The Cottonwood City Council held a discussion at its June 7 meeting concerning the future of skydiving at the Cottonwood Municipal Airport.
Airport Manager Jeff Tripp requested the council consider and adopt minimum operating standards for commercial skydiving operations.
“In 2017, the city approved a base set of minimum operating standards toward several commercial operations at the airport; skydiving, while under the current activity at the airport was not one that was approved at that time,” Tripp said.
Tripp indicated that in December, the airport was approached by a potential skydiving operator, Go Jump Sedona, to conduct commercial skydiving operations at the airport.
Additionally, Tripp said, “We’ve also had calls from several other companies expressing interest with finding out about doing skydiving operations here” as he presented a set of minimum standards to the council.
“The minimum standards were developed based on other airports’ minimum standards across the country,” Tripp said.
Mayor Tim Elinski stated council looked over the information provided in their agenda packets prior to the meeting, then he initiated discussion, which mainly centered around clarifying the language of leasing terms.
Councilwoman Tosca Henry requested clarity regarding the language of the terms of lease and whether council approval would be required for leases. She also asked if leases would be restricted to land operated by the airport.
After a brief discussion between council, Tripp and Cottonwood City Attorney Steven B. Horton regarding the terms of leases, Henry moved to approve the minimum standards, with revisions to the language reflected in the discussion.
The revisions included removing the requirement to lease land from the airport for a skydiving drop zone.
The motion was approved by all members of council.
Currently, Cottonwood does not have any skydiving companies actively pursuing operations.
“[The companies] have decided to put this on hold, they said they are working on some East Coast operations, so at this point, this is still getting us in place, whether this company comes back or whether another future operator decides to do it, at least we’ll still have the policies ready,” Tripp said.
