Even though a controversial skydiving company in Sisters recently moved its headquarters to Madras Airport, the local group that wanted the business gone shouldn’t celebrate just yet.

Skydive Awesome! will be back at Sisters Eagle Airport, its owners say.

Cara Rosier, who owns Skydive Awesome! with three other people, said her skydiving operation only began to operate out of Madras Airport this month because it couldn’t get a necessary conditional use permit from Deschutes County in time for the 2017 season.

The pushback from more than 100 Sisters residents, who formed a group called Save Our Skies and have been working for nearly a year to stop skydiving from happening in Sisters, doesn’t have anything to do with it. Save Our Skies maintains that the air traffic and noise that skydiving brings to the area is disrupting their rural ambiance.

“We don’t call it a move so much as an expansion,” said Rosier, adding that her company can still operate in Sisters under certain conditions and plans to do so “a few times a week” this summer.

“I think it’s great in Sisters, and awesome in Madras as well,” she said. “We’re happy to have both locations.”

The reason for the move comes down to safety and what the county permit allows, Rosier explained. A conditional use permit from the county is required in order for Skydive Awesome! to land beginning skydivers outside of airport property, which Rosier has to do in Sisters because the city’s airport is too small for beginning jumpers.

More experienced skydivers can still land at the Sisters airport, Rosier said, but in Madras there’s plenty of room for participants of all skill levels to land on the airport property, which doesn’t require a permit.

“We still have our office in Sisters, but we also have gracious hosts at the Madras Airport,” she said. “We have a large hangar and we can easily land there.”

Dave Campbell, manager at Sisters Eagle Airport, confirmed that Skydive Awesome! would still perform jumps in Sisters, just “not to the extent that they had been.”

Pat Kearney, who’s on the Save Our Skies leadership committee, said the skydivers’ move to Madras is a step in the right direction, but that the group wants more.

“I wouldn’t say it meets any of our goals; I’d say it just gives us additional time,” Kearney said. “We’re still committed to negotiating an end to skydiving in Sisters, and we continue to be in the process of setting up mediation sessions. There seems to be a willingness to mediate.”

Rosier agrees that she and her business partners want to compromise civilly with Save Our Skies so that everyone’s happy, but she said she’s skeptical of the group’s true intentions. An email that was unintentionally sent from an SOS group member to Skydive Awesome! in March reveals the anti-skydiving group’s true objective, Rosier claims.

The email, sent from SOS group member and Sisters attorney Marcy Edwards, is in response to a different group member’s message that proposed a potential compromise — that Skydive Awesome! still use the Sisters airport but land its skydivers closer to Redmond.

“It is a good suggestion for later in the process if we are losing,” Edwards wrote. “I am not ready to give up on trying to eliminate skydiving entirely. Let’s see how far we get before offering compromises.”

Edwards, in an interview with The Bulletin on Friday, said she stands by what she wrote in her email.

“Everybody that negotiates goes in with a goal in mind,” she said. “I’m not saying we’re not willing to negotiate, but as a goal it’s not unfair to say we want to eliminate skydiving in Sisters. There’s nothing wrong with saying that’s our goal, but we’re willing to compromise. We would be happy if they move to Madras.”

Rosier, in an email to The Bulletin, said the expansion to Madras is great for the business, but Skydive Awesome! doesn’t plan to give up its territory in Sisters.

“We have put skydiving in Central Oregon on the map, and we are happy to call Central Oregon our home,” she wrote. “So for future summers, expect to see Skydive Awesome! parachutes flying freely over Central Oregon.”

— Reporter: 541-617-7829,
awest@bendbulletin.com