Here is the transcribed townhall meeting with speaker names added based on the context provided. [0:00] [Music] [1:28] [Music] [1:58] [Music] [2:32] [Music] [3:20] **Chair**: We... I won't be here again, again, yeah. All right, we'll take a short break while we get some technology worked out. All right. All right, so is anybody else online? And we now have a quorum. Um, we'll start with um, Donovan Palmquist. Would you like to introduce yourself? [4:12] **Donovan Palmquist**: Can you hear me? [4:12] **Chair**: Uh, yes we can hear you. Uh, yes we can hear you. Uh... yes. So, Jennifer, be their voice, has come through the up there? Yeah, they should be coming through. I thought I heard it for a second. Well, I... yeah, I... so no, you leave—you’re muted. It’s not coming through here. It’s these people—like they have to unmute, and he did. Okay, but we couldn't hear him. Okay. Jennifer, maybe it would be easier if you just told us who's online and where they're from. Thank you. [5:10] **Jennifer Lewis**: I will. Um, we do have Donovan Palmquist from Eureka Township, Aaron Labry from Dakota County. We also have Christopher Gardner, I believe, from MnDOT. I also see Nick Mazze and Kyle Fisher in. [5:10] **Chair**: Thank you very much. And then we'll go around the dais here and uh, let's start down with the distinguished gent—oh boy. [5:10] **Pat Moran**: I’m Pat Moran. I’m um, a hanger owner and a pilot, and I'm also the RAC representative for the Air Lake Airport. [5:10] **Adam Forsberg**: Adam Forsberg with Aloft Aviation. [5:10] **Steve Garter**: Steve Garter. I’m also a pilot and hanger owner at Lakeville. [5:10] **John Bermel**: John Bermel, I'm a Lakeville City Councilmember. [5:10] **Tom Fitz Henry**: Tom Fitz Henry, I'm a user at the airport and represent Civil Air Patrol. [5:10] **Tina Goodroad**: Tina Goodroad, Community Development Director, City of Lakeville. [5:57] **Dan Wolter**: Dan Wolter, own a hanger and an airplane at Lakeville. [5:57] **Chair**: All right, you guys don't want to introduce yourselves? [5:57] **Sam Seefeld**: Hi, uh, Sam Seefeld, MAC Airport Manager at Lakeville or Air Lake. [5:57] **Jennifer Lewis**: And I'm Jennifer Lewis, I am the MAC’s Community Relations Coordinator. [5:57] **Ryan Ziegler**: I'm Ryan Ziegler, the recording secretary for the meeting. [5:57] **Chair**: Wonderful, thank you. Welcome everybody, and welcome to this meeting. Uh, next item on the agenda: agenda discussion. Uh, committee members, is there—are there any agenda items um, or any other changes that you'd like to propose for your agenda today? [6:44] **Dan Wolter**: Not for me. [6:44] **Chair**: Okay. [6:44] **Steve Garter**: I'll make a motion to approve the agenda. [6:44] **Chair**: Uh, do we have a second? [6:44] **Pat Moran**: Second. [6:44] **Chair**: All right, so we have a motion and a second to approve the agenda. All in favor say aye. (Chorus of Ayes). Is anyone opposed? All right, the agenda is good to go. Uh, consent agenda items: remember these are not individual items we'll vote on, we'll vote on these as a package. Um, so members, is there any of the—either of these agenda consent items that you would like to pull for further discussion? Okay, so hearing none, I'll take a motion to approve the consent agenda. [7:30] **Steve Garter**: Motion to approve. [7:30] **Pat Moran**: Second. [7:30] **Chair**: You have a motion and a second. Uh, any further discussion? All right, everyone in favor say aye. (Chorus of Ayes). Anyone opposed? Right, now is the time that we open up uh, the uh, meeting for public comment. [7:30] **Ryan Ziegler**: Chair? Yes, I'm sorry. Before we proceed, who made the motion? [7:30] **Steve Garter**: Steve Garter. [7:30] **Ryan Ziegler**: Thank you. And who seconded it? [7:30] **Pat Moran**: Moran did. [7:30] **Ryan Ziegler**: All right, good to go. Good to go. [8:20] **Chair**: All right. Uh, so public comment. This is the time that we allow uh, the public to make a comment. Uh, if you do make a comment, come on up to the uh, the podium here and uh, please keep the comment to three minutes or less. Is there anyone that would like to make a comment? Anyone online? And with anybody online, it might be a good idea if they type in the chat being that we have some technical difficulties. Yeah, right. You seen anyone expressing a desire to make a comment? Okay. Next item: information items. Uh, first one: Airport 101, the value of the airport in the community. That's Jennifer and Sam. [9:09] **Jennifer Lewis**: Thank you, Mr. Chair. Uh, once again I'm Jennifer Lewis. I am the MAC’s Community Relations Coordinator, and I and Sam Seefeld are here today to share with you some of the—some of the core elements of aviation and Air Lake Airport and the many reasons that Air Lake Airport is a valuable piece of the community. We will touch on these four topics: I will cover the aviation basics, and then Sam will take over with local aviation overview and the anatomy of Air Lake Airport, and then I'll be back with you to talk about the community engagement aspects. Very first thing is aviation basics. This is—this is foundational information that will hopefully be helpful during some of the communications and discussion items that we have um, in these particular meetings. [9:55] We already know that there's been a lot of questions and some um, confusion at times about how things fit together at the airport and and some of the just the understood underlying mechanisms and framework that um, they're not negotiable at the airport. And so these basics are going to help build that foundation just to hopefully um, shed a little bit more understanding for folks who really aren't that acquainted with aviation. First of all, everybody speaks English in aviation. It is the universal language um, across the globe. So um, we don't have—pilots don't have to um, pick up a whole bunch of different languages to fly from country to country. Everybody has agreed that English will be the the language used. [10:43] And there's also a time clock that's also universal and it's GMT and UTC time. Um, it's what time it is all over the world. There are adjustments to get to your local time zone, but