I attended a meeting this week at the United States Courthouse in downtown Minneapolis to discuss reliever airport security. The meeting was called by U.S. Attorney, Mr. Tom Heffelfinger. In the photo below, that’s Mr. Heffelfinger on the right, and Mr. Tim Anderson, Director of Operations for the Metropolitan Airports Commission, in the middle.
Mr Heffelfinger called this meeting because he is concerned about the apparent lack of coordination of security at the Twin Cities reliever airports. The reliever airports are small airports that are part of the Metropolitan Airport Commission’s airport system. These airports help “relieve” congestion at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport by providing places for smaller aircraft to operate. There are reliever airports in Eden Prairie, Lakeville, Lake Elmo, Crystal, St. Paul, and Anoka County.
The meeting was attended by city officials from cities that host reliever airports. In addition to me, Eden Prairie was represented by Mayor Nancy Tyra-Lukens, Councilmember Sherry Butcher, Police Chief Dan Carlson, Police Captain Rob Reynolds, and Fire Chief George Esbensen. There were representatives attending this meeting from the U.S. Attorney’s Office, FBI, Transportation Safety Administration, MN Department of Transportation, MN Department of Public Safety, Joint Terrorism Task Force, and the Metropolitan Airports Commission – among others. In short, it was an important meeting and we were all there to discuss reliever airport security.
The discussion led me to conclude that each of the appropriate parties has prepared itself to address airport security, each in its own way. However, I also think it’s fair to say that the various parties could imporve reliever airport security by coming together and coordinating their respective plans.
In fact, that is what Mr. Heffelfinger wants us to do. Eden Prairie has volunteered to serve as the model reliever airport to develop a template for reliever airport security that could be used at the other relievers in the MAC system. We are going to get going on this project right away. Mr. Heffelfinger wants us to complete the project and report back to his office in about 60 days with a finished plan.
It’s a daunting challenge, given the number of agencies and private businesses based at the reliever airports, but we will give it our best effort.
