The Humboldt County Aviation Advisory Committee hasn’t met since May, leaving the aviation community without a place to communicate or express their needs.
“The committee hasn’t met, and there’s been a vacuum of understanding. We do not know why the committee is not meeting. The last meeting was canceled two hours before the committee was to meet. and there was no information about why. What is discouraging is that the director has basically disappeared,” said Dave Marshall, pilot and member of the Aviation Advisory Committee.
Despite the Director of Aviation having recently resigned, the aviation community is still hopeful for a future where all perspectives can be heard.
“I mean, everybody that lives here, you know, wants to make sure that we have viable airlines and all the rest of it. And I think that’s a big part of the department’s job, is making sure that all that stuff functions,” said Derek Watts, pilot.
“Out from our side of things, kind of down at the bottom of the aviation totem pole, it’s pretty important that whoever has that job next kind of understands, like the grassroots side of it, I guess I would say, you know, for those of us that rent hangars here, pay taxes on our airplanes here, people who are involved in flight training and maintaining airplanes and all that kind of stuff, you know, it’s important that whoever has that job next understands that side of things,” he said.
Local pilots say the county’s aviation departments’ focus hasn’t always been on the general aviation community.
“It’s been primarily focused on the air carriers and the needs of the larger airports. In McKinleyville, also known as ACV, the aviation director was focused on developing the airport, the facilities and the air carriers that were coming to ACV,” said Dave Marshall.
“The issue is that aviation is difficult to support, because it’s seen as this special extra thing by most communities, and I can argue both sides of that perspective. But my work with young people sort of underlines that they’re interested,” said Marshall.
“Every professional aviator comes from the general aviation community. And that means that there are people like me and others that need to have viable infrastructure. A lot of the smaller airports were neglected in some ways,” he said.
The lack of consideration of these small airports, Marshall says, has a considerable impact on local pilots.
“Fuel was not available at Murray field for several years because the infrastructure was allowed to decay and was retained. And that was something that aviators really felt because we’d have to go to a different airport to get fuel,” said Dave Marshall.
“My hope is that the Board of Supervisors sees general aviation as something that needs to be engaged with, and that engagement would happen through whomever it is that’s going to take on the next director of aviation in Humboldt County,” Marshall said.
Story by Tucker Caraway