pilots will always use the universal clock um, because you can imagine if you say "I'm taking off at 9:00 a.m. and I'm landing at 10:00 a.m.," is that... which time zone? So instead of um, having to convert to time zones, pilots use um, what we call the Zulu time. That's what we basically call it. [11:28] The Federal Aviation Administration has sole jurisdiction over aviation in the United States. Other countries of course have their own um, rules, but in the US, everything—um, pilots, airspace, flight procedures, airplanes, airports—all all regulated by the Federal Aviation Administration. And each airport has a unique code. The code for Air Lake Airport is—it starts with a K. Um, airports within the contiguous US, the code always starts with a K. So it's basically understood, and so we—when we're talking locally, most of the time we just use the three-letter code, and for Air Lake, it's LVN. So the full code is KLVN, and we drop the K for that reason of being understood. So we just call it LVN, and that's why in a lot of our materials that we share about the airport, we will use that three-letter code LVN. [12:15] Airspace is public in the United States except where it is protected or restricted again um, by the FAA. You have certain airspaces that are going to be protected and and no-fly zones for general aviation, but airspace over Air Lake Airport—it is public airspace and it is used by many different aircraft operators that come and go to many different airports. The regulators, as I said before um, FAA um, in the US, the FAA reports to the US Department of Transportation and they report to Congress. So um, in the state of Minnesota, we also have some rules we have to abide by and um, some of those rules have to be coordinated with the FAA, but also with the MAC. [13:49] And the MAC doesn't own all airports in the U—in the state of Minnesota, but the MAC does own seven of them. Even though we own seven airports and they're all within the Twin Cities area, the MAC has a Board of Commissioners that were appointed by the Governor of Minnesota to serve and represent the entire state. So we have seven airports in the Twin Cities area, but the the air—the actual MAC Commissioners, their representation goes outstate as well, not just the Twin Cities area. And Sam is the local ruler—he's the manager of of Air Lake Airport, Crystal Airport as well, but we're going to focus on Air Lake today. [14:35] If we look at the big picture of aviation, the number of airports—the number of public-use airports has been going down. What you see on the chart here is that we did have 5,589 uh, public airports in uh, 1990, and that number is now 5,082. We also show in blue—the blue columns represent the number of private airports, and that number um, it—it's just gone down slightly in the past couple of years, but um, there are actually numbers for every single one of these years, but we just were focusing on the past couple of years and then the data that we have just goes back to 1990. So this is a snapshot of um, what the number of airports has been over time. [15:22] General aviation aircraft types: right now the FAA is reporting that there's about 10,000 um, registered rotorcraft, which is a helicopter; uh, fixed-wing aircraft, 167,000; and light aircraft, which includes some experimental aircraft, and that's 34,200. Who are the stakeholders at the MAC airports and and aviation in general? These are the major stakeholders: aircraft operators; airport tenants; communities, whether they're surrounding the airport or not—community means everything, including airports and businesses on and off the airport are also part of that community. Regulators, because there's a lot of different types of regulation, a lot of layers of regulation. And the process for either changing a regulation um, or I would say proposing new regulation, it's a very long process because there are so many different layers and so many different regulators that—that get involved in those things. Aviation consumers, that's basically everyone. I don't know anybody today that can live without aviation in some form or another; we've just as a society become so dependent upon aviation. And then airport owners like the MAC, we are also a stakeholder. [17:33] What is the value? In 2023, the FAA estimates the value of aviation in the US to be represented by 26 million flight hours—general aviation flight hours. I'm not quite sure how they calculate that, but the FAA puts out a report, it's called "By the Numbers," and that report does show that in uh, fiscal year uh, 2024, which basically was, you know, calculating everything that happened in 2023, it totals 26 million flight hours. The share of GDP that aviation represents is 5.2%. And then annual earnings from aviation is $488 billion—that was in 2023. US jobs generated from aviation: 11 million. So these are, you know, pretty significant numbers. Um, we at the MAC also calculate um, you know, the value of aviation in our system, which we'll get into a little bit later. But this is the big picture for 2023 for aviation in the US. Now we're going to talk about the local aspect of aviation, and Sam's going to take over from here. [19:08] **Sam Seefeld**: Thank you, Jennifer. Everybody, uh, Sam Seefeld again, Airport Manager. And so we're just kind of narrowing down from the big picture down to our uh, little picture. Uh, so local aviation overview: there are 132 public airports in Minnesota, um, and the MAC owns and operates Minneapolis International as our commercial aviation airport, as well as a system of six general aviation airports, if you didn't already know that, um, with Air Lake included. Uh, we also have Anoka County-Blaine Airport, Flying Cloud Airport in Eden Prairie, Crystal Airport, Downtown St. Paul, and Lake Elmo. Um, we all—except for an exception of St. Paul which had a—a justified need for a longer runway, about a 6,500-foot runway—uh, we're all mandated to by the state law to uh, restrict the—the length to 5,000 feet for our airports. Uh, Air Lake Airport is established as a reliever airport to enhance and support uh, the aviation system and reduce congestion at Minneapolis. That