A Burlington business group that favors basing the F-35 fighter jet in Vermont is flying Gov. Peter Shumlin and the mayors of Burlington and Winooski to Florida next Wednesday to hear first-hand how loud the planes are.
But the head of the Greater Burlington Industrial Corporation, the group that’s sponsoring the trip, says nobody from South Burlington, where the planes would be based, will be joining them.
“Basically everyone on the South Burlington City Council has their mind made up one way or the other,” says GBIC president Frank Cioffi. “I didn’t invite them because their minds are made up already. They’ve already staked out their position and their position is their position.”
When Seven Days pointed out that Shumlin, too, has staked out a position on the matter — he’s in favor of bringing the planes to Vermont — Cioffi said, “Yes he has. But he’s the governor. I would say if the governor wants to go down and view them, I think it’s a great opportunity for Vermont to have him go down there.”
One woman who definitely didn’t get an invite is South Burlington City Council Chairwoman Rosanne Greco, a retired Air Force colonel who has become a leading opponent of the Vermont Air National Guard’s effort to woo the next-generation planes. Asked if she’d like to join Shumlin and the mayors, Greco said yes — but not to listen to the planes.
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The major issue is not the noise per se but the negative effect that noise levels above the 65db DNL threshold will have on area real estate and property owners. Having to disclose to perspective buyers that your home is not compatible with residential use will most certainly limit the seller’s ability to successfully sell their home, and will reduce how much the seller can ask for their home in the process. Its a one time correction that thousands of homeowners shouldn’t be forced to face on their own. Yet no entity has come forward to offer compensatory relief to affected homeowners. A trip to Florida to hear the jets in use does nothing to change the Air Force’s own methodology for determining who’s affected. Aside from further muddying the issue, I can’t understand what the proponents are expecting to achieve by burning carbon to fly our mayors and the gov back and forth to Florida. What a waste.
Wouldn’t it be easier to just fly the jet up here so we all can hear it? Instead (one supposes) all these VIPs get a junket to Disney World. At least we’re not paying for it.
That would be the logical thing, and give area residents (like me!) a chance to experience the noise. But the decision has been made, and it is coming no matter what.
So the F-35 has a range of 90-105 decibels, during takeoff, is that right? But as they pass by you, fire trucks and police car sirens have decibel levels closer to 140. Makes you wonder – maybe we should pass resolutions against emergency sirens!
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U.S. Air Force in Corrupt Practice
AIR FORCE F-35 BOONDOGGLE: A BOON FOR OFFICIALS IN THE
BOONIES?
By
William Boardman panthers007@comcast.net
The Governor of Vermont and the Mayor of Burlington have
decided to flaunt their
corrupt behavior as they engage in a private,
lobbyist-paid trip supported by a directly interested party in a charade of
investigation designed to bring a nuclear weapons system to Vermont at the
expense of the health, welfare, and homes of thousands of Vermonters.
That’s not exactly the way Governor Peter Shumlin put it at
his news conference December 6 when he announced that he would be taking a trip
to Florida, in a private jet paid for by the Greater Burlington Industrial
Corporation, to visit the Eglin Air Force Base, in order to listen personally
to an F-35 nuclear-capable stealth fighter bomber that has created significant
controversy in Vermont because of the Air Force’s potential plan to base the
world’s most expensive weapons system in the midst of Vermont’s most populated
area.
Accompanying the governor on the December 12 Florida trip,
he said, would be Burlington Mayor Miro Weinberger and Winooski Mayor Michael
O’Brien. All three elected
officials are Democrats and the mayors endorsed the governor’s 2012 re-election. Shumlin and Weinberger endorsed the
F-35 as Burlington’s own WMD last May.
Although the F-35 would be based at the Burlington Airport
in South Burlington if it comes to Vermont, the governor has excluded South
Burlington officials from his Florida trip. The South Burlington City Council recently voted unanimously
to reaffirm its opposition to an F-35 base that would devastate the city. City Council chair Rosanne Greco is a
retired U.S. Air Force colonel and former Pentagon planner, whose concise and
wide-ranging critique of the Air Force plans have gone unrefuted.
Vermont Governor plans trip with Air Force, lobbyists and interested
parties, wants to make “informed” decision without talking to
opponents of an F-35 nuclear fighter base that will destroy thousands of homes.
