London Lyle
Daily Times-Call, Longmont, Colo.
(TNS)

A months-long dispute between a Longmont City Council member and a former Airport Advisory Board member — men on opposing sides of the community’s debate over Vance Brand Municipal Airport — will come before the council on Tuesday as an ethics case against Mayor Pro Tem Sean McCoy.

Longmont resident and pilot Daniel Meester filed the ethics complaint July 23 over a series of emails McCoy sent to city staff regarding aircraft activity and noise at Vance Brand.

An independent hearing officer has found McCoy violated the city’s ethics code through those communications by trying to influence city employees over aircraft activity affecting his own neighborhood. The City Council will decide Tuesday whether to adopt or modify that finding and what, if any, sanction McCoy should face.

Hearing officer Victoria Aguilar recommended a limited written reprimand. She rejected allegations that McCoy sought preferential treatment, found no independent City Charter or open meetings violation and declined Meester’s request that McCoy be barred from participating in all future airport matters.

McCoy, in a Wednesday interview with the Times-Call, defended his communications as an attempt to represent residents frustrated by aircraft noise and leaded aviation fuel. He said he has since done “a lot of thinking” about whether he crossed a line.

“If my emails came off strong, well, it’s because I want folks who feel like they’re not being heard and feel like they’re being walked on and abused by the pilot community to know that I’m going to hit hard and be there for them,” McCoy said. “If I came across too strong, I really am sorry.”

Vance Brand Municipal Airport in Longmont on March 21. (Matthew Jonas/Staff Photographer)

Aircraft activity at Vance Brand increased from about 126,600 operations in 2024 to roughly 137,450 in 2025, an increase of about 8.6%. Some residents have repeatedly told the council that aircraft noise has become more frequent and disruptive, including longtime Old Town residents who say they are experiencing activity levels they’ve never encountered. Other residents near the airport and pilots have disputed the severity of the problem, saying airport traffic naturally fluctuates and that longer-term data is needed to determine whether the recent increase represents a lasting trend.

Meester, a former vice chair of the now-dissolved Airport Advisory Board, told the Times-Call on Thursday that concerns about the council’s dismantling of the board prompted him to begin filing public records requests that ultimately uncovered McCoy’s communications with airport staff.

Months-long dispute

The dispute between Meester and McCoy dates back to at least late last year.

Meester was among three applicants recommended for vacant Airport Advisory Board seats in December. At the time, Meester was a sitting board member seeking reappointment and had participated in interviewing the board’s applicants. He did not score his own interview, but council members raised concerns about the appearance of a conflict of interest and ultimately voted to leave the seats vacant until a later appointment cycle. Meester publicly defended the process at the time as standard board procedure.

Shortly after that, McCoy replaced Councilmember Matthew Popkin as the council’s liaison to the board.

The disagreement intensified as the council continued to scrutinize the board. On Feb. 12, then-AAB Member Matt Gibson criticized McCoy during a meeting in a manner that appeared to mock McCoy’s stutter. Following the meeting, in an interview with the Times-Call, McCoy spoke about his lifelong struggle with a speech impediment. At the following City Council meeting, on Feb. 24, Mayor Susie Hidalgo-Fahring and Councilmember Jake Marsing condemned Gibson’s conduct as unprofessional, and Marsing moved to begin the process of dissolving the board.

In a Feb. 24 email to McCoy, Meester accused the councilmember of using his Times-Call interview about the Gibson incident to “single out the airport” and publicly prejudice Airport Advisory Board members. He told McCoy he should be ashamed and said he was considering an ethics complaint. Later that day, McCoy forwarded Meester’s email to Aguilar.

In her Aug. 4 determination on the complaint Meester ultimately filed in July, Aguilar noted the contentious February exchange but said she gave it no material weight as evidence either that McCoy violated the ethics code or that Meester had an improper motive for filing the complaint.

The complaint ultimately centered on June emails in which McCoy questioned flight patterns over populated areas and pressed Airport Manager Levi Brown to contact pilots.

Vance Brand Municipal Airport Manager Levi Brown speaks during a pre-session to discuss the future of the airport in Longmont on July 14. (Matthew Jonas/Staff Photographer)

The email exchanges included numerous recipients beyond McCoy and Brown, including city staff, residents and, in some instances, members of the news media. The Times-Call had been copied on several of McCoy’s emails when they were originally sent.

“I will not stop pushing for punitive consequences for pilots who repeatedly and unnecessarily choose to fly over more populated areas when a reasonable alternative exists,” McCoy wrote to Brown on June 11.

McCoy described some pilots as “arrogant, mean, and indifferent” and accused them of “intentional harassment of the general public.” He wrote that if pilots behaved similarly toward wildlife or livestock, “we would have every last one of them grounded and sitting in a courtroom awaiting their sentence.”

“The days of playing nice-nice will never exist again!” McCoy wrote before asking Brown to speak directly with pilots and “direct them to use the alternative.” He also requested a follow-up explaining what Brown had done about the specific pilots.

‘I want to see it successful’

The distinction between asking pilots and directing them is particularly significant at Vance Brand. Longmont’s noise-abatement procedures are voluntary, and the city has little authority to dictate how pilots operate aircraft. At a July town hall, city officials and aviation attorney John Putnam explained that federal law gives the Federal Aviation Administration, rather than local governments, authority over aircraft operations.

