Aurora Airport Expansion

Following the recent public disclosures made by the Dept. of Aviation that the so-called master plan for the Aurora Airport resulting from the recent master plan process has not been legally adopted by the State Aviation Board, the City of Wilsonville sent a position...

Recent efforts by the Oregon Dept. of Aviation (ODA) to expand the Aurora State Airport through a $37 million grant application to the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) in October 2018 has raised again an underlying, open question unanswered for several years: Is...

AURORA, OR, January 18, 2019 On Dec. 12, 2018, Oregon Solutions (College of Urban and Public Affairs at Portland State University) delivered to the Legislative Emergency Board a requested Assessment Report regarding the Aurora State Airport. The legislative request...

On Thursday, Oct. 23, Mayor Tim Knapp, Mayor of the City of Wilsonville sent a “letter to correct the record” to Legislative Leadership and members of the Legislative Emergency Board to address and rebut the wild and incorrect information made at the Emergency Board...

As an Oregon nonprofit, Friends of French Prairie takes seriously our non-profit status with the State of Oregon and with the IRS, and that includes avoiding endorsing candidates and actively being involved in political campaigns. We are a “public benefit” advocacy...

By way of background, on June 20 the Statesman Journal ran an opinion piece by Ben Williams, President of Friends of French Prairie, about two airports: the Salem Airport and the Aurora Airport. The point was that expansion at Aurora will likely come at the expense of...

It was clear from the intent of Rep. Rick Lewis’ bill in the last Legislative session that the special interest developers and the Oregon Dept. of Aviation had something larger in mind than just the 1,000 foot runway extension found in the last Master Plan. The Master...

The super siting bill to expand the Aurora Airport, sponsored by Reps. Rick Lewis and Rich Vial and Senator Fred Girod has been released and it is worse than previously indicated. Language of the bill SECTION 1. As used in this section: “Runway area” means a runway,...

Another Legislative session is upon us, so there has to be a new effort to change land use laws in Salem for the benefit of developers at the Aurora Airport, right? Sure enough there is! This time, though, instead of enlisting the old diehards Senator Fred Girod, the...

At the beginning of the current 2015 legislative session, Sen. Fred Girod (R-Silverton) put forward Senate Bill 534, which will enable cities to provide water and sewer to airports without annexation into the city. This bill is not only unnecessary because provision...