Roughly 50 people attended an informal work session and presentation from the Recreational Aviation Foundation (RAF) about Hanley Field on Monday, July 10 at the American Legion post in Munising. Two county commissioners, various townships and city elected officials, pilots and concerned citizens attended the meeting to hear what is happening with the local grass-strip airport off H 13 in Munising Township.

No official action was taken at the meeting by any group.

A common airport problem

Jeff Russell gave a presentation that was all too familiar within the flying community: a local grass airstrip has fallen into disrepair. Russell serves as director of the RAF, a 501(c)3 non-profit organization who helps identify public and private airstrips across the United States that benefit from increased recreational aircraft efforts. The RAF has worked with a two similar grass airports in Michigan near Tahquamenon Falls and North Fox Island, but during the presentation, it focused on growing the Cornucopia, Wisc. airport because of its similarities to the Munising area as a national parks gateway community.

“We look at locations that are high recreation areas. Places with access to beautiful communities and beautiful parks,” Russell said. “In Cornucopia, they saw the benefit of having the airport, they had a fundraiser, they found ways to get people maybe camping overnight or find ways to get them into town to enjoy the area.”

Through similar improvement plans, opportunities for camping, picnics, bicycle or e-bike storage accessible only to the pilots and a prefabricated building that could be used as a pilots’ lounge were all reasonable and cost-effective ways to increase the usage of the airport in ways that focused on recreational use. Most of the suggestions were less than $5,000 to install.

Who is in charge?

While there were a lot of government officials and discussion about government involvement, this meeting was not a government function. According to meeting organizers, everyone gathered so the RAF could present what could be done at Hanley Field to make it function better.

Confusion about what action is being taken by both private and governmental groups has led to discord in the community. Many people in attendance were confused on whether or not the meeting was hosted by the Alger County Commission Airport Subcommittee, which is a county government based committee that includes two county commissioners. Subcommittees are not scheduled the same way as regular meetings and do not require the same type of public posting requirements. While that helps with scheduling flexibility for the county commission, it often means that many members of the public are unaware when and where the subcommittees meet.

Further questions about the creation of an airport authority also fueled concerns from the public. According to state law, if an airport authority was organized and approved by the county, then heavy taxation could take place across all of Alger County to fund both upkeep and expansion of Hanley Field. This would include western Alger County townships that are geographically in between Hanley Field and KI Sawyer Regional Airport in Marquette County, as well as Burt Township, which already has an airport near Grand Marais. These concerns were brought up in both a flier that was spread during the Munising Fourth of July parade and in the fallout of a leaked CUPPAD survey regarding the airport last December.

Multiple people, ranging from local officials to RAF members stated that there is no intent to form an authority or raise funds through extra or new taxes.

What is the next move?

Information from the meeting will be brought to the county’s airport subcommittee when it meets next. The county treasurer’s office would have to set up an account for any donations described by the RAF, but the county has already done that for other initiatives like Alger, the county sheriff’s office K-9 unit.

County Commission Chair Dean Seaberg said in the meeting that costs for the field currently are around $10,000 annually, with most of that going to labor for mowing and rolling the field. Suggestions from the RAF of not mowing the strip as wide as it currently is and suggestions from the crowd about potentially investing in a larger mower could cut those costs down even more. Marginal increases are expected with additional utility usage due to the new buildings, but are expected to stay low compared to other county properties like the contested animal shelter building and the courthouse.

No major upgrades were discussed, citing the need to come from the community as a whole. Smaller projects like solar panels and fuel were suggested.

Private organizers like Madigan and the RAF also talked about finding new ways to stay transparent with the public about the process.

“The more information that gets out to everyone is important so we can figure out what we can accomplish,” Madigan said.