By Per Peterson
Tracy City Administrator Kris Ambuel on Monday informed the Tracy City Council that the only way new facilities can be constructed at the Tracy Municipal Airport would be to vacate one of the three runways.
“There are a few (Federal Aviation Administration) regulations that we don’t meet, and once you start making improvements, you have to meet those,” Ambuehl said. “Plus, the FAA would like to make all the airports safer.”
All of the FAA’s plans for the airport require eliminating a runway because of line-of-sight issues, Ambuehl said.
“With the current location of the A/D building, a line of sight actually goes right through our current building,” said Public Works Director and Airport Commission member Shane Daniels. “The way it’s sitting right now, the runway is not in compliance with the FAA.”
Ambuehl said, in a nutshell, if the City of Tracy wants any financial help from the FAA to expand the airport in the future, the runway in question would have to be abandoned.
“That’s a real simple way of putting it,” Ambuehl said. “We’ll still get our $150,000 every year, but we won’t get anything additional.”
The airport has three runways: the primary asphalt runway, and two grass runways. The asphalt runway would remain open, along with the most favorable grass runway.
See this week’s Headlight Herald for more on this article.