was a primary reason of the—the entire reliever airport system there. [20:11] And so uh, just an overview of the Metropolitan Airports Commission board. Uh, we do have um, eight districts, each district having a representative on the MAC commission. There's four outstate representatives from Thief River Falls, Duluth, St. Cloud, and Rochester appointed to the board as well. And then Minneapolis and St. Paul each have a—a mayor-appointed board member as well as a chair appointed by the Governor. Uh, that creates the 15-member board that meets once a month uh, with a couple other committee meetings on off-weeks as well. [20:58] And then moving on—oops. So we have an excerpt here from a sectional chart, which is an aeronautical chart that pilots um, have to use in order to properly and safely navigate the national airspace system. Uh, there's a—a lot of information on here which um, you know, pilots are able to read more effectively after they go through the proper training. But um, after a while it becomes second nature to look at a chart and look exactly at what you need and find the information you need based off any combination of symbols, lines of different colors, circles you know, um, and—and—and different abbreviations of numbers to tell you the information that you need. Um, basically the point we wanted to make here is that flying in a congested airspace like this is a—a difficult thing to do, and pilots have to receive the proper training in order to do it. And I guess from the surface up to where you need to go, whatever altitude or whatever direction you're going, you're—you have pilots that are looking up the information they need, tuning in frequencies, and talking to different controllers and talking to each other in order to safely navigate the system. [22:33] Um, um, they're able to find the airspace that they're in, and each airspace has different requirements. Jennifer spoke about it earlier—there's some protected airspaces and there's unprotected airspaces. But um, you're able to find what you need and avoid obstacles, know field elevations, and most of everything you need from charts like these. There actually is a—a more zoomed-in chart that pilots can use, uh, called the terminal area chart, in the bigger metropolitan areas around the—the country. But most pilots around the country come to be familiar with these sectional charts, which are wide multi-state areas. Um, also on these charts you'll see that there's different uh, yellow blobs around the area, and those are the lit areas that you'd see at night, as well as a lot of different landmarks and geographical features that help a pilot navigate to and from whichever airport they're going to. [23:34] Okay, so we have some uh, a couple pictures: 1970, the Air Lake Industrial Park, and then basically a 2024 picture of the same place showing the um, increase in industry and the increase in buildings at the airport along with the surrounding area. So it's just—just uh, a nice little reminder of where we were to where we are now. Here is uh, just the last couple years of development specifically at the airport. And maybe uh, also important to note on the east side of Cedar Avenue, a few other industry buildings that went up. And if you pay attention to the south side of the airport, we can see our development going on in the south, and then here is 2022. [24:20] Um, moving on, the rules. So uh, we've talked about the Federal Aviation Regulations and um, basically the—the—the FARs are there to apply to all flight operations in the US, and those are mandated and enforced by the FAA, the Federal Aviation Administration. Uh, MAC airports are open for public use 24 hours per day. Um, we don't always see operations happening in the middle of the night, but when we do, uh, they are perfectly legal. Um, pilots can arrive and depart using any FAA-certificated aircraft type. And the traffic pattern at Air Lake is 1,000 feet above the ground, and uh, just a note that requirement doesn't apply to aircraft uh, on approach or to landing or during the takeoff, so they'll be lower during those times. [25:53] And there's also minimum safe altitudes published as part of the Federal Aviation Regulations as well. Um, and then noise abatement practices, or noise abatement best practices at MAC airports, are completely voluntary. Um, that's where you see—hopefully pilots around the system are uh, paying attention to those noise abatement procedures, and we may see different—around the system, different complaints, but for the most part, if they're following the noise abatement practices, there could still be some homeowners or residents that could be irritated by some of the aircraft noise, but it's just a common fact around airports. And then wind direction are used uh, to help determine which runway to use. Aircraft always want to try to take off and land into a headwind, or whichever runway would be most suitable for the most amount of headwind. There's a picture of our local Air Lake windsock, which we try to replace uh, at least once a year so it doesn't get faded by the sun. [26:39] Okay, moving into anatomy of the airport. And while we're talking about the wind, um, the—the runway designator as well is based off the magnetic direction that the aircraft is pointed. So for the non-pilots that listen to these—in on these meetings throughout the year—when we're talking about different runways, um, it's—it's basically talking about the direction that they're using for takeoff or landing. And then we have a—an automated weather observation system that also reports the wind and velocity in a magnetic direction to help pilots choose that suitable runway. Um, and then just for specifically Runway 12-30 at Air Lake: 4,999 feet long by 75 feet wide, and uh, it's that northwest-southeast alignment that we see. And a lot of times we just talk about north and south side of the—the runway like that and just the east-west flow, but um, it is a northwest and southeast alignment. [28:10] And then uh, moving on, the Runway 30 end, which as your aircraft pointed in that 300 magnetic heading, that is our calm wind designated runway. And then some other things