RED LODGE - A disagreement between the city of Red Lodge and the airport board may delay potential federal funding.
The airport is important for Red Lodge and Carbon County for the economy, tourism, firefighting and search and rescue.
The airport commission is looking to get FAA for funding to take care of the airport.
But right now, there's a dispute with the city about the airport land boundaries.
The Red Lodge Airport sits on 140 acres up hill and west of town.
"I don't think the size of our airport needs 140 acres," said Mayor Kristen Cogswell. "But you know, I think a lot of that acreage is used by city services like the event parking."
The Mayor says she and the city council did not want to leave management of all the land to the airport board made up of three Carbon County commissioners and two representatives each from Bridger and Red Lodge.
"We want the community and the city of Red Lodge to you know, have a voice in how the area's maintained and developed."
"It's a very critical piece of infrastructure that needs to be perpetuated," said Commissioner Bill Bullock.
Bullock says the airport board relies on county taxpayers contributing nearly $60,000, Red Lodge close to $8,000 and Bridger about $6,000.
The airport has not received FAA funding since the 1980s.
But it does want funding in the future and the board needs to show proper boundaries to get those grants.
"If they come through and they approve and accept our master plan and they bring us back into their funding mechanism, that would be a windfall for this airport," Bullock said. "It would be a huge game."
Bullock says he has heard about a few potential projects the city might consider for land around and part of the airport.
"We never got a clear mission as to what the property would be used for," Bullock said.
The mayor says the main concern is to be able to protect the city's assets.
"We need to make sure that the land that we do have is being used responsibly and especially in the financial department," Cogswell said.
There has been some confusion with what was in the 2018 agreement that the mayor terminated and now the goal is to come to a new agreement that benefits all involved.
"I'm optimistic that another agreement will be reached," said Cogswell.
"Find some middle ground so we can get this resolved and move on," said Bullock.
