Don't Ground Longmont's Future: Why Vance Brand Airport Is the City's Most Undervalued Asset

While you were focused on potholes and property taxes, a slow-motion demolition has been underway at Longmont City Hall — and the target is Vance Brand Airport.

No one on the City Council will say they want to close the airport. They don't have to. The strategy is subtler than that: starve the Airport Advisory Board of members until it can't meet. Vote to dissolve it entirely. Propose landing fees designed to drive away pilots and flight schools. Allow residential developments to creep ever closer to the runway. Block qualified board appointees in favor of those who've expressed interest in shutting operations down.

It's a playbook aviation advocates nationwide have a name for: death by a thousand cuts.

In February, the council voted 5-2 to direct staff to draft an ordinance dissolving the Airport Advisory Board — the citizen body that provides expert oversight of a $73.6 million economic engine. The stated reason? A board member made an inappropriate comment about a council liaison. The real effect? Eliminating one of the few channels through which aviation professionals, aerospace engineers, and community stakeholders could influence airport policy.

"This eliminates one of the few clear ways volunteers see their input matter," Councilmember Crystal Prieto warned during the vote. She was one of only two dissenting voices.

The Money Longmont Can't Afford to Waste

Here's what makes this political theater especially reckless: Longmont cannot close this airport without paying an enormous price — one the council has never honestly discussed with the public.

Since 1982, the city has accepted over $6.2 million in Federal Airport Improvement Program grants. More critically, Longmont used federal funds to acquire airport land. Under FAA grant assurances, that single fact triggers a perpetual obligation — not 20 years, not 50 years, forever — to maintain the property for public aviation use.

The city's own FAQ page acknowledges this plainly: because Longmont "acquired land with Federal funds," the obligation to keep the airport open "runs in perpetuity."

If the city somehow convinced the FAA to release it from these obligations — a process that has taken other cities decades of litigation — the repayment wouldn't be the original grant amounts. Federal law requires reimbursement of "a proportionate share of the current fair market value" of the land. The FAA's own guidance notes this figure is "substantially in excess of the original grant amounts." For 262 acres of developed land along the Front Range corridor, we're potentially talking tens of millions of dollars — money that would flow out of Longmont and into the federal Aviation Trust Fund with nothing to show for it.

Don't take our word for it. Look at what happened elsewhere:

• Santa Monica spent decades and millions in legal fees trying to close its airport, ultimately negotiating a deal requiring 12 more years of operation — and the FAA still found them violating federal rules in 2025 for manipulating fee structures.
• Boulder sued the FAA in 2024 over its airport obligations and lost. The court dismissed the case. Boulder dropped its appeal in November 2025. The airport remains open.
• Chicago's Mayor Daley infamously sent bulldozers to destroy Meigs Field's runway in the dead of night in 2003. Congress responded by increasing penalties for illegal airport closures from $1,100 to $10,000 per day. "Remember Meigs Field!" became a national rallying cry — and it remains one.

The path toward closure is a dead end paved with taxpayer dollars.

What the Council Isn't Telling You About the Airport's Value

Vance Brand Airport generates $73.6 million in annual economic impact, supports 448 jobs, and produces $29.6 million in payroll — according to the Colorado Department of Transportation's own study. It recorded over 126,600 operations in 2024, making it one of the busiest general aviation airports in the state.

And here's a fact that undermines the council majority's favorite talking point: the airport requires zero General Fund subsidy. Tenant and user fees cover 100% of operating costs. The $150,000 in annual FAA entitlement funds — with CDOT covering the state match — goes directly to infrastructure improvements that maintain the facility.

Does the airport face a financial sustainability challenge? Yes — a projected $165,000 annual shortfall that could grow by 2029 without new revenue sources. But the answer to a $165,000 problem is not to destroy a $73.6 million economic asset. It's to invest strategically and capture the enormous opportunities that are barreling toward communities with functioning airports.

The Trillion-Dollar Industry Landing on Our Doorstep

While Longmont's council debates whether to dissolve an advisory board, the rest of the world is racing to build the infrastructure for a new era of aviation — and small municipal airports are at the center of it.

Advanced Air Mobility is no longer science fiction. It's arriving in 2026.

• Joby Aviation received FAA Type Inspection Authorization in November 2025 and is launching commercial air taxi service in Dubai this year, with U.S. operations to follow.
• Archer Aviation received its Part 135 Air Carrier Certificate and expects first commercial revenue in early 2026. Its Midnight aircraft carries four passengers at 150 mph with a 100-mile range — at roughly 45 decibels during cruise, significantly quieter than the helicopters the council's allies complain about.
• Wisk Aero (Boeing) completed the maiden flight of its autonomous air taxi in December 2025 — the first candidate for FAA-certified autonomous passenger flight.
• Zipline has completed over 1.4 million drone deliveries and is valued at $7.6 billion. Amazon Prime Air launched its seventh U.S. market in February 2026.

Morgan Stanley projects the Advanced Air Mobility market at $1.5 trillion annually by 2040. The U.S. Department of Transportation published its first-ever National AAM Strategy in December 2025 with 40 recommendations spanning infrastructure, airspace, and workforce development. President Trump signed an executive order in June 2025 titled "Unleashing American Drone Dominance." The FAA's Part 108 rulemaking for Beyond Visual Line of Sight drone operations — the regulatory breakthrough that unlocks commercial drone delivery at scale — has a March 2026 proposal deadline.

