It adopted a charter, holds meetings, abides by voting rules and will play an instrumental role in shaping near-term conversations about the next potential major airport in the Puget Sound.

The planning group is called the Commercial Aviation Coordinating Commission.

Its work over the past three years, while public, largely went unnoticed until September, when it circled three greenfields — two in Pierce County, one in Thurston — as finalists in an airport site selection process, the culmination thus far of efforts that began in 2019.

It was that year that Senate Bill 5370 unanimously passed the state Legislature, creating the commission and directing it to take on the state’s desired task: Identify the most feasible site for a new primary commercial aviation facility that could be operational by 2040 and consider the potential to expand existing airports.

Who’s on the CACC?

The CACC was intended to consist of 15 voting members from relevant industries, with 13 appointed by Gov. Jay Inslee, including two citizen representatives, and at least 11 non-voting members.

Its roster has changed since its first day. For instance, ex-chairman David Fleckenstein, the former head of the Washington State Department of Transportation’s Aviation Division, recently retired. And state Sen. Curtis King, R-Yakima, is the newest non-voting member, who joins as the city of Yakima has recently expressed interest in expanding its airport.

As of today, fewer than a dozen voting members are on the CACC and there are four vacancies. Members largely come from the transportation sector, including established airlines and airports, and carry extensive backgrounds in their fields, according to online biographies.

They include: Stroud Kunkle, Larry Krauter, Jim Kuntz, Shane Jones, Lorin Carr, Andrea Goodpasture, Mark Englizian, Steve Edmiston, Arif Ghouse, Bryce Yadon and Robin Toth.

Kunkle has been a commissioner since 2012 with the Port of Moses Lake in central Washington.
Krauter is the CEO of Spokane Airports.
Kuntz has overseen airport development in eastern Washington.
Jones is the president of Airport Real Estate and Development at Alaska Airlines.
Carr is an airport affairs manager for American Airlines.
Goodpasture is an airport affairs director at Southwest Airlines.
Englizian is a member of the Authority Board for the Washington State Horse Park and was previously a human resources executive at Microsoft and Amazon.
Edmiston serves on steering or advisory committees for the state Department of Commerce and city of Des Moines, “representing the public interest of communities impacted by aviation,” his biography reads.
Ghouse is the director of Snohomish County Airport (Paine Field).
Yadon represents Futurewise, a nonprofit that aims to protect Washington farmlands, forests and water resources.
Toth is the director of aerospace for the state Department of Commerce.

Members who do not get a vote

The planning group’s non-voting membership also is heavy on people who possess an aviation or transportation background, including one state lawmaker who received their pilot license nearly 50 years ago, the online biographies show.

According to the most recent information from the CACC, there are currently 12 non-voting members: Warren Hendrickson; Robert Rodriguez; King and fellow state Sen. Karen Keiser; state Reps. Tom Dent and Tina Orwall; Rob Hodgman; Lois Bollenback; Jason Thibedeau; Tony Bean; Rudy Rudolph; and Kerri Woehler.

Hendrickson, the senior manager at Olympia Regional Airport, is also the acting chair of the commission, replacing Fleckenstein.
Rodriguez is the garrison aviation officer and Aviation Division chief at Joint Base Lewis-McChord.
King, R-Yakima, serves areas in south central Washington, including Klickitat County and parts of Yakima County.
Keiser, D-Des Moines, represents communities south of Seattle.
Dent, R-Moses Lake, became a professional pilot in 1976 and represents areas in central Washington, including all or parts of Kittitas and Grant counties.
Orwall, D-Des Moines, serves communities south of Seattle.
Hodgman is a senior aviation planner for WSDOT’s Aviation Division.
Bollenback is the executive director of the Spokane Regional Transportation Council and an Air Force veteran who worked in the quality control department at Kennedy Space Center.
Thibedeau is the program manager for economic development at the Puget Sound Regional Council.
Bean is the director of the Pullman Moscow Regional Airport in eastern Washington.
Rudolph is the longtime airport director at Olympia Regional Airport.
Woehler is the division director for WSDOT’s multimodal planning division.

What does the CACC do?

The CACC has met 21 times since Oct. 30, 2019, including in public open houses and so-called drop-in sessions, according to its website, which maintains archived meetings, minutes and/or agendas from each.

Its primary function has been to research potential sites for an airport and settle on one recommendation hoped to bridge a projected gap in available commercial passenger service facing the Puget Sound region.

It initially considered a list of 20 possible locations — a combination of “potential sites identified during aviation studies” dating back to 1992 and staff-identified locations outside the Puget Sound, according to the CACC’s website.

The CACC has been allocated $600,000 total since 2019 for outreach and administrative costs, according to WSDOT. Its access to data and projections for research use has come via the state. WSDOT has simultaneously been going through a consultant-aided review of its aviation system plan — essentially an analysis of statewide needs and opportunities — that occurs once every several years.

WSDOT also has provided the CACC with technical assistance.

The planning group’s work has occurred almost exclusively virtually due to the COVID-19 pandemic, which has raised questions about whether public engagement has been sufficient. Citing that concern, Dent is pushing a bill that he had said would effectively restart the process and change site-selection parameters.

At its only in-person meeting, held in Olympia in January 2020, the new board approved its charter, which included four principles to guide the site selection process: public benefit, economic feasibility, environmental responsibility and social equity.

The charter also specified a hard number for a quorum: 12. With only 11 current members, the CACC will need to add another before its next meeting in March. Hendrickson said that Eric Johnson, the state’s interim aviation director, has applied to fill Fleckenstein’s former role.

The legislation that created the commission mandated another voting rule: Any decision must be approved by at least 60 percent of voting members to pass.

During the Sept. 23 meeting — which resulted in homing in on a two-runway airport, narrowing greenfield options to three and considering expansion of Paine Field — 12 of 14 then-voting members signed off. One member abstained and another was absent, according to an archive of the meeting.

As it weighs options for a site that could accommodate as many as 20 million domestic passengers per year, the CACC has been bound to certain considerations, according to its website. Those include a site’s physical viability, costs and access as well as political and public feedback.

The effort has been extremely controversial. Local communities and lawmakers have pushed back against the prospects of siting an airport in Pierce or Thurston counties, relating concerns that it would devastate the environment, upend rural lifestyles, harm wildlife, significantly increase traffic and more. Opponents also say an airport is not feasible, and CACC members have acknowledged severe challenges with sites still under consideration.

By June, the CACC must provide a recommendation to the state on where it believes an estimated 3,100-acre, two-runway airport could be most viable among the remaining site options.

State lawmakers have choices from there, including choosing not to act on the recommendation at all, although they face projections that a growing population will leave 27 million passengers annually unable to fly in the region by 2050 if no action is taken.

The commission is scheduled to meet next on March 2.

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WA airport-siting group delivers final report to the state. Here’s what the CACC recommends

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