The Coalition to Prevent Westchester Airport Expansion met with County Executive George Latimer on Monday, November 29th to discuss a range of airport issues. Overall, the meeting was friendly, informative, and collaborative and contained several noteworthy and supportive moments.
Also attending from the County were Deputy County Executive Ken Jenkins, Director of Operations Joan McDonald, County Attorney John Nonna, Director of Policy and Programs for Health and Infrastructure Aviva Meyer, and others.
The meeting began with Latimer describing his overall plans for the airport during his upcoming second term as County Executive. He repeatedly pledged to "oppose airport expansion" and prevent privatization. Latimer said his vision for the airport would be the Airport Master Plan once revised, and pledged to complete the revision of the existing, including a robust public input process, starting this spring assuming the COVID pandemic abates enough by then to allow in-person gatherings.
The County administration is targeting March 2022 for a revival of the public input process on the Master Plan. The Coalition was promised an opportunity to review the technical consultant's projections for the airport and a project timetable ahead of time. The process will likely feature hybrid opportunities for public input at locations near and far from the airport, itself. Latimer acknowledged the need for and challenge of educating the public about non-obvious stakes it has in the airport - for example, the Kensico Reservoir drinking water next door - and the Coalition offered to help with messaging. The County promised to see what documentation is available from prior meetings on the airport Master Plan and to share those with its consultants, but advised all interested parties to come out and make their feelings known next year as part of the current process.
Other highlights included statements Latimer made regarding the voluntary curfew and violations of the Terminal Use Regulations law by companies like JLX, XO, and Blade, which are operating or planning to operate passenger flights out of private FBOs that should have to fly out of the main terminal and abide by full TSA security procedures and COVID precautions. Latimer repeated that he was "willing to go to court" to enforce the TUR rules: "This puts the whole TUR at risk," he acknowledged. The Coalition, which has lobbied for more active enforcement against violators like these, voiced our full support.
Latimer also welcomed the Coalition's report on strategies to more effectively enforce the voluntary overnight curfew. "I'm very anxious" to see what we came up with, Latimer said, referring to the report that he had invited us to prepare at a prior meeting. The Coalition expressed that we had surveyed best practices that worked at other airports, that would be relatively easy to implement and not very costly. "We're all in" to reduce violations, stated Latimer. A meeting with the County's airport management firm, AvPorts, senior County officials and the Coalition will be scheduled for January to focus on this issue.
The County explained that it had complained about overnight curfew violations to the federal government in response to continuing late-night arrivals at the airport by large aircraft chartered by HHS to transport immigrants to the region. The feds, however, have declined to make changes since we are the last stop for their flights. The number of HHS flights has decreased since their peak in August and these are not among the more frequent curfew violators.
Other matters discussed included:
- FAA feedback on the County's exploration of an alternative flight plan for aircraft arriving from the north (Coalition Steering Committee member and County Airport Advisory Board member Robert Fleisher chairs the County subcommittee examining this)
- Million Air's lawsuit against the County to build a large new hangar without County approval. The County pledged to update the Coalition on the status of Million Air's delinquent NEPA approvals
- Pending expiration of the airlines' Terminal Use Agreements (2024). The County is beginning to plan a strategy and agreed engage with the Coalition on this by the end of Q1 2022
- A recent interview of the County Executive by the Westmore News, where Latimer explained how he felt his quotes had been taken out of context to make him appear critical of airport watchdog groups and advocates.
The Coalition is pleased that the County Executive agreed to continue our meetings and dialogue in early 2022. For the first time, we have a seat at the table on par with other airport stakeholders. As we press ahead with our advocacy efforts we welcome input from you, our supporters.
Finally, in this season of giving, we ask all our supporters to be generous with the Airport Coalition to enable us to maintain and intensify our advocacy. Please
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