|
Dear Friends,
Thank you to all who reached out to City Council members about SFO’s expansion plan. Please see our email to Council; it is very important to know that the City has until December 20 to act and there are only a couple of meetings left for them to convene on time.
If you have not yet reached out to Council to know when they will vote on this please do so, and feel free to share the letter below.
Council addresses: Ed.Lauing@paloalto.gov, vicki.veenker@paloalto.gov, pat.burt@paloalto.gov, George.Lu@paloalto.gov, Julie.LythcottHaims@cityofpaloalto.org, Keith.Reckdahl@paloalto.gov, Greer.Stone@paloalto.gov,
Email to Council pdf, text below:
Dear Mayor Lauing, Vice Mayor Veenker, Councilmembers Burt, Lu, Lythcott-Haims, Reckdahl and Stone, City Manager Ed Shikada, City Attorney Molly Stump,
We agree with City Manager’ Ed Shikada’s comments to the press last week that San Francisco’s environmental document for the SFO’s upgrade is “deeply flawed.” We would like to thank the city for its second letter on November 19 (attached) explaining what is missing from the FEIR, as well as requesting that a revised draft be circulated for public review. The City’s most substantive comment of Nov 19 was also mentioned during the certification hearing on November 20; however the CIty’s Nov 19 comment will not appear on the FEIR record because - per SF’s public notice - comments after June 2 or at the Final EIR certification hearing are not responded to, “not even” anything said or written on the day of certification.”
As a peer agency the City is best equipped to hold San Francisco accountable for the deficiencies in the state level review; we are especially concerned with how the FEIR is now set to influence future FAA environmental declarations such as CATEX; the current project itself; and other relevant projects in perpetuity. Extraordinarily risky for Palo Alto are the FAA’s recent new rules to have more CATEX. Flawed environmental baselines, and resulting findings of CATEX lead to concentrations of arrival flights over Palo Alto--and why we now have the most to lose from SFO expansion. Neighboring cities and Santa Clara County are not as impacted by flight noise and flight path air pollution like Palo Alto and, essentially, seemed to have abandoned previous historical resolutions on flight noise.
City Council has until December 20 to formally oppose and object to the FEIR. At a glance, this leaves December 8 and December 15 as Council meeting dates. The broader community should please know when Council is going to vote on this clear opportunity to protect Palo Alto, and in time to not miss the statute of limitations.
The City needs to please also be forthcoming about the risks the FEIR certification brings to Palo Alto neighborhoods; the potential negative health impacts from more noise and nighttime operations. Some of the City’s more recent opportunities to challenge false environmental declarations are below, but there are several from prior years with lasting harm as well:
2014 Nextgen EA: the City passed on legal action; resorted to apply to the SFO Roundtable
2018: SERFR CATEX: the City was not well advised and claimed the City did not have a case
2018 PIRAT CATEX: City opted against legal recourse to - again - pursue regional collaboration with the SCSC Roundtable which has since been unceremoniously disbanded.
2020 - present: SFO GBAS has many procedures that the City could have immediately challenged; remains a BIG problem and lacks transparency.
Previous non-legal actions to reduce air traffic noise -Congressional, regional, and local advocacy efforts - have resulted in being ignored or abandoned. After citizens helped build huge regional momentum and technical support from the FAA over a period of several months with the Select Committee - Palo Alto, in conjunction with SFO, have yet to achieve transparency; proper agreements for noise monitoring and noise reduction initiatives; including failure to implement nighttime programs recommended by the FAA specifically for Palo Alto and neighbors - for all the SFO Arrivals procedures!
Thank you,
Sky Posse Palo Alto
| 
