Letters to the Editor: Airport 07.13.17

Dig Up the Runway

East Hampton

July 5, 2017

To the Editor:

Hey David, hope all is well. I spent the entire Fourth of July weekend outdoors. Sunday at the ocean and Tuesday at Three Mile Harbor. The ocean was great and the paddleboarding on Three Mile Harbor spectacular. 

In the middle of all this beauty, I had an epiphany. Local government is slowly killing us. The health and beauty of our land should not be for sale at any price. While at both locations, I was unnerved by the helicopter and jet noise. I couldn’t believe the size of some of the planes. 

Now, I know there is a lot of negative airport talk due to noise, and it’s not just the local-to-the-airport residents. I don’t believe we should close it, but do we need to accommodate those jumbo jets? Can’t we turn back the hands of time and just have a nice little airfield for the local guys to fly their Piper Cubs and Cessnas? 

My question is, who owns East Hampton Airport and why has it become such a controversy? Is it owned by us, the taxpayers, an outside corporation, or some entity we don’t know about? If we do indeed own the airport, how is it the responsibility of the taxpayer to accommodate a handful of planes for the rich and famous or Mr. Deep Pockets? 

Here’s an idea: why not just send the Highway Department up to the airport and dig up enough of the runway so the jets can’t land! I mean, the Georgica people did it a few years ago and just opened the pond in the middle of the night. They solved their own problem. Bam, done. 

Keep the real news flowing.

JEFFREY PLITT

No Longer Quaint

East Hampton

July 10, 2017

To the Editor:

I grew up in Far Rockaway, under the flight patterns from Kennedy Airport, once known as Idlewild. Hundreds of planes flew over our buildings, and the air always had the fragrance of airplane fuel. The noise was sometimes deafening, so we became deaf to it. The fumes were unpleasant, so we wore clothespins on our noses. We never thought to flee Far Rockaway.

My father joined a group to protest the airport’s unbearable conditions. He was told that the airport was vital to the growth of the country and was told to get lost.

When we moved to East Hampton in 1979, the airport seemed quaint. The gun club made more noise. Almost no one who lived here used the airport, so it had little impact on the local population. If there was no airport hardly anyone would have known the difference or cared.

The summer and vacation-home population mostly got in their cars and drove out. Even the wealthiest people made the two and a half-hour trip by car. The trip out was part of the specialness of spending the summer here. Bitching about traffic and speed limits was part of the deal.

But the airport was never essential to 99 percent of the population. Didn’t create a lot of jobs. Didn’t play a role in the local real estate market. Didn’t exist for most of us. And today none of that has changed.

The only real change in the airport is that wealthy people now use it in greater numbers, and the vehicles they use create enormous amounts of noise at all times of the day and night. It is no longer useless and quaint and unobtrusive but is now useless, gross, and extraordinarily disturbing.

The vast majority of wealthy people still find a quieter way of getting here. They don’t feel entitled to disturb the tranquillity of their neighbors and the environment. No one who uses the airport is essential to the well-being of the community. The airport is essentially a waste of good property for the wrong reasons.

So, given that the airport has been transformed from an innocuous quaint community service to an offensive, disturbing expression of entitlement and disrespect, it would seem appropriate to end its existence and use the property for something that will provide for the greater needs of East Hampton Town, which we know are many.

We don’t need the airport, and the people who use it will find other means of getting here. Or, they will be welcomed with open arms in my old neighborhood, Far Rockaway by the sea. 

NEIL HAUSIG

Commuter Aviation

Noyac

July 10, 2017

Dear David,

The airport issue should focus on one thing only: what is best for the future of the East End, for the majority who live here, pay taxes here, raise their kids here. It should not make a priority the needs of the visiting minority or the few East Hampton households who regularly commute by air. That’s what the courts did when they ruled, days before the Fourth of July, against local control of the airport.

The unprecedented pace of crowd-sourced commuter aviation, with its toxic flight operations out of KHTO, has, in a few short years, impacted our quality of life in a way that took decades of overdevelopment and ignoring the degradation of our bays and waterways to bring about. 

We cannot now, as we did for decades, sit idly by and allow commuter aviation to further diminish all that is precious to us. The airport’s destructive reach has been over a far broader area than just East Hampton; it extends all the way to New York City, where the commuter journeys begin. If you are not yet concerned about the impacts of this increasing toxic activity on your family’s health and well-being, and the future of your children, you should be.  

The siren call to action came from the movement to close the airport. That call quickly became mainstream, so it is time now to urge discussion of next steps, such as alternative uses of the airport property, an area larger than Cedar Point Park. It is not too early for the town to encourage discussion about uses that will benefit the town and all of its residents, not solely the aviation community. All East Hampton residents can and should be invited to state their opinions and give suggestions on how to shape the future of the property. 

Suggestions provided to Say No to KHTO include affordable housing, senior and youth centers, expanded recreational activities and open space, solar installations on ground already cleared, the repurposing of large hangar structures currently used for aviation that could accommodate office space, creative space, and so many other uses that will bring jobs and income to the town instead of to the special aviation interests. 

The time to reverse the decline of our quality of life and discuss what the future should be is right now. 

PATRICIA CURRIE