about the Air Lake Airport basic features: uh, most airports do have an FBO; ours is the uh, Aloft Aviation, um, also known as Aircraft Resource Center. And they're there to provide all the basic common services for—for pilots and aircraft owners: uh, things like aircraft flight training, rental, um, aircraft maintenance, fuel provider as well, and pilot supplies, and—and sometimes charter as well. And then our hanger area: we have uh, about a hundred and—I'm looking it up here—about 106 uh, building leases at the airport with about 130 based aircraft. And basically um, the MAC is there to make sure our aircraft tenants or hanger tenants have access to the aircraft at all times. And uh, aside from this one storm we had at the beginning of March, we've been able to maintain everything open um, as much as possible. We were, however, closed for about 14 hours during that last storm, just unable to keep up with the inch and a half um, per hour of snow that we were getting. [29:45] But um, most of those aircraft hanger storage buildings are um, just that: they're just for aircraft storage and incidentally anything else that a hanger owner could put in that hanger without impeding the movement of that aircraft in or out. Um, weather monitoring: our southside weather station is our AWOS, Automated Weather Observation System, and uh, pilots usually use that before taking off and when approaching the airport to get the pressure, altitude, wind, wind velocity, ceiling, visibility—all the important information and data that you need to safely operate that aircraft. [30:30] Okay, moving on. These are some aircraft types that we commonly see—most commonly see at Air Lake. Um, and that's—it comes out to be about 95% of just small piston propeller aircraft, but we do have other aircraft that we see um, as well, including a couple jet operations um, or a few jet operations per week, uh, as well as some twin-engine uh, transient aircraft here and there, and flight training, some helicopters, and some turboprop aircraft. [31:20] Moving forward, some of the technical systems at the Air Lake Airport I want to talk about include the lighting and uh, navigational aids that we have as a benefit at the Air Lake Airport. Um, these are information that pilots uh—or pilots need to look up this information. They're able to look up in chart supplements, uh, specifically this Airport and Facilities Directory, and they're able to get information they need on how to tune and properly navigate to the different navaids and—and what type of lighting we have at the airport. [31:20] First of all, uh, we'd like to pause here and allow for this video to play, which was um, provided by Tom Fitz Henry and Al Alwin. So this is an approach to Runway 30. And one thing to pay attention to—which I'll talk about here in a little bit—you have the approach light system there with—you can see it's commonly referred to as REIL lights that guide you toward the runway. Off to the right you see a green and white light—that's our airport beacon that is constantly rotating throughout the night. You can see the green threshold lights to help identify the beginning of the runway. The white runway edge lights which are red as you—nearing the end of the runway, they transition to red. The set of four PAPI lights, which is our Precision Approach Path Indicator, off to the right side of the runway to help the pilot come in on a nice glide path. There's the orange windsock to the left, and you see those blue lights to the right and left—those are taxiway lights to help the pilots identify which surface they're on. Does anybody want to watch the video again? Um, nice smooth landing by Captain Fitz Henry... sorry, Colonel Fitz Henry. [33:34] Okay, moving forward. I mentioned the PAPI, which um, you know, acronyms in aviation are so common that we sometimes forget what—what the acronyms stand for. But uh, moving forward: Precision Approach Path Indicator lights. They're for Runway 12—they're off on the left side as the pilots are approaching—and for Runway 30, they're off on the right side of the runway. And uh, they're an additional, I guess, visual navigation tool for pilots to help come in on an—an appropriate glide path. All red means you're too low—and you can see I'm on the ground there so they're all red—and if you're too high, they're all white. [34:21] The REIL lights, which we've had an issue with for a long time at Air Lake for Runway 12, we actually replaced these last summer, so they're brand new and now we're going through a warranty claim on them uh, to try to get those working. But—but yeah, REIL: Runway End Identifier Lights. They're in a a well-lit area of the city. They're there to help assist the pilots find the beginning of the—the runway that they're wanting to land on. Okay, we have an airport beacon. This is uh, an older old-fashioned beacon that's still a big incandescent light up there, um, but yeah, it spins all night long when it's dark, and one side of it has a green lens on it that gives you the green and the white to help pilots identify initially where the airport is that they're looking for and then find the runway environment from there. Um, it's also to help confirm to them that they're landing at a um, a civilian airport. A military airport would have uh, a second white light in there. And then um, there's different colors for sea—seaplane bases and uh, heliports. But uh, specifically for Air Lake, if you've ever wondered why there's a green and the white light uh, spinning around, that's to help the pilots navigate to the airport. [35:55] So something very nice about the Air Lake Airport is we do have four different instrument approach procedures, and that—those help pilots uh, on a basic level just during flight training to help keep—or pilots can gain their instrument rating by flying to Air Lake and uh, and flying these approaches. And then in periods of inclement weather, they can use these instrument approach procedure charts to help navigate down to a safe landing when there's low clouds or low visibility. Um, it's a benefit to be able to have an airport like Air Lake that has a—what's called an ILS, Instrument Landing