Boulder City Council on April 23 directed city staff to keep the municipal airport open indefinitely, a decision that likely brings to a close one of the city’s most contentious land-use debates in years and could lead the city to accept federal grant money that could further limit future efforts to close the facility.
The narrow 5-4 decision was made by straw poll at a study session, without a public hearing and without an official recorded vote. Mayor Aaron Brockett, Mayor Pro Tem Tara Winer and Councilmembers Taishya Adams, Matt Benjamin and Rob Kaplan voted in favor; Councilmembers Tina Marquis, Ryan Schuchard, Nicole Speer and Mark Wallach opposed.
It is one of several significant policy decisions the council has made through informal votes in recent months, and it has prompted some members to question whether that approach is appropriate for decisions of such consequence.
It is unclear whether a different meeting format would have changed any votes. But the speed of the decision left some members with lingering questions, frustration and concerns about the process. One councilmember later questioned their vote. Resignation came up in conversations among members.
“It doesn’t feel good,” Councilmember Speer said. “I don’t feel good about the way all of this was done.”
The issue reached the council in March, when the Council Agenda Committee — made up of Mayor Brockett, Mayor Pro Tem Winer and Councilmember Benjamin — scheduled an “airport discussion” for a study session, according to city records.
Brockett and Benjamin said a study session was the appropriate venue because no ordinance vote was required.
“Having a public hearing usually is only about a new policy or a modification to an existing policy, and that’s not what the study session was about,” Benjamin said. Benjamin, a former pilot, has been an outspoken proponent of keeping the airport open. He said he no longer holds a pilot license and has no ties to the airport.
During the study session, which Benjamin moderated as part of a rotation, city officials framed the decision this way: Keep the airport operating “indefinitely” or preserve the option to close.
Councilmembers generally understood that choosing to keep the airport open indefinitely also signaled support for resuming federal funding.
Boulder last accepted such funding in 2020 but later stopped as interest grew in closing the airport and redeveloping the land for housing. The Federal Aviation Administration generally requires airports that accept its grants to remain open unless it approves closure. Accepting new grants could make it harder to close the airport in the future, while declining them would keep the city’s options open.
City officials have said accepting federal funding is an administrative decision, not a policy one, and does not require a formal council vote. Even so, by asking whether to keep the airport open indefinitely, they effectively sought direction on a choice that could shape the airport’s long-term future.
Several councilmembers said they were unaware they would be asked to decide a question of such consequence until a week or two before the meeting. The discussion and vote took about two hours, leaving core questions unanswered, according to councilmembers.
“When I read the [meeting] packet … is ‘surprise’ the right word?” Councilmember Wallach, a longtime critic of the airport, said. “I did not think we were at a decision point.”
The Boulder Municipal Airport dates to a dirt landing strip in 1928 in the city’s northeast corner. Today it is primarily used by hobbyists, student pilots and visitors. It sits on 179 acres of city-owned land that some residents want redeveloped into affordable housing.
That push intensified in recent years. In 2024, residents collected thousands of signatures to place a measure on the ballot to decommission the airport and repurpose the land. They withdrew the petition after the city sued the FAA, seeking clarity on whether it could shut down the airport by 2040, when it believes its federal grant obligations expire. The case was dismissed on procedural grounds, and the city did not appeal.
While the lawsuit played out, the council delayed any decisions on the airport’s future until last month.
Finances were central to the debate
City officials said operating the airport would require about $600,000 per year for the next 14 years, likely drawn from the general fund or transportation fund, at a time when sales tax revenue has leveled off, federal funding has become uncertain and the city faces a significant backlog in capital projects, including costs tied to aging rec centers.
“I want to acknowledge that this discussion has elicited a lot of competing opinions,” City Manager Nuria Rivera-Vandermyde said at the start of last month’s study session. “At the same time, we would be remiss if we did not raise the real concerns we currently face financially as we prepare for next year’s budget.”
Councilmembers asked about alternatives, including landing fees and higher hangar rents. City officials said landing fees would likely generate little net revenue after administrative costs. They also said at least one hangar sits vacant because the city cannot offer long-term leases due to the airport’s uncertain future.
Even so, some members left the meeting unconvinced that federal funding was necessary. The city’s 2026 budget topped $520 million, and new fees approved last year, along with anticipated revenue tied to the Sundance Film Festival, are expected to add income.
Councilmember Schuchard said the city combined two separate questions into one: whether to keep the airport open long term and whether to accept federal funding that could bind the city to operate it indefinitely. He said a third option — keeping the airport open without FAA grants — was not presented.
“We said in order to find $500,000 per year, for 15 years, we are going to take this extraordinary leap — unprecedented leap — and obligate the city forever to literally operate a service,” Schuchard said. “I do not think of that as the financially prudent thing to do.”
Councilmembers also differed in how they viewed the city’s presentation.
Some described it as balanced and professional. Others said it framed the case for keeping the airport open. Wallach called it an “advocacy brief,” drawing criticism from at least two colleagues as an attack on city staff.
City officials did not respond to a request for comment on their preferred scenario heading into the study session.
Broader concerns about process
In recent months, the council has used straw polls to advance other significant issues, including a proposal affecting minimum wage for tipped workers and a potential ballot measure that would consolidate nearly $40 million in open space tax revenue into a general-purpose public realm fund.
Councilmember Marquis said a study session was not the appropriate format for a decision on the airport’s future given the high level of community interest. The council received more than 250 emails about the airport in the last month.
“For those people who’ve been very invested in this conversation, they’ll probably feel less heard than usual, and it won’t feel as like we were as responsive as the local government could be,” Marquis said. “I think we definitely could do better and I am anticipating we’ll learn from this.”
In the aftermath, some councilmembers have suggested revisiting the decision through a formal vote.
During the study session, Brockett asked the council to schedule a formal vote on a resolution codifying their direction to staff. Such a vote would likely appear on the consent agenda, where items are often approved without discussion, though councilmembers can pull them for debate.
In retrospect, Brockett said he would have scheduled the study session differently. He said he would have dedicated a full three-hour session to the airport and encouraged colleagues to send questions to city staff earlier.
“Some councilmembers were not pleased with the process and how everything worked out,” Brockett said. “That’s definitely come through to me loud and clear.”
