Opponents to extending a runway at the Anoka County-Blaine Airport came out in full force Tuesday and will have another chance to have their say at a public forum next month.

After Tuesday's meeting of the Anoka County Airport Committee, several residents voiced opposition to the proposal to extend an airport runway from 5,000 to 6,000 feet.

Anoka County's version of Project Runway has not gotten off to a flying start, in part, because only a select few seemed to know about the plan. County Commissioners Rhonda Sivarajah and Dick Lang publicly chastised their own board for pursuing the runway extension plan without input from communities surrounding the airport.

Even Hollis Cavner, director of the 3M Championship Tournament at the TPC and long a staunch supporter of the recent $35 million airport expansion, said from Florida, "The board may have jumped the gun. They have to have a town hall meeting."

That meeting, to be held Dec. 2 at the Kingswood Church in Blaine, will include representatives from the Metropolitan Airport Commission and is expected to attract a crowd much larger than the one that filled the County Board room at Tuesday's meeting. The committee meeting was called so hastily that Blaine Mayor Tom Ryan said he stood in the government center lobby for several minutes before discovering where the meeting was being held.

"I'm opposed and I think the public's been misinformed," Ryan said. "Pilots are talking about the runway being clogged up if [we] change the airport status from minor to intermediate."

Arlo Emerson, of Zimmerman, owns an airport hangar and understands why the county wants to continue to develop its airport.

But residents are concerned about the noise that additional planes could bring. The Circle Pines City Council voted its disapproval of the runway extension last week.

Marcia Rosa, of Blaine, said the moment last Friday when she learned of Tuesday's meeting, she began e-mailing neighbors. More than 750 people shared concerns about noise through those e-mails, she said.

"My neighbors are opposed," Rosa said emphatically, while holding her young daughter.

County Commissioners Robyn West and Scott LeDoux, both County Airport Committee members, said they have fielded several dozen phone calls from concerned citizens. One was Mark Kurth, of Lexington.

Kurth, who attended Tuesday's meeting, said he bought his home 11 months ago. "I was told that there'd be no changes to the airport," he said. "I'm not opposed to the noise there now, but we don't want any more."

Paul Levy • 612-673-4419