System. It's a precision approach, and the precision approaches help the aircraft descend down lower than some of the GPS non-precision approaches, or I'll talk about—I'll show you a picture of a VOR as well. Um, the—those approaches bring you down as well in inclement weather, but at a higher minimum descent altitude compared to a precision approach, which bring the aircraft down to about 200 feet above the ground. [37:28] Here's the ILS. Uh, a couple of components there are the localizer, which for Runway—ILS Runway 30, the localizer is actually on the opposite side of the airport pointing down the runway and into the Final Approach path. And it just uh, the the different uh, I guess uh, radio waves that go out, those uh, balance in the airplane's um, instrumentation, and the pilots are able to line up hopefully right on center line when coming in for the ILS. And then there on the left is the glide slope, and it's the same concept—it's helping pilots while they're in the clouds with no visual—visual of the runway come down on a nice glide path toward the landing surface. You might hear us talk about MALSF, and those are the approach lights that you saw on Tom's flight. And uh, I love this acronym: it's the Medium Intensity Approach Light System with Runway Alignment Indicator lights. But you can just call it a MALSF. And those—all these ILS components are owned, operated, and maintained by the FAA. Okay, about 2 miles east of the Air Lake Airport in uh, field, we have another antenna owned and maintained by the FAA, which is the VOR, a Very High Frequency Omnidirectional Range. And that's the main navigational tool used for the VOR approach, which is a non-precision approach at the Air Lake Airport. Okay, and Jennifer will take over from there. [38:50] **Jennifer Lewis**: Thank you. So all of these pieces are connected. They are all important pieces of accessibility to the airport. The MAC does um, take very seriously the ownership of the airport and all of the facilities um, that we're responsible for to keep it safe. And that's, you know, Sam's job is to make sure that the airport is accessible because it is a very important transportation asset for the community, but for the aviation network as well. It connects Air Lake Airport with basically the rest of the world. Um, there's a lot of training that takes place at the airport—not just flight training, but there's other types of training. Um, people are learning skills there um, maybe they're aviation-related skills, maybe they're not, but their—the airport has many different types of businesses and education opportunities that take place. [40:22] Um, there's also jobs. We talked about some of the—the global job um, impact of aviation, but the local job impact is also important, and we'll talk about those numbers in just a minute. Access to services and resources: a very important piece of the role of Air Lake Airport. I don't—know if you remember as this group, but we did recognize um, an aircraft operator who was able to come in and land at the airport for a medical flight in inclement weather. Um, that—that flight did rely on the—the tools, the navigation tools, and the lighting systems um, that Sam was just talking about. But then MAC also um, was able to keep the runway clear and open for that operator to get to the airport and get that patient to where that patient needed to be. So we think about all of the different services that the airport provides, but there's so many different ones that we're even not quite aware of—we'll talk about a couple of those later. [41:11] And then events: I think many of you are aware of the events that take place at the airport. We have um, flying breakfasts, we have uh, Pan-O-Prog, we have other types of um, gatherings at the airport where folks can use the airport as a gathering space, but also they can um, have a gateway to aviation and learn about aviation and have that exposure to the airport and aircraft and all that aviation has to offer. So let's talk about a couple of those specifically. We have an aircraft viewing area that is um, a space that is open all the time. We have folks there that will just hang out and watch airplanes or conduct, maybe, you know, a couple, you know, personal meetings, maybe a picnic or lunchtime or something like that. But it is a space that is always available. It is actually on the—on the very sort of northwestern um, access area of the airport. [41:57] We have events like um, what you see in the middle picture on the top row—that is um, Pan-O-Prog taking place and um, where you can learn about how aviation is used. In this particular picture, that's the Sheriff operating. They do um, land and take off here at the airport. But we also have um, medical operators, we have um, mosquito control, and we have some other um, services that are provided by helicopter as well as helicopter training. Um, every pilot has to receive training somewhere. So um, the fact that, you know, this airport does have the opportunities for training is—is very important, not just um, for pilot education, but as um, community—um, to enhance and strengthen the community opportunities. [43:30] We have some farmland, and that's what you're—you're seeing in the upper right um, corner there. Um, the MAC owns the airport and the land, but we also lease it out. Um, in this particular case, we're leasing it to a farmer. It is a non-aeronautical use, but it's still very valuable land, and we are um, helping the community benefit from that by letting it be farmed. Um, in the background of that picture you'll see hangers. Um, lots of different types of activity are taking place, but each one of those hangers has some um, tie to aviation, whether it's a—a based aircraft parked there or whether that's a facility that can be used by a visiting aircraft um, for some reason. [44:17] In the lower left corner you'll see um, another picture of Pan-O-Prog, and in the picture you'll see it's kind of a unique-looking aircraft. Um, aviation has a very rich history in this area, but in the entire Twin Cities, and so celebrating that um, keeps us connected with where we've been—um, not just in aviation, but how