(Milford)– The Milford Airport Commission voted during a noon meeting today (Wed.) to form a working committee that will decide whether or not the commission should recommend moving forward with another study into the city’s airport. Commission Chairman Chris Stein tells KUOO news any additional study would be an offshoot to others that have been done…
“Well we had worked with a group, HDR, about doing a two phase airport study. We did phase one of that and that was regards to traffic and demand over the next 20 years. The second part of that scope, we want to make sure if we vote to proceed with it, that it still answers the questions that we’re trying to answer. So to refine that scope a little bit we’ll form a small work group with a couple of members of the Airport Board and a couple of members from the council and some from the public and try to figure out what the study scope should be, and going forward with that then I think there will be support to support that part of the study.”
Stein says it’s important to him that if an additional study is done, it doesn’t repeat the findings of those previous efforts…
“There’s one done by the Spirit of Okoboji, there’s been one done recently with economic impact by the state, and we did phase one of the study regarding to current and future air traffic in the area. We don’t want to just be doing studies to do studies. We want to make sure they’re providing some kind of benefit, so before we proceeded with another study I wanted to get the groups together and make sure that we were answering, that the study would be beneficial.”
Stein says it isn’t certain how long it will take to get the subgroup put together and when the members could meet.
The issue surrounding the future of the airport again came to the forefront at Monday’s Milford City Council meeting when representatives of a committee from the Spirit Of Okoboji again expressed interest in the organization acquiring the airport for a 53-unit housing development. The latest proposal would also have the organization donating 25 acres of land to the Okoboji Community School District for a new elementary school.
