Action Alert!
Contact City Council before noon, Thursday, May 28
Demand that they consider the future of the Boulder airport site
in an open public hearing with unbiased, complete information.
Read the Legal Memo
Read the Gaps and Errors Report
Contact City Council before noon, May 28, using this form.
Key talking points:
- The future of the Boulder Airport is one of the most controversial policy decisions facing Boulder today
- It is a violation of public trust for the city to quietly attempt to authorize the city manager to take FAA funds that would lock the airport in place in perpetuity, with no public hearing and no public vote
- The April 23 study session was a travesty of bad information -- as shown in the Gaps and Errors Report -- and violations of open meetings law, as shown in the Ireland Stapleton Legal Memo.
- Council must remedy the situation by engaging in a process of Joint Fact Finding and holding a subsequent public hearing based on fair, balanced, and accurate information
- Council must consider a scenario of working toward Local Control of the airport site, refusing FAA grants, and utilizing available non-city funding such as CDOT grants, landing fees, and bringing ALL airport rents and charges up to market rate.
- NO FAA FUNDS should be taken with obligations in perpetuity, without a public vote.
However, the city attorney later clarified that the straw poll was not a binding vote! Council can and must change course.
This outrageously flawed study session process was analyzed by Ireland Stapleton, one of Denver's oldest and most established law firms. Ireland Stapleton concluded that "Certain actions taken by the Boulder City Council during its April 23, 2026 study session potentially present violations of the City’s own laws and the applicable Colorado Open Meetings Laws (“OML”) relating to the discussion of the Boulder Municipal Airport. To avoid running afoul of the OML and risk exposing the City to potential litigation, the Council should avoid taking any action on decisions related to the Boulder Municipal Airport until the issue has been fully discussed in a properly noticed meeting, which is sufficiently open to the public."
Additionally, several concerned residents of Boulder have compiled an extensive "Gaps and Errors Report" showing just how incomplete, erroneous, and skewed the information at the study session was. Read about things like $17 million in unexplained, undocumented airport capital needs, tripling previous estimates with no justification; an outright falsehood leading to the exclusion from consideration of viable non-FAA grant funding; undisclosed projected growth in airport facilities and traffic; and more!
Contact City Council today to tell them they can and must fix this mess!
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Listen In!
Call in with Questions!
Tuesday May 26th, KGNU, 88.5, 6pm Interview with John Fairweather on Hemispheres
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How the People of Santa Monica Regained Local Control of Their Airport
Boulder is not the only locality that wants to reclaim our skies and our land from the impacts of runaway aviation interests. It's happening across the U.S.
On Tuesday, May 26, 6PM, on KGNU, hear John Fairweather of the Santa Monica Airport2Park Foundation discuss how Santa Monica citizens wrested back control of 200 acres from the FAA and the industry. In 2014 voters passed a measure to acquire local control of the land in order to repurpose it for other uses. They stopped taking binding FAA grant money. Now in 2026 the city is deciding how to use their regained 200 acres of land. There is tremendous popular support for a "Great Park" hosting amenities for everyone. Read about it here. And be sure to listen in, where you can ask John your own questions.
Here's a sneak peek at what's in store for Santa Monica: A park could provide for recreation and sports; trails and facilities for walking, hiking, jogging, and cycling; playgrounds for children; activities for seniors; artworks, gardens, and the re-creating of natural habitat. Airport buildings on Airport Avenue could become arts and cultural facilities. Buildings north of the runway now used for aircraft operations could become space for tech incubators; the rents to the city for these uses can support park operations. A park will also allow for improvement of north-south street connections to improve traffic circulation.