aviation has helped us get to where we are right now as a society. In the middle picture there, it's um, just an aircraft that is operating um, using the airport and um, it's not significant in any way other than it is a—we don't see a lot of twin-engine activity here at the airport, but we do embrace all aviation. Any pilot that's able to use the airport for whatever purpose they need to use it for um, as long as they determine that this airport can provide what they need in terms of landing surface and takeoff surface and parking area um, our airport is open to them. And the picture in the—in the lower right is just—just a reminder that airplanes come here and they go. They come and go from the airport. They are coming from somewhere and they are going to somewhere. And there's a lot uh, of value in being able to have the freedom uh, to come and go wherever you need to, because as you know, commercial service is not available at every airport and it isn't always convenient um, for, you know, getting people to where they need to go. [45:48] Here are the numbers for Air Lake Airport, and I will fully acknowledge we're not quite there yet with our updated numbers. So the um, numbers you're seeing there are about a year old. Um, the economic value is 13.2 million for Air Lake Airport. We had um—this—this chart says about 38,000 operations, but we actually know in 2024 we—um, we had 20—we had 42,000 operations. We've got equipment based on the airfield, we've got 139 based aircraft, and the annual operating revenue is $431,000. And um, if you're interested in the number of lights we've got on the airfield, there's a count of those there at 212. I will also point out um, some services that—there—it's in small print here and it was, you know, the logos appeared on the previous chart, but I can't say enough about sort of the—I'll say it's a little obscure, but Civil Air Patrol is a high service provider that does benefit not just this airport in this community, but everywhere. Um, they—they provide a very valuable service. And um, EAA also provides a very valuable service um, flying young people and training uh, and um, sorry, networking and mentoring young folks. They have a Young—Young Eagles program that introduces people to aviation if they would, you know, don't have any other opportunity to do so. EAA welcomes them and embraces the opportunity, but they also encourage young people to continue that on. [47:23] One more thing that the MAC does to promote general aviation throughout our uh, system, including Air Lake Airport, is to show um—this is a very high-level overview of general aviation at MAC airports, but we created a video a couple years ago. It's about three minutes or so long. I'm not going to share it with you today, but I am going to tell you it is available on YouTube. It is also available on the MAC’s website, but it is a—a very, very broad um, explanation of general aviation. And I offer that to you to take back to your communities um, to, you know, share that for anyone who has a question about what's the mystery of general aviation. This video is a great tool. Of course, we are recording this—this meeting today and you may also share that, but we've been talking for about 30 minutes and this is a three-minute video, so you might want to go for the shorter version at this point. Sam and I are both happy to answer questions. [48:08] **Chair**: Wonderful. Anybody have any questions for Jennifer and Sam? That was a great report, thank you. It's uh, very informative. Well, next on the agenda is the Lakeville CTAF frequency change update from Sam. [48:57] **Sam Seefeld**: Okay. Well, just as an overview on what got us to this point: uh, it was in, I believe, September that this group uh, requested through a vote uh, that we look into changing the frequency um, due to unsafe conditions out there in the traffic pattern with the current frequency that uh, Air Lake shares with about four other airports uh, within earshot. Uh, FCC applications were submitted in October. FCC approved a frequency change to 122.975 on January 1st of this year. How we came up with 122.975 was based off of a—a survey of all the airport CTAFs within 100 miles, and what we found was 123.075 was by far the best frequency—it didn't share any airports within 100 miles. Um, but at the same time, Lake Elmo Airport was going through the process as well, and they um—the second-best frequency, I should say this: first was the 122.975. So we had a top frequency to pick from which was not shared by anybody, and then a second-best which was shared by only New Richmond in the 75-mile radius. And uh, being that Lake Elmo was by far a lot closer to New Richmond than—than—than Air Lake, um, they—they took the 123.075, and then we went with the—the second-best option, which in our viewpoint at the time was the second-best option. [50:30] So we put those applications through. FCC approved January 1st; FAA approved on January 6th. The changed on February 20th. Um, so following this uh, the New Richmond Airport did put out a um, a request that we revisit and re-evaluate. In their opinion, we would not see an improvement being that both airports have a lot of based aircraft and are busy. Um, at that time, our evaluations were that, yes, they—they do have a lot of based aircraft; they weren't uh, by far as busy as Air Lake, and that we would benefit from a decrease in congestion with this frequency. Um, but being that they—New Richmond—did raise a concern, we wanted to do our due diligence and and not just make the change just because, but um, satisfy our neighboring airport's concern that this could decrease safety instead of the overall goal, was to make things better and not worse. [52:02] So um, that's what we've done. We've paused. We've submitted uh, communication to the FAA and the FCC that we'd like to hold on on moving forward, and—and that's what we're doing at this point. Some other options that could be a good decision: we do have another—the third-best option was uh, 123.5, which is shared by Red Wing and the helipad at the Mayo Clinic. Um, but Red Wing is also a busy airport with lots of aircraft. So we're just trying to