A 

Growing Miles City one job 

at a time. 

MILES CITY AREA ECONOMIC DEVELOPMENT COUNCIL 

1010 Main Street, Miles City, Montana 59301 

Email: milesecon@midrivers.com 

Dock Operations M-30 

West Building Ground Floor W -12-140 

1200 New Jersey Avenue SE 

Washington DC 20590; 3 

United States of America 

Department of Transportation 

Office of Secretary 

Washington DC 

RE: Docket DOS-OST-1997-2605 

Phone: 406-234-2705 Fax: 406-234-5705 

Website: 4milesci!ybusiness.com 

The Miles City Area Economic Development Council, a 22 member council representing many 

business leaders in our community (see attached), very strongly encourages the continuation of 

Essential Air Service to the Montana Communities of Miles City and Lewistown. 

The economic well being of these communities in a state . as vast as Montana with great travel 

distances will take a huge hit if air service is terminated. The increasing population and business 

environment due to the economic boom from oil activity is prevalent in every community in the BAS 

service area and creating an increasing need for essential air service from our regional communities. 

Our communities need air service as part of our economic lifeline and medical services for our 

citizens. 

We encourage you to continue our BAS allowing our communities time to make a plan of action to 

increase our passenger hoardings, work with the airlines to better market their services, and to research 

possible changes to flight times into Miles City that would better fit the needs for the business 

community and meet the needs of making connecting flights in Billings. This will allow both 

communities and others in our BAS service area to research how we could structure the timeliness of 

flights as well as consider a Denver destination for the Southern most communities as part of the BAS 

package. Boardings were well above minimum requirements for those southern communities with 

Denver service. 

Termination of the Miles City and Lewistown communities could severely jeopardize the current EAS 

service to the seven communities in Central and Eastern Montana. It is conceivable we could lose this 

service for everyone. This network of communities has worked together for many years to create a 

successful BAS. Not one of the communities in the EAS service area wants to see one of our 

neighbors lose their service. We know the loss would significantly affect the community and 'the 

group ofEAS communities. 

Thank you for considering our request to NOT enforce the Order of Show Cause at this time and give 

the BAS task force time to work on this problem. We believe a solution to this problem can be found 

for both the northern and southern communities in our EAS area. 

S~r~~Jy, " 

I h{lte_, ~. Mike C , 

Executive Direc r 

(Board Members supporting this letter listed on page 2) 
Jerry Austill, Owner 

The Frame Gallery 

Miles City, MT 59301 

Pat Cline, President 

US Bank 

Miles City, MT 59301 

Nick Haag, Region Manager 

Montana Dakota Utilities 

Glendive, MT 59330 

John Laney, Exec. Director 

Miles City Chamber 

Miles City, MT 59301 

Bill Melnik 

City Councilman 

Miles City, MT 59301 

Keith Holmlund 

Custer County Commissioners 

Miles City, MT 59301 

Kate Russell, Area Manager 

Montana Dept. of Revenue 

Miles City, MT 59301 

Jim Zimmerman, VP 

First Interstate Bank 

Miles City, MT 59310 

Dr. Stefani Hicswa, Pres. 

Miles Community College 

Miles City, MT 59301 

Tyler Chapmon, Agent 

59301 

State Farm Insurance 

Miles City, MT 59301 

Chris Griffith, Loan Officer 

Stockman Bank 

Miles City, MT 

Bill Wade, General Mgr. 

MidRivers Communications 

Circle, MT 59215 

Doug Benge, CPA 

Rowland, Thomas and Company 

Miles City, MT 59301 

Keenan Zentz, Sr. Dist. Manager 

Sanjel USA 

Miles City, MT 59301 

Mark Helland 

Rancher & Feed Producer 

Miles City, MT 59301 

PaUl Lewis, CEO 

Holy Rosary Healthcare Hospital 

Miles City, MT 59301 

Jackie Muri, CPGA 

Holy Rosary Hospital 

Miles City, MT 59301 

Mark Petersen, Research Leader 

Fort Keogh Livestock & Range Research 

Miles City, MT 59301 

Dr. Lew Vadheim, M.D. 

Billings Clinic - Miles City 

Miles City, MT 59301 

Mike Coryell, Exec. Director 

MCAEDC 

Miles City, MT 59301 

Donovan McComb, Pres. 

First Interstate Bank 

Miles City, MT 59301 

Ron Nemic 

Montana Job Service 

Miles City, MT 59301 

Jack Regan, Superintendent 

Custer County School District 

Miles City, MT 59301