In a surprise move that left the council chambers stunned, Boulder City Councilmember Mark Wallach resigned Thursday night, moments after the council voted to keep Boulder Municipal Airport open indefinitely, saying the decision conflicted with his values.
Wallach, who was serving his third term, had long been a staunch advocate for repurposing the airport land. He had just returned to council meetings after suffering a fall and said he had “picked the wrong week to come back.”
“I believe in serving according to my values and with a sense of self-respect,” Wallach said. “And if I feel I can no longer do so, I will choose not to serve. I will not be a party to the surrender of our valuable airport land in perpetuity.”
He said it had been “the honor of my life to serve on this body” and that his resignation would take effect immediately.
“To steal the signoff of the late journalist Edward R. Murrow: Good night and good luck. See you all down the road. First round is on me,” he said.
Wallach, 73, had developed a reputation for speaking directly, sticking to his convictions and writing lengthy, deeply considered and often self-deprecating posts on the Boulder City Council Hotline, frequently poking fun at their length. The retired lawyer and real estate developer is also a frequent opinion columnist, writing about Boulder’s finances, infrastructure, council decorum and antisemitism, among other issues.
His resignation came after the council on Thursday reaffirmed its commitment to operate Boulder Municipal Airport indefinitely. The 8-1 vote clears the way for the city to pursue Federal Aviation Administration grants that city officials have said could prevent the airport from ever closing.
Wallach was the only councilmember to vote against the motion. Councilmembers Nicole Speer and Ryan Schuchard had also opposed pursuing additional grants, but Speer proposed an amendment requiring the council, rather than the city manager, to approve the next FAA grant application. That change persuaded Speer and Schuchard to support the motion, but it was not enough to sway Wallach.
The vote marked the council’s firmest commitment to date to preserve the northeast Boulder airport. It also followed one of the council’s most contentious debates in recent years, one that has sharply divided the community. Supporters consider the airport an irreplaceable public asset, while opponents want the land repurposed, potentially for housing. About 70 people signed up to speak during Thursday’s public hearing.
Much of Thursday’s city council debate centered on competing views of fiscal responsibility. Supporters of accepting FAA money said the city needed the funding to avoid pulling money from other city programs. Others said accepting the grants would restrict how future generations could use the land.
“Federal grants make the airport self-sustaining,” Councilmember Matt Benjamin, who supported accepting FAA money, said. Benjamin has opposed efforts to close the airport. “Let’s not take this one-out-of-a-million chance and risk the financial future of our community.”
“I think the heart of this is a pretty severe trade-off between a daunting cash flow constraint that we have, and also taking care of Boulder’s residents who are going to live here in a time frame that is beyond 20 years out,” Schuchard said.
Boulder Municipal Airport, which began as a dirt landing strip in the 1920s, serves private pilots, flight trainees, gliders and researchers. It has also supported emergency operations during fires and floods, although city officials have said wildfire response primarily relies on Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport.
Critics have long raised concerns about aircraft noise and lead pollution, while some have advocated redeveloping the airport’s 179 acres for housing. In 2024, residents collected thousands of signatures for two proposed ballot measures that sought to decommission the airport and repurpose the land for mixed-use development, including housing. Organizers withdrew the measures after the city sued the FAA.
Accepting a federal grant could settle the airport’s future for years to come. City Attorney Teresa Tate has told councilmembers that new FAA grants come with assurances that run in perpetuity.
The city’s ability to close the airport remains legally disputed. Its most recent FAA grant, accepted in May 2020, came with a 20-year obligation, potentially allowing the airport to close as early as 2040, according to city officials. But the FAA argues that Boulder is already obligated to operate the airport in perpetuity under previous grants, an interpretation the city disputes.
In 2024, Boulder sued the FAA to determine whether the city could legally close the airport by 2040 or later. In September 2025, a U.S. District Court judge dismissed the lawsuit largely on procedural grounds, without addressing the core legal questions.
The decision to seek additional federal grants comes as city officials say slowing sales tax growth and rising expenses are contributing to a projected $6.5 million shortfall in the 2027 budget. Without additional FAA funding, the city projects an airport budget deficit of about $7 million to $27 million by 2041, according to its financial analysis.
Covering that deficit could require money from the city’s Transportation Fund or General Fund, city officials have said. They have not identified which programs could be cut to cover the shortfall. Additional revenue to close this gap could come from hangar leases and landing fees, or grants from the Colorado Department of Transportation.
