Talkeetna Community Council decides on special community airport mtg

The Talkeetna Community Council spent over an hour Monday evening discussing the latest Talkeetna Airport Improvements project news.

The council board members received a postmarked package on March 28^th with Plans-in-Hand documents from DOT stating a review meeting was planned for April 8^th in Anchorage and public comments were due April 6^th.

Reaction at the meeting ranged from anger that a meeting about the Talkeetna Airport would be held in Anchorage, to astonishment that the public was only given one week to comment on such a large and in-depth document to general approval of the project itself.

 The Department of Transportation’s Airport Improvement Project has been an on-again off-again project for years.  An environmental assessment was completed in 1995, then a master plan for the airport came out in 1997, another draft environmental assessment was completed in 1998.  Assessments were completed again in 2000 with another Master Plan in 2001.

Another assessment was done in 2006 and 2007 with a finding of no significant impact after a large amount of contention and public comment from all sides.  Since that time, residents were told that Talkeetna would continue to be put on the back burner as more remote projects took priority. Deteriorating airports in areas only accessible by air have taken the lion’s share of the state and federal funding. 

After listening to much public comment Monday night, the board in the end, voted unanimously to send a message to DOT officials asking for an extension of the comment period and to expeditiously hold a community wide meeting on the subject inviting DOT officials to attend.

The official DOT Meeting is scheduled in Anchorage on Wednesday at 4111 Aviation Avenue. The Talkeetna meeting is scheduled for Monday, April 13^th at the Talkeetna Elementary at 7 pm.

We apologize for the incorrect times on the noon report.