make the best decision with all available information before moving forward with this change. We know it's not a—if the option uh, for a different frequency comes up in the future that we can always make this change again, but it—we don't want to just do knee-jerk reactions and change the frequency all the time. We want to find the best frequency that we can have for the long term. So um, that's the update. The last time I updated this group was just that we were submitting the uh, application to the FCC, but now we've had a lot of updates since then. So just wanted to keep everybody in the loop on that. We are still on 123.0 for the time being. So if you have any questions on the process there, I can answer that. [52:50] **Chair**: Right, thank you Sam. Any questions for Sam? All right, we are moving through this. Our next item is uh, Lakeville housing and population growth given by Tina Goodroad. [53:37] **Tina Goodroad**: I'm going to go through an annual report that we do every year um, based on—put together by our Economic Development Department, um, give you a good idea of what's been happening in Lakeville over the past year. Um, we've had a lot of activity as you can see as you drive through town. Um, building permit valuation totaled over $257 million. Um, you can see how that compares to previous years. Um, it has slowed down a little bit; our peak was um, definitely during the COVID years when we had such a huge residential boom. Um, some of our largest projects you can see happened in the industrial area with the Sweet Harvest Foods building. Um, private sector invested over $75.1 million into commercial and industrial development alone, not including residential. Um, the Sweet Harvest Foods building in the previous year, and then the RL Cold Storage which is just behind the Sweet Harvest Foods building, came in with the largest building permit valuation of $32 million. And then you can see the other ones below. Um, each of these are kind of scattered around um, different areas of the community. [54:23] Residential continues to be really hot in Lakeville. Um, we were number two in residential permit numbers—we had been number one for about 10 years. In 2023 we finished at number three, and in 2024 we bumped back up to number two just behind Woodbury. Um, so we remain um, consistently high with residential development. We completed the year with 285 single-family permits, 100 detached townhomes, 49 attached townhomes, and one apartment um, of 89 units. And that is um, the uh—the um, Historia um, condos up by the Hosanna um, church campus. Residential building permit valuation totaled $155.0 million. So—so that accounted for 60% of the over—overall building permit valuation, which is good. It's good to see a balance um, that not all of that revenue is coming from residential. Um, and again we rank number two in residential unit totals. Um, so the first was um, permit totals; in unit totals we ranked number two also just behind Minnetonka. [55:56] Median home value in Lakeville as of 2024 was $481,100. Number of households um, rose to 24,881, and we have an average household size of 2.9. The map behind this box represents where that residential activity is happening. So all those little red dots um, represent permits, residential permits that were issued across the city. And again the airport is to the south. We've had a lot of institutional development. Um, Antlers Park was the big one in 2023. Um, in 2024 um, with it opening, Grand Prairie Park off of 185th um, will—is under construction. If you've seen activity as you're driving down Cedar Avenue, um, this project received multiple building permits for different elements um, including um, the main park building, challenge course, covered grandstand, um, dugouts for the new baseball stadium, and pickleball courts. So many of these elements, including the splash pad, will open this—this year with the remaining open—um, everything being done in 2026. [56:42] We have a lot of business growth happening in Lakeville. Um, this slide I like—it just demonstrates all the different types of entities, both industrial, commercial, medical, that are um, have called Lakeville home over the past year. Medical continues to be a big investment um, in Lakeville. Um, there is—speak—several different specialty centers that are listed on the left side of your screen. Um, that includes Children's uh, Minnesota Specialty Center. Um, the Allina Health building opened last year. Um, we've had several chiropractic offices make Lakeville home, and then some expansion um, to some of our existing uses. We also have new dining options and a lot of new retail options. One of the things that we love to do in our department is celebrate new businesses. We do this in conjunction with the Lakeville Chamber. We attended 25 ribbon cuttings, so that just reflects the amount of activity going on in Lakeville. And we had three groundbreaking ceremonies. [57:29] Lakeville employs 21,852 people as of second quarter 2024. When we do our state of the city presentation, we'll have some updated numbers on this. Um, that equates to a 3.9% increase over 2023 count and a 31.4% increase in the last decade. So again, you can see that addition of all of the um, both industrial—a lot in the medical area—that's really driving that employment growth. And then it lists um, on this slide the top employers: Lakeville Public School District, Hy-Vee, Hearthside Food Solutions, BT manufacturer... some of the top um. Lakeville’s unemployment is also low um, at 2.4% compared to the county at 2.7 and the state at 2.9. And again these are numbers from end of 2024. [59:03] Um, it's probably one of my—my favorite slides; it really shows and demonstrates where all of that activity is happening. Um, so you can see in orange all the commercial permits—so this would be either new construction or additions, remodels um, at existing businesses um, as well as new construction. Um, the purple represents um, city activities, so any um, public facilities, and then the red represents any of the residential. So there really is activity scattered across the—the city. [59:50] One of the things that we do in our