This isn't speculative. The infrastructure buildout has already begun.

Beta Technologies has deployed over 50 electric aircraft charging stations across 22 states. Michigan appropriated $7 million to transform Battle Creek Executive Airport into a drone technology park — a 200-acre hub for manufacturing, operations, maintenance, and training. Port San Antonio is building an integrated airspace management system for drones, eVTOL aircraft, and autonomous vehicles at its 1,900-acre campus.

The common thread? Every one of these projects is centered on an existing small or medium airport. Industry analysts estimate that 90% of initial AAM operations in the United States will launch from existing aviation infrastructure. There are roughly 5,000 small community airports across the country with underutilized capacity and often the electrical infrastructure to support charging. These airports aren't relics — they're launchpads.

Longmont Is Uniquely Positioned — If It Doesn't Self-Destruct

Consider what Longmont already has:

An aerospace corridor that's already here. Maxar Technologies, Redwire, Honeybee Robotics (Blue Origin), EnerSys/ABSL Space Products, and NeoTech all operate in Longmont. Stored Energy Systems is expanding locally, creating 314 new jobs at an average salary of $97,493 — a $300 million annual economic impact for northern Colorado. Colorado has the second-largest aerospace economy in the nation behind California, with 80% of its private aerospace workforce concentrated in the metro Denver/northern Colorado region that includes Longmont.

World-class connectivity. NextLight, Longmont's city-owned gigabit fiber network with 60% adoption, has been rated the fastest ISP in the nation. For drone operations that require low-latency communications and real-time data processing, this is an extraordinary competitive advantage that most small cities can only dream of.

Research institutions next door. CU Boulder — 15 miles away — receives more NASA funding than any other public university in America. The San Luis Valley FAA-designated UAS testing site, affiliated with CU, has operated since 2015 with 8,000 square miles of authorized airspace. Colorado State University runs a drone research center. The intellectual infrastructure is already in place.

A 4,800-foot runway with room to grow. The airport sits on 262 acres with 124 hangars and 352 based aircraft. It has the physical footprint to accommodate electric aircraft charging infrastructure, drone operations, R&D facilities, and AAM staging — without displacing current operations.

An airport named for a NASA astronaut. Vance Brand flew on three Space Shuttle missions. You couldn't write a better brand story for an aerospace innovation hub if you tried.

Now imagine what happens when a drone delivery company like Zipline looks at the Front Range for its next expansion market. They see Longmont: gigabit fiber, aerospace workforce, runway infrastructure, proximity to a million-plus metro population, and a university pipeline for talent. Then they see a city council that just dissolved its airport advisory board and spent two years trying to impose punitive landing fees. They see residential developments approved within half a mile of the runway end — one where the developer never even filed FAA paperwork.

They pick somewhere else.

What We Should Be Doing Instead

Instead of dismantling governance and discouraging use, Longmont should be:

• Commissioning a forward-looking airport master plan that incorporates AAM infrastructure, electric aircraft charging, and drone operations — positioning for federal and state grants specifically targeting these investments.
• Applying for the FAA's eVTOL Integration Pilot Program (eIPP), which launched in early 2026 and is selecting state/local government partners for flight testing.
• Recruiting Beta Technologies or comparable companies to install electric aircraft charging stations, as Michigan airports have done with $2.6 million in state funding.
• Partnering with CU Boulder and Colorado Mesa University on drone pilot training and UAS research programs based at Vance Brand.
• Marketing the airport to aerospace companies already in Longmont's backyard — many of whom would benefit from on-field R&D facilities, flight testing, and rapid prototyping capabilities.
• Engaging CDOT's Division of Aeronautics on its next-generation aircraft technology initiatives, which are actively covered in its 2025 Annual Report.

The $165,000 annual shortfall that the council uses to justify undermining the airport is a rounding error compared to the economic development opportunity sitting on the table. Battle Creek, Michigan — a city of 36,000 people — secured $7 million for its drone park. Longmont, with nearly three times the population, a vastly stronger aerospace ecosystem, and a city-owned fiber network, should be leading this conversation, not running from it.

This Is About More Than an Airport

What's happening at Vance Brand is symptomatic of a broader pattern: elected officials making consequential decisions based on political grievances rather than community interest.

Qualified advisory board candidates with military aviation experience and aerospace industry credentials were passed over for the lowest-scoring applicants. When a third seat opened, the mayor refused to fill it. Governance structures are being dissolved not because they failed, but because they produced recommendations the council majority didn't want to hear.

The airport's 448 workers, $73.6 million in economic activity, and 126,600 annual operations deserve better than governance by grudge. And Longmont's future — a future that could include electric air taxis, drone delivery, aerospace R&D, and hundreds of high-paying technology jobs — deserves leaders who can see beyond the next council meeting.

Vance Brand Airport isn't a problem to be managed out of existence. It's a generational asset that, with vision and investment, could help define Longmont as a leader in the most transformative transportation technology since the jet engine.

The question isn't whether Advanced Air Mobility is coming. It's whether Longmont will be ready when it arrives — or whether we'll have dismantled the runway and dissolved the board by then.