Authority moving forward on strategic, master plans

The Airport Authority on Wednesday approved drafts of both its strategic plan and master plan.

The master plan, funded by a grant received in 2017 and conducted by Coffman Associates, includes the airport’s layout plan and a technical report on adding nighttime operations to the facility.

“This is an absolutely fantastic piece of work,” said Michael Golden, chair.

The master plan goes to the Board of Supervisors next month for a resolution and then is submitted to the Federal Aviation Administration, which would have to approve the plan for the nighttime operations.

The master plan item followed a lengthy and sometimes contentious discussion of the airport’s strategic plan.

The discussion mostly concerned whether to approve the draft and move on to setting priorities for the annual work plan or to give the strategic plan one more round of comments from the authority.

Golden suggested members send further comments on the draft to Ken Moen, airport manager, before bringing the plan back next month for final approval.

“I am disappointed we are not going to vote on this today. We’ve already reviewed it and I’ve already provided my comments,” said Bradley Harris, vice chair. “We have a work plan we need to do.”

The work plan will set the priorities laid out in the strategic plan, which lists a number of tasks in areas such as economic activity, financial stability, and safety and security.

In the end, the authority approved the strategic plan and directed the airport manager to work on developing priorities for the next fiscal year.

Golden, who took over as airport authority chair, started the meeting by saying the authority’s focus needs to be on increasing the customer base at the airport.

“I just wanted to set that forward,” said Golden. “That’s going to be my focus and I’ve spoken to Ken and that’s going to be his focus, too.”