Thursday’s vote formalized a direction councilmembers had endorsed during an April study session. Some residents criticized councilmembers for reaching that decision without a public hearing and before resolving key questions about the airport’s future. Thursday’s hearing was held in part to address those concerns.
I’m very concerned about Mark Wallach’s resignation. He is smart, level headed and an independent thinker and this will be a BIG loss for Boulder!
He’s a real estate developer and he was on the board to create projects that benefit developers. Most of Boulder doesn’t think the airport is for sale for developers. The resignation proves to me and many others that he was here just to win a project for developers. If he cared about Boulder he wouldn’t resign over one issue that’s absurd.
Clearly you have no idea what you are talking about. Mark only wanted to see affordable housing built, and was not willing to go forward with any projects designed to enrich developers – unlike our more “progressive” council members. He has stood his ground on that.
Adam, you don’t know diddly squat. Mark was a developer a million years ago. He has been a voice of reason and thoughtfulness for his entire time on Council. Boulder has lost an important, independent, thoughtful, balanced voice.
I get that there’s an intrinsic value in emergency situations to have an airstrip here. I don’t understand the reasoning for the budget options here. Why not just raise fees on commercial and hobby users and have them pay their own way? Why are tax payers subsidizing an incredibly expensive hobby?
Because it’s not an expensive hobby. It is critical transportation infrastructure. And the airport already operates without local taxpayer funding and they already pay their own way. It makes no sense to sell it off for housing. That only benefits Marks real estate developer interests and won’t move the needle one bit for housing affordability.
FAA grants aren’t general tax dollars, they come from the Airport and Airway Trust Fund, funded by aviation fuel and ticket taxes. Users already pay in nationally, the grants just distribute it back out. Same model as gas taxes funding local roads.
On fees, Boulder already charges fuel flowage, tie down, and hangar fees. The gap isn’t attitude, it’s scale. Council was staring down needing about $500,000 a year for 15 years locally without federal grants, plus one time costs like the $750,000 runway sealcoat. A few dozen based aircraft can’t absorb that through higher landing fees without just pricing themselves out and making the deficit worse.
So it’s less “taxpayers subsidize a hobby” and more “small airports can’t fund FAA level infrastructure through local fees alone, it’s federal grants or ongoing local support, there’s no third option.” That’s on top of the emergency access value.
Thanks for providing details that most people aren’t aware of!
Three cheers for Mark Wallach not selling out like the rest of the council. The funny thing is, the City makes the call, but the north eastern County is the recipient of the vast majority of the noise and pollution. Guess the County Commissioners were off doing something else more important. Anyway, good luck Mark and thanks for your convictions.
Sell outs? That would’ve been quite the opposite of siding with developers. Council made a sound decision here. Plenty more opportunity to create actual affordable housing and move the needle to be a more inclusive Boulder. The airport ain’t it.
I am sorry Wallach is leaving City Council. He researched and explained every decision he made and, even if I didn’t agree with all those decisions, I felt he was a voice of intelligence, reason and balance. And, the latter is what Council lacks these days. We need different viewpoints and deeply considered analysis of the extremely pressing questions facing Boulder today. This is a loss for the City and further complicates the composition of Council in the next few years.
Thank you Council members for voting to keep the Boulder Airport functioning and accepting support from the FAA. This airport is essential to supporting the community with emergency needs,
teaching future commercial airline pilots to fly, to environmental research companies that exist here.
I know many dispute that this airport doesn’t provide many services, but it does from being a medavac base, to fueling helicopters, small firefighting planes to providing essential service for mountain towns.’And the latest, it now has unleaded fuel.
This airport has been here since 1928. It is a historical airport that we should be celebrating and sharing with the local students and community with learning to fly, become airplane mechanics, dispatchers, rampees, airport management to taking part in the local aviation clubs.
Also, it isn’t just rich persons hobby. Many people dedicate their lives to figuring out how they can learn to fly. It’s a passion like skiing, boating to attending music festivals, that people dedicate their time and money to. So please don’t think it’s a bunch of rich snobby people flying. It’s people of all different economic levels who are passionate about aviation and will work a ton and dedicate all their means too accomplish this goal.