Air Force Stonewalls on Releasing
Information
Rather than rebut Col. Greco’s analysis, the Air Force has
so far chosen to stonewall requests for data on which its plans are supposedly based. To date there has been almost no transparency to what
is supposed to be a public review process.
Misrepresenting the nature of his trip at his news
conference, Governor Shumlim said:
“I’m
honored that it’s possible for me and the mayors of the cities – the closest
cities – that would be impacted and others to listen to them…. I do think when you’re
making a decision of this magnitude it’s important that you know what you’re
talking about.”
Besides ignoring the absence of anyone from the closest
city, South Burlington, when the governor talked about “making a decision of
this magnitude,†he was talking about a decision that was out of his hands and
would be made by the Air Force and others at the Pentagon. The Governor chose to rubber stamp the
plan in an unofficial manner when the Air Force presented its environmental
impact statement that, among other things, finds that the F-35 is twice as loud
as the planes now based in South Burlington and that the impact of the base
will render thousands of homes around the airport “unsuitable for residential
use,†in the Air Force’s sanitized phrase.
“I think I owe it to Vermonters to listen to an F-35 as
compared to an F-16 and see what it sounds like,” the governor said, without
addressing his lack of training in sound engineering or any other relevant
expertise.
Have
Any Officials Read the Air Force Report?
At the “F-35 in South Burlington†blogspot,
longtime F-35 opponent Juliet Beth Buck suggested that if the governor wanted
to be “informed,†he might read the Air Force’s environmental impact
statement. It is not clear whether
the governor has read the report or not, but back in May he expressed
“unconditional support†for the F-35 at the first hearing on the report, as
reported in VTDigger
blog, which has mostly stopped reporting on F-35 opposition.
On Vermont Public Radio,
where the early online comments mocked the governor’s jaunt, the main story
quoted Juliet Beth Buck:
“My
first thought was, ‘Oh good. We have three people who know nothing about noise
going somewhere to not measure noise and spend the taxpayers’ money doing it….’ [Shumlin] is going to be standing up
there with a large group of people who approve of this project. Nobody who’s
opposed to this project is invited. Nobody who can actually evaluate the
quality of that noise has been invited.”
While the Industrial Corporation has said it would pay the
travel costs of about $23,000, none of the officials have yet said they would
return a pro-rated part of their salaries, and any involvement of the Vermont
National Guard or the Air Force would mean further expenditures of tax dollars
on a one-sided travelling show.
Exploring the one-dimensional nature of the Florida
contingent in Seven Days, Paul Heinz
talked to the head of the Industrial Corporation, Frank Ciofffi, himself an
ardent supporter of the F-35 who organized a misleading petition drive aimed at
coercing the South Burlington City Council into backing down on facts he
couldn’t disprove. Asked about the
make-up of his air show audience, Cioffi explained the deliberate omissions
this way:
“Basically
everyone on the South Burlington City Council has their mind made up one way or
the other….I didn’t invite them because their minds are made up already.
They’ve already staked out their position and their position is their
position.”
Contingent’s
Pre-Trip Bias Goes Unexplained
Cioffi had no explanation why the trip includes so many
people on record in favor of the F-35 – not only Shumlin and Weinberger, but
National Guard Brig. Gen. Ernie Cray and Burlington real estate
multi-millionaire Ernie Pomerleau.
The only member of the delegation who appears possibly outside the
military-industrial complex is Winooski mayor O’Brien, whose city council
passed a temporizing resolution several month ago, seeking “more information,â€
so it makes sense to head south with people who can offer both “informationâ€
and future campaign support.
When Heinz asked Col. Greco about her exclusion from the
info-gathering expedition, she responded:
“I’d
like to go only because I’d like to have the opportunity to sit down and talk
with the governor and both mayors about the F-35…. Going to hear aircraft in another location that is still in
testing to see if I personally find the noise too loud, too soft, just right,
is, I think, a waste of time.”
Bad faith permeates this dog-and-pony exercise, leaving the
governor and other elected officials apparently thinking the public is stupid
enough to accept a pointless “investigation†that is structurally
anti-democratic and without intellectual integrity. On the other hand, that’s not really new news.
4 minutes a day of noise, in exchange for hundreds of jobs. No brainer. Bring on the F35s. Vermont is ready.
F-35 for VT baby!!! Fire trucks are 20 times louder lol.