department is really promote Lakeville. Um, when we do that we do promote the airport as well. Um, we really try to do a lot of outreach to um, prospective business owners. Um, one way that we do that is reaching out to brokers. So we have a lot of activities take place um, at attending broker events. Um, we participate and plan a Southwest Suburban Summit that happens every May. Um, we sponsor Real Estate Journal activities and just try and get in front of folks um, to um, you know, advertise the amount of available land that we have. Um, we still have over 600 acres in the industrial park um, looking at opportunities to expand that. Um, so it's something that we spend a lot of time on um, in our positions. We did complete an economic development strategic plan; you can find this on our website. Um, this lays out the foundation of activities that we're going to be doing alongside our Economic Development Commission over the next four years. And one of the things that we're kicking off with that is a business retention and expansion program visits, which is basically um, a partnership with the Chamber um, and the city to um, complete um, business visits. And we're going to visit with industrial businesses as well as all of the non-industrial: so our medical, commercial, our hospitality, and so forth. And I think that's probably on this slide. So that's really our um, focus this year. Um, we'll be also um, looking at our downtown plan and doing some updates to that as well as an industry cluster analysis. Any questions? I know that was kind of quick. [1:01:24] **Chair**: Thank you. Any questions? Look like there's any questions. All right, thank you. You know, it's—it's remarkable how when we saw the uh, airport piece, we saw the economics of aviation, we see the growth happening in the community. And I—I'm grateful that we have an airport. Um, I think that's a—going to be a significant um, factor as—as we continue to grow. And then seen it as a community resource, too, in the events—I'm sure if Krista Jack were here she'd be um... they had some Chamber events out at the airport and it's been just a valuable partner. So we're grateful, thank you for that presentation. Um, airport manager update from Sam. [1:02:12] **Sam Seefeld**: Okay, I just have uh, about four things to write an update to. Um, the maintenance building office is uh, starting its renovation on April 14th—April 15th, sorry. Um, and basically that—that project consists of uh, almost an entire gut, a demo of the entire inside. They're going to replace three walls and replace the roof. Um, that's about a 60-day turnaround on that project. We don't have—because of that project, we don't have an early uh, tenant in Airport Use of Barbecue this year; it's now rescheduled for October. Uh, specifically October 6th at 4:30 p.m. before the snow flies. Um, Air Lake uh, Airport is—does have the 225th Street paving on the budget this year. Uh, the current status is that it's going out for uh, an RPZ alternatives analysis to the FAA—and that's another acronym, it’s the Runway Protection Zone. So that's basically the first step um, to review before obtaining any approval to do the work. And then the planning will start, and we'll talk about bidding after that, but that's the current status that we're in. [1:03:46] And then the other goals for this summer are just to continue the coordination and and communication with the FAA in order to—in order to get the environmental assessment started. We do have um, we—we—we have received some updates from our MAC Airport Development Group that uh, the team members there and the FAA are having um, some positive discussions as well as discussions with all four pipeline companies that have um, the the pipelines underneath the runway. So um, everything's kind of moving in a—a more positive direction than we've had over the last couple years. Um, but at that point, that's the only update I have for those projects. [1:04:33] **Chair**: Thanks Sam. Any questions? All right. Um, well that uh, takes care of item five. Item six is member announcements. Do we have any member announcements? Hearing none... Well I guess uh, just there’d be one um, oh July 6th is the Lakeville Lions are having the flying breakfast at the Air Lake Airport and um, I guess it's going to be very similar to last year. We are still working on the uh, uh, vintage aircraft that come in. But um, anyway that's coming. I know of um, the EAA is having a a flying breakfast at least currently scheduled for Father's Day. I don't know any details on that particular one, but um, that's best I know. They were considering moving it to Mother's Day, but I don't—I haven't heard any—anything uh, definitive on that at the moment. But um, yeah. [1:05:20] **Adam Forsberg**: Well, today we had a visit um—you’re not—you’re not muted. Today we had a visit from uh, Gary Black from Cirrus. And we're actually in the process of purchasing a Cirrus simulator and uh, adding a 10-day accelerated instrument course to the airport with a Cirrus simulator. So that's uh, would be very exciting. So it drive airport operations up, maybe we could beat Anoka. [1:05:20] **Adam Forsberg**: And then I do have one question for you, um, Sam. As you were aware, we had a—an aircraft uh, you know, that was—had a flat tire or whatever it was on the runway. Um, my suggestion to the MAC would be to maybe invest in an airplane skate. You know, we can possibly maintain it at the FBO, but that way when an aircraft is stranded on the runway, we have you know, better equipment to actually remove it. [1:06:07] **Sam Seefeld**: Okay, I can definitely look into the process involved there. [1:06:07] **Chair**: Any other member updates? Thank you. Thanks for those items. Uh, review the meeting schedule. Uh, we have our next meetings on June 26th, September 11th, November 20th. Uh, Jennifer, are we to assume that the location would be here or we gonna... [1:06:07] **Jennifer Lewis**: Yes, okay. We are planning to have the meetings here and I'll be coordinating with the city on those. [1:06:07] **Chair**: All right, thank you. Um, well uh, that ends the meeting. We are now adjourned. [1:07:01] [Music]