An advisory board formed to address noise complaints generated by the Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport has been silenced.
Members of the facility’s Community Noise Roundtable voted to pull the plug on the panel Thursday night. The vote was 5-3 with representatives from Boulder County, Superior, Lafayette, Louisville and Broomfield voting to disband the CNR.
Westminster voted to keep the panel alive. This came after a narrow April 29 vote by Westminster city councilors to keep its membership on the CNR.
The CNR was formed in 2020 to give local communities a combined voice objecting to noise generated by the piston-powered aircraft at RMMA, say officials. But airport neighbors and the panel’s members said little has been done by the airport to adjust its operations.
“I just think the community is fed up,” Superior Mayor Mark Lacis said Thursday. “People feel being a member is just a waste of time.”
Superior and Boulder County have filed a joint lawsuit against Jefferson County over the noise generated by persistent touch-and-go operations at the airport. In the complaint, Superior and Boulder County are asking a district judge to require Jefferson County, owner and operator of the Airport, to “abate the public nuisance stemming from piston-engine aircraft conducting touch-and-go operations at the Airport.”
Westminster left the panel in 2022 and then rejoined in 2023. On Monday, city councilors voted 4-3 to stay as members with a majority saying the city should stay to provide a local voice on the CNR.
Lacis said Superior proposed changing the scope of the CNR to make it more effective in answering issues around airport noise and other environmental concerns. “There just didn’t seem to be any appetite for that,” Lacis said.
Acting Airport Manager Stephanie Corbo said about $90,000 will be distributed back to communities who paid membership fees this year into the CNR.