Dear Friends,
THANK YOU to all who joined on Saturday to support jet noise speakers at the City of Palo Alto 2019 Priorities retreat. As noted in the
local press
, Mayor Filseth "emphasized that many of the issues that were brought up by the public and by his colleagues --
including airplane noise and improving communication with the public -- will remain important areas of attention, even if they're not official council priorities."
New Santa Clara/Santa Cruz (SCSC) roundtable NEWS!
On
Friday
, the Executive Board of Directors of the Cities Association of Santa Clara County is finalizing "support of the Professional Services Agreement with Environmental Science Associates (ESA) for facilitation/technical services for the Santa Clara/Santa Cruz Roundtable." We are encouraged by the selection of ESA as facilitator because it is a well respected group, with
expertise
in environmental technical studies, federal and state environmental compliance, and is also experienced working with multi-stakeholder groups on noise issues.
We applaud the Cities Association for these milestones - getting the SCSC roundtable started and selecting a facilitator! We are also pleased that Mayor Filseth has appointed Council member Lydia Kou to represent Palo Alto!
Councilmember Kou can be reached at
[email protected]
or
[email protected]
.
Elected city officials will be the points of contact for citizens
. As we learn more, we will update.
Background and looking ahead:
Last June we reported when the
Board
of the Cities Association of Santa Clara County voted to support “the formation of an intergovernmental partnership between the cities and counties of Santa Clara and San Cruz , Norman Y. Minéta San Jose International Airport, San Francisco International Airport,
and the FAA
that will serve as a permanent aircraft noise mitigation entity.” We also shared that we
want to see the FAA's
new initiative
for Community Involvement to be implemented with
FAA's Air Traffic Organization Community Involvement Plan
.
Now that we will have representation on a regional table, it is essential for the scope of the new Roundtable to include an emphasis on noise assessments that employ supplemental metrics, and to ensure that community and FAA decisions are informed by what we experience on the ground. Our elected officials made extraordinary efforts with the Select Committee - where communities came up with potential solutions, but
now we must also have FAA and industry step up to address our concerns.
Please send questions, observations, ideas, and suggestions that you would like to make as this initiative develops.