Longmont is largely limited to collecting complaints, encouraging pilots to follow its Voluntary Noise Abatement Program, or VNAP, and requesting changes from the FAA. Mandatory restrictions such as curfews or limits on touch-and-go operations face significant federal legal hurdles.

Brown made that limitation clear in his response to McCoy. He wrote that the aircraft shown in flight-tracking screenshots appeared to be operating within VNAP guidance and that pilots at the non-towered airport respond to changing wind, weather and runway conditions.

“I am not able to direct individual pilots to a specific pattern,” Brown wrote, although he said airport staff would continue outreach to reinforce community expectations.

Vance Brand Municipal Airport in Longmont on Saturday, March 21, 2026. (Matthew Jonas/Staff Photographer)

McCoy continued pressing city staff. In a June 24 email, he wrote that pilots appeared to have figured out where he and Mayor Susie Hidalgo-Fahring lived and were altering their routes to repeatedly fly over their northwest Longmont neighborhood.

“A more direct routing would bypass our neighborhood entirely,” McCoy wrote. He said he believed flight instructors associated with a local flight school were doing it intentionally.

Those statements became central to Aguilar’s finding. She determined that moving repeated aircraft activity away from McCoy’s residence would have provided him a “direct, geographically specific benefit” different from the general public’s interest in airport operations. His requests that Brown contact pilots, encourage another route, provide information and report back also met the ethics code’s broad definition of an attempt to influence a city employee.

McCoy rejected the idea that personal benefit drove his actions. He said he spends much of the year away from his home during the workday because of his job as a social studies teacher and was responding to residents who believed their concerns were being ignored.

“I wasn’t trying to get any personal gain out of this, other than to stand up for my constituency,” McCoy said.

A lone vote against grants

McCoy’s broader disagreements over the airport have also extended beyond noise. Earlier this summer, he raised concerns about accepting FAA grants containing language requiring the airport to certify that it does not operate diversity, equity and inclusion programs that violate federal anti-discrimination law.

McCoy sought to postpone acceptance of roughly $1.6 million in federal funding for deteriorating airport taxilanes while the council examined the conditions attached to the money and the airport’s long-term funding model. He ultimately cast the lone vote against accepting the grants in July, saying he was uncomfortable accepting federal money that could come with broader obligations under the Trump administration.

Still, McCoy said his position should not be interpreted as opposition to Vance Brand itself. “I want to see it successful. It’s an investment,” he told the Times-Call on Wednesday, arguing that the airport needs improvements and a more sustainable funding model, such as landing fees. “Grants aren’t going to fix it all.”

Both the Airport Advisory Board and City Council voted down landing fees last year, with some in the aviation community, Meester included, concerned about their impact on local businesses and student pilots.

“There’s still a lot of kids who are washing airplanes in order to pay for flying lessons,” Meester said Thursday.

McCoy copied City Manager Harold Dominguez and Assistant City Manager Jenn Ooton on the emails and explicitly acknowledged to Brown that the airport manager reported to Dominguez, not him.

Aguilar found that did not change the ethics analysis: City code prohibits the attempt to influence staff when a qualifying conflict exists, regardless of whether the attempt succeeds. But she also found McCoy appeared to genuinely believe the flights represented retaliation stemming from official council action, which “materially mitigates” the seriousness of the violation. There was no evidence McCoy fabricated his concerns or acted solely for personal gain, and no airport operations changed or pilots were penalized because of his communications, according to her official determination.

Meester maintains the consequences should go further. He told the Times-Call he believes McCoy should be required to recuse himself from airport matters, arguing his communications demonstrate a bias against airport users.

Aguilar specifically rejected a blanket recusal. She found the ethics provision Meester cited applies to specific quasi-judicial proceedings rather than a council member’s general legislative or policy positions. Any future conflict involving McCoy would have to be evaluated based on the particular matter before him.

Meester said he plans to appear Tuesday and defend the evidence already presented in his complaint rather than introduce new allegations. He said he intends to challenge McCoy’s contention that the communications amounted to ordinary constituent advocacy.

Council members respond to speakers during the City Council’s biannual open forum for residents at the Longmont Civic Center on July 7. (Matthew Jonas/Staff Photographer)

Both men will be allowed to present facts and arguments Tuesday before the council publicly deliberates. McCoy cannot participate in those deliberations. The city’s recommended procedure gives Meester and McCoy up to 10 minutes each for an initial presentation, followed by possible rebuttals and closing arguments. The remaining six council members can either find no violation, or they can adopt or modify Aguilar’s findings. If they determine a violation occurred, they may impose a different sanction than the recommended written reprimand.

This could include an oral reprimand or censure, a fine if they find McCoy financially benefited from the violation, or, under certain circumstances, restricting his access to confidential information or executive sessions on a particular topic. The ethics code does not allow the council to suspend or remove an elected council member through this process.

McCoy said he believes the complaint is part of a broader, politically motivated effort by a coordinated group of pilots unhappy with the dissolution of the Airport Advisory Board to undermine him.

“I’m not the guy he’s painting me as,” McCoy said.

Meester rejected McCoy’s characterization of the complaint as politically motivated, describing himself as “one of the most non-political animals you can meet.” He said he has personal convictions but is open to different perspectives and maintained that his concerns stemmed from McCoy’s conduct rather than a political disagreement.

The ethics complaint is item 12.C on Tuesday’s agenda, placing it in the latter portion of the council’s regular meeting. The meeting begins at 7 p.m. at the Longmont Civic Center, 350 Kimbark St.

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