Delaying Skydiving May Put Airport Grants At Risk
The FAA has cleared one obstacle in a long-simmering dispute
between the City of Creswell, Oregon and Eugene Skydivers, saying
the city should allow the activity beginning September 1st on an
experimental basis. But the skydivers are still grounded because
the city says they have not provided the proper liability
insurance, and there is no safe drop zone at Hobby Airport in
Creswell.
As
ANN reported in June, skydivers had been
allowed to land at Hobby until 2006, when the city declared the
activity unsafe based in part on what it said was an FAA decision
that skydiving could not be conducted safely at the airport.
Recently, the FAA sent a letter to the city council saying the city
had to prove skydiving was an unsafe activity or risk losing
federal airport improvement grants for restricting an allowed
activity.
Now, the Creswell Chronicle reports that in a conference call
August 28th involving Mayor Bob Hooker, City Administrator Mark
Shrives, City Attorney Christy Monson and Federal Aviation
Administration officials Donna P. Taylor and Brad Pearson,the city
was told it was being reasonable in asking for liability insurance
from Eugene Skydivers or any skydiving company, but held to the
September 1st deadline of allowing a drop zone on airport property
on a trial basis. The call was precipitated in part by a YouTube video of an emergency City
Council meeting August 13th, in which the mayor and majority of the
council indicated they had hired their own consultant, had set an
October deadline, and that they would be following those
recommendations rather than those made by the FAA. The mayor and
more than one city council member called the FAA's timeline
"arbitrary", and accused the agency of "changing its rules" during
the process. The city attorney said the FAA was operating in a
"capricious" manor, and had not proved the need for the September
1st start to the trial.
At one point in the video, Eugene Skydivers Owner Urban Moore
tried to make a comment, but was told curtly by the Mayor that
there was no allowance for public comment during the emergency
session and that if he did not stop trying to speak, he would be
removed from the meeting.
At the meeting, the council agreed to send a "strongly worded"
letter to the FAA concerning the September 1st deadline, which went
out August 19th, according to the Chronicle. In it, the council
said in part "Over the course of the last 18 years, the city has
asked for and relied upon FAA advice which clearly and
unequivocally asserted that the city of Creswell did not have a
safe drop zone on airport property and that skydivers should be
prohibited from landing on airport property. Based on this
long-standing FAA advice regarding safety concerns, at no time were
skydivers ever permitted to land on airport property. However, in
April of 2008, your agency unexpectedly repudiated its past advice
and practices and now declines to issue an opinion regarding drop
zone safety or to provide the city with any workable safety
standards. Acting upon FAA's advice, the city then decided to hire
its own airport consultant to advise the city on drop zone safety
and other airport issues. Further, the FAA's most recent August 6,
2009 correspondence now sets an unworkable September 1
demonstration deadline for trial jumps at the airport. This was
done despite the city's repeated assertions that it must review the
consultant's report and make a determination, after considering all
facts, that a safe drop zone exists."
In the end, City Administrator Mark Shrives said "We've agreed
to disagree," about the deadline, and that the city was proceeding
under the timeline brought forth by the private consultant. But if
that consultant agrees that there is no safe drop zone, Eugene
Skydiver's ability to provide insurance would be moot, as the city
would be very unlikely to approve the activity.
When we reported this story in June, Mayor Bob Hooker was quoted
in the Oregon Register-Guard as saying “I have nothing
against the skydivers, I would love to see them back at the airport
(which makes us wonder what "at no time were skydivers ever
permitted to land on airport property" in the letter quoted above
means, ed.) but I am not willing to let that happen at the expense
of the city. I’m not going to make the city liable.”
But given the current position of the FAA, it looks as if
preventing skydiving at Hobby may cost the city anyway.