Airport-sponsored Community Meeting this Thursday at Chamberlin School
The Aviation Director is using a trojan horse strategy to continue F-35 training at BTV
The Aviation Director of Burlington International Airport (BTV) is sponsoring a Community Meeting at Chamberlin School, 262 White Street in South Burlington, this Thursday, September 14 at 7pm.
Come out to the meeting and tell the Aviation Director that our health and safety are not for sale!
No matter where you live, this airport-sponsored meeting affects you. It is your chance to speak your mind.
At the meeting the Aviation Director will tout a plan for spending $1 million for landscaping some of the 44 acres where the airport demolished 200 affordable houses to make way for the F-35.
Using flower power against the people
However, the landscaping on the 44 acres actually serves a vicious airport purpose: To block one of the most powerful reasons for halting the F-35 training and to shift the blame to the City of South Burlington. Landscaping looks good. It seems good. But it is a Trojan Horse. Beware.
Return the 44 acres to housing now!
The landscaping will be used to prevent the land from returning to housing. Once a portion of the 44 acres is used to fulfill the South-Burlington-zoning requirement for on-airport landscaping for new airport buildings the city’s zoning law will require keeping it free of housing ever into the future.
The Aviation Director will shift the blame from himself to the City of South Burlington. He will argue that South Burlington Zoning prohibits using the land for anything else. No matter the housing crisis. No matter that affordable housing could be built on the city-owned land. He will argue that South Burlington is to blame. He will say that even stopping the F-35 training will not enable restoring housing. He will say there is no longer a desperate housing reason to stop the F-35. His blame-shifting strategy is to keep the F-35 training going forever, just at the cost of some landscaping across the street from the airport.
Tell the Aviation Director to Halt F-35 training at BTV now.
protect the hearing and learning of children
protect the hearts and the minds of adults and the elderly.
Restore housing on the 44 acres.
Restore health and safety to the Chamberlin neighborhood, and to Winooski, Burlington, and Williston, which all have portions in the most dangerous part of the F-35 noise zone.
The landscape ploy by the Aviation Director seeks to continue the pain and suffering inflicted on more than 1000 children living in the F-35 noise-danger zone. This is a 5 mile long by 1 mile wide oval-shaped area centered on the runway that extends from near the western edge of Winooski and across parts of Burlington and South Burlington to Williston.
Instead, we need an Aviation Director who will stop the ploys and act now to protect the health and safety of everyone who lives in or near that oval-shaped extreme noise zone of the F-35.
Attend the meeting
Speak up. Ask the Aviation Director to require that any landscaping comes free of any Trojan-Horse surprises. That it carries no conditions and poses no obstacle to return of housing on every square foot of the 44 acres.
The airport has the power to stop F-35 training at BTV
Tell the Aviation Director to require that all aircraft using BTV conform to the FAA noise standards that protect the health and safety of millions of people living near other civilian airports. The F-35 completely fails those FAA noise standards. The FAA itself lacks authority to regulate the noise of military aircraft. If it could, the F-35 would never have been allowed at BTV. It is an outlaw aircraft at our city airport, allowed only because the FAA lacks the power to stop it!
But the airport itself has the power. Under FAA rules airport owners have the power to establish conditions for safety, so long as those conditions apply to all aircraft using the airport. Even though the FAA cannot itself do so, the airport can require that all aircraft using BTV meet the FAA’s noise standards. Since the F-35 does not, setting that condition for all aircraft would force an end to F-35 training at BTV.
The airport has the power. Tell the Aviation Director to use that power now.
Write or call your public servants and demand an immediate halt to F-35 training in cities.
Governor Phil Scott 802-828-3333 Chief of Staff <Jason.Gibbs@vermont.gov>
Submit your report & complaint to the online F-35 Report & Complaint Form: https://tinyurl.com/5d89ckj9
See all the graphs and in-your-own words statements on the F-35 Spring-Summer 2021 Report & Complaint Form (513 responses): https://tinyurl.com/3svacfvx.
See links to the graphs and in-your-own words statements on all four versions of the F-35 Report & Complaint Form since Spring 2020, with a total of 1670 responses from 658 different people plus 77 more so far on the form that remains active now.
Senator Bernie Sanders 800-339-9834 <Senator@sanders.senate.gov>
Senator Peter Welch 888-605-7270 Chief of Staff <patrick.satalin@mail.house.gov>
Rep. Becca Balint <RepBeccaBalint@mail.house.gov>
Burlington City Council <citycouncil@burlingtonvt.gov>
Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger <mayor@burlingtonvt.gov>
Winooski Mayor Kristine Lott <klott@winooskivt.org>
S. Burlington City Council Chair Helen Riehle <hriehle@sburl.com>
Williston Selectboard Chair Terry Macaig <macaig@msn.com>
VT Senate President Philip Baruth <Philip.Baruth@uvm.edu>
VT House Speaker Jill Krowinski <jkrowinski@leg.state.vt.us>
Attorney General Charity Clark <Charity.Clark@vermont.gov>
States Attorney Sarah George <Sarah.fair.george@gmail.com>
Vermont’s Federal Prosecutor <usavt.contactus1@usdoj.gov>
Adjutant General Brig Gen Gregory C Knight <gregory.c.knight.mil@mail.mil>
Major J Scott Detweiler <john.s.detweiler.mil@mail.mil>
Wing Commander Col Dan Finnegan <daniel.finnegan@mail.mil>
Vermont National Guard Inspector General Lt. Col. Edward J Soychak <edward.soychak@us.af.mil>
US Air Force Inspector General Lt. Col. Pamela D. Koppelmann <pamela.d.koppelmann.mil@mail.mil>
Air Force Secretary Frank Kendall <Frank.Kendall@us.af.mil>
Any demonstrations scheduled? There voting this week on new lease
I appreciate what you have presented James. I don't have a way to measure, but the noise measurements they took at the East side of the airport were in a very wooded area, with lots of trees to muffle the sound. I live near Industrial Ave and Rt. 2! and the roars are dreadful. I work from home and have to halt my meetings. If I'm in the garden I have to cover my ears or try to get inside fast enough. Another day I was in the parking lot near Hannaford's with 2 bags of groceries in my arms when the jets roared overhead. I couldn't stop in the middle of the road to put down my bags to cover my ears.
Worse than this discomfort for all of us is the murder of citizens in other countries. How in this day and age can we justify that it's ok for us to decimate another country, kill innocent people, and poison their country, because we can't /WON'T solve disagreements peacefully. As a country, we have to find creative positive ways to support ourselves - not just sell munitions, jets, tanks, missiles, drones, bioweapons, and Darn T socks to other countries, and wastefully burn millions of gallon of gas from our own oil companies. Russia WAS ready to negotiate, but our military-run government refused to create peace. What does it mean to want to be the number 1 country in the world? That we own and sell the most weapons? That we need/desrve to bully the rest of the world?
Thank you for considering the real truth about War and the USA.