I invite all to come out to the airport, visit Journey’s aviation or Mile High Gliding. Bring a picnic and sit on their patios and watch planes and gliders take off and land..
Sign your kid up and attend the monthly Young Eagles, EAA, Saturday, free flying event. Join the EAA, you don’t have to be a pilot, and learn about aviation.
I also recommend attending the local fly-ins and the annual 1940’s ball.
We have a ton of fun at the airport and love sharing with others our passion for aviation.
So sad to see Mark Wallach resign when he wasn’t successful in robbing Boulder of a valuable asset – the Boulder Airport. Guess he wasn’t really interested in representing Boulder residents in all the issues the city faces just had his own single agenda issue. Obviously he lost sight in what the responsibilities are of a council member. Hopefully he is replaced by someone who cares about the community.
I disagreed with Mark W much more than I agreed, but I voted for him last time because he is so thoughtful, honest, open and caring. And he is a liberal Democrat on national issues. To say he is on Council to serve real estate development interests is BS and extremely disrespectful. He contributed a lot and I will miss him.
All the members of City Council are intelligent, caring people who thoughtfully weigh competing values and concerns. We may disagree with their policies, but that doesn’t make them bad people. It is one of the best governments anywhere. Show me better!
This was jaw dropping. I have disagreed with plenty of things Mark has said over the years, but he was the most deeply thoughtful person on council, forever asking detailed questions that no one else bothered to even think about. They should have all been answered but rarely were. I think he acted with integrity in resigning. Under Aaron’s leadership, along with the new “process improvements” championed by Nicole, city council meetings have become little more than efficient performances designed to expedite the will of Nuria and department staff.
The way Aaron navigated this process so seamlessly that some council members were almost in disbelief that they were forced into making this monumental decision so quickly, without knowing where the majority of the community stands on it, and only having one-sided information prepared by staff speaks volumes. Shame on all of them for participating in this sham so mindlessly. Besides their own little pet projects, some of these council members could not care less about what the people want, and their thinking has not evolved one iota away from their limited thinking since day one. Mark was not among them.
This topic has been being discussed for several years now, it seems. Why is it a sham to keep the airport open? Housing is going up all over the place, and more in the next 10 years.
City Council’s job is to understand issues and make decisions like this so that we don’t have to vote on every little thing.
Besides a lot of us being happy to have an airport, we wouldn’t legally be able to close the it even if the community voted to do so. The FAA already says we have to keep it forever since they helped buy the land. We’re legally required to maintain it for at least 14 more years, and at the end we would have a big legal battle that we would certainly lose.
We’d still have an airport, and we would have wasted tons of money maintaining it in the meantime. And its revenue would tank because who wants to build a business in an airport that’s going to have a big legal fight ahead of it?
City Council made a smart decision – the whole thing was a land grab by developers.
Wow. Finally the CC made a decision I agree with, and we lose Mark over it? He is awesome, and has been one of my favorites over the years. He votes the way I want alot, except this time. And to lose him over THIS topic is too bad. I was excited when he decided to run again, but I guess that didn’t last too long. Boulder needs the airport.
Mark has been on the side of BOULDERITES for many votes, many that we lost. But we could always count on him to vote against the views and desires of the progressives, who imo, are the ones behind the ruining of our great town. We will miss him, standing up for many of us here in town.
Of course Wallach is correct. We are not short of housing; we are short of land. Towns outgrow airports all the time, and we have two better ones for civil aviation within 15 miles. Even land zoned down for affordable development is extremely valuable. As a professional witness over 50 years, Boulder’s best-functioning departments and agencies have been the affordable housing people. Frugal, deeply caring, and anti-bureaucratic. We cannot build our way out of excess demand, but we can preserve for the future housing for some of those who work here, and for the least of us.
I value Mark’s knowledge of development and the care he took into analyzing various projects especially the airport. But he flat out lied at one of the candidate debates last year ago, probably at the nomad theater, saying that there is some rule that Council cannot discuss National issues like Gaza. There is no such rule and there is aBoulder law permitting it! He stated this AFTER Ryan Schuchard read the law at at least one council meeting. Mark is a lawyer and as such is considered an officer of the Court, which means he is expected to uphold the truth, not lie about it! Of course several other council members have parroted the same lie, including Nicole Speer in one of her newsletters.
Yes, the city benefits from spending hours discussing international issues that the council has zero control over. Keep dying on that hill, Evan.