Durango High Noon Rotary

November 17, 2005

 

Guests:  Bobby Lieb, Durango Chamber of Commerce – Speaker for our meeting today       on Small Community Airport Service Development Plan (SCASDP)

Terri Anderson, returning to Durango;  Dave Goss, El Dorado, California and new resident of Durango; John Marshall, visiting Rotarian from California;  Marcella Arcuri our Rotary Student; and Todd Naccarato, the new Wal-Mart Manager.

 

Announcements:

Melissa Caskey reported the InterAct group has now grown to over 30 members. She and Angie Beach are both working with the group together.  Money has been set aside by the club to cover tee shirts for each member.

Dave Ganevsky announced the Christmas Party will be held at the Diamond Circle on Thursday, December 12, 2005 beginning with cocktails at 5:30 p.m. and dinner at 6:00 p.m. being served by the Mahogany Grill.  The Club will cover dinner for each of our members – cost for guests will be $30.00 per person.  Entertainment will be provided by Tim Sullivan.   Durango High Noon Rotary is supporting Project Merry Christmas during this event so please bring a gift for donation.  THANK YOU

Steve Govreau will present a Fireside Chat on Wednesday November 30, 2005 at the Bank of Colorado beginning at 5:30 pm...  New members their spouses or significant others along with Board Members are invited.  This will be a potluck.  Further details to follow.

Additional information from our illustrious leader – dues have gone up by $10.00 a month.  This is to meet the rising cost District expenses.  Realize that we have not raised our dues since our inception in 1979. 

More good news… The Community Annual Report newspaper insert is set for a March 9th publication date. With the Durango Herald’s support and sponsorship our Scholarship Program is off to a great start!

 

The top five election nominees were:  John Anderson, Angie Beach, Tami Coddington, Chi Lile, and Tim Walsworth.  Each member present voted and the results will be announced at the December 1, 2005 meeting.

Bill Anderson announced the final date for Monte Carlo night will be April 15, 2006 at the Double Tree Inn.  Games available so far will be Craps, Roulette, Blackjack, Poker, and more to be added.  There will be a buffet style dinner.  Black tie is suggested recognizing a nice suit is fine so the ladies can dress up in their finery as well.

Mark Dold passed out Colorado State Patrol Citizen Ride-Along Release forms.  This is a great opportunity to ride along and see what it is really like in the front seat of a patrol car.  Contact Mark for additional forms if you would like to participate.

Mark Prouty – Peter Marshall escaped a fine because he brought Chocolate-Chip cookies to Marks place of business (sounds good). 

Birthdays were celebrated by Ward Holmes, Pat Burkholder and Sara Olsen

Happy Dollars were contributed by Bill Cartwright and Walt Nowotny both for Ted Robson becoming their new neighbor; Steve Redding because he got to visit with his grandson; Nancy Vanderwal for all the hard work Steve Govreau has done towards our scholarship fund; Ward Holmes for the work his son did on sets for Beauty & Beast Play and Todd Naccarato just for being late.

 

Question of the Day:  Who coached a women’s basketball ball team at the University of Idaho to 42:0 wins?  Answer:  Dave Ganevsky

Bobby Lieb gave a presentation related to USDOT pool of money that provides small airports with grants for improvements.  Currently the larger industry is seeing lower revenue with higher costs as a result of fuel, labor and serving smaller communities, while locally we are seeing increasing demand of 80% plus loads with no increase in the supply.  Higher than average fares and unreliable service plus there being not jet service available here until this summer.  The local wages, population and PCPI have all gone up along with enplanements and a general stabilization over 2004 from seasonal to routine flights our of Durango/LaPlata Airport.

In a study done among other regional airports comparable to LaPlata County with a population of 81,237, the fares out of Durango were much higher.  Flights utilizing United Airlines flying to Denver International (71%), 29.6% remain in Denver with the remaining 70.4% continuing on to other destinations.  America West to Phoenix (29%), 15.9%) remain in Phoenix with 84.1% continue East.

The Air Service Task Force composed of LEAD, DATO and the Airport Commission was formed to address the concerns surrounding our growing need for air service.  The task force hired The Boyd Group (Aviation Consulting and Forecasting) out of Golden, Colorado.  This group currently pulls down 20% of the Small County Air Service Department (SCASD) grant monies for the last two years.   The SCASD favors the smaller communities.  Durango has applied three times the last being successful.

After the proposal was awarded in August of 2005 they met with Continental Airlines in October of 2005.  The question was asked, why Continental?  The directly connect to Dallas and Houston, Texas.  Out of the Four Corners Area 11 of the 12 gas producers have offices in Houston.  Five of the eleven are headquartered in Houston right now.  We currently have three gas producers locally based here in Durango. 

Continental has proposed to add year round jet service to Durango with two flights daily on a 50-seat RJ (this are being phased out to 70-seat RJs).  This equates to daily 100 seat departure increase (25%) over what we currently have.  An approximate budget of $950K comes from the SCASD grant, local cash (non-tax), landing fees and private sector.