By Madina Toure
A new Port Authority proposal for a roundtable to address jet noise and pollution around Queens’ two major airports has drawn mixed reactions from advocates and residents.
The PA has proposed one New York Airports Community Roundtable with two separate airport committees, one for JFK and the other for LaGuardia.
Each airport committee will have 32 voting members, with representative geographic coverage of communities affected by the airport. The combined membership will vote for an executive committee, which will be charged with formulating and approving the roundtable bylaws. Committee members would vote on the adoption of the bylaws.
The PA and the Federal Aviation Administration will attend each of the committee’s meetings as well as the executive committee’s sessions and serve in an advisory capacity, but will not be voting members.
“After extensive outreach to stakeholders in Queens, Brooklyn, the Bronx and Nassau, the Port Authority believes it is presenting a roundtable format and voting structure that will be effective in ensuring that all airport noise issues pertinent to the communities affected by JFK and LGA Airports can be addressed,” Ed Knoesel, senior manager for environmental and noise programs in the PA’s aviation department, wrote in a letter outlining the proposal.
Warren Schreiber, chairman of Community Board 7’s aviation committee, said if civic groups are to be involved, they have to meet certain criteria. He praised the decision as a good way to get things started.
“I think that the Port Authority has come up with a proposal that’s reasonable and workable and I think that stakeholders on both sides of the argument have to make a good faith effort to work together,” Schreiber said.
He noted that the proposal may not be set in stone as the bylaws still have to be formed.
But Susan Caroll, a Flushing community advocate, had a number of concerns about the proposal, including the lack of representation for civic groups and the vagueness of the list of elected officials given representation in the committees.
She said she is “cautiously optimistic” about the proposal.
“I think that’s a fair compromise,” Carroll said.
The committees include seats reserved for lawmakers, community boards, airlines, city agencies and the airports themselves, but no representation for civic or neighborhood groups.
Residents and advocates who were in favor or either one roundtable or two roundtables were dissatisfied with the proposal.
Janet McEaneaney, president of Queens Quiet Skies, which was in favor of one roundtable, disapproved of the proposal, saying the PA should revise it before the next meeting. She said the proposed voting system and membership on the roundtable was “very unusual.”
“Airport committees should be subordinate to one big roundtable,” McEaneaney said. “They can be part of it, but they cannot be independent.”
Barbara Brown, chairwoman of the Eastern Queens Alliance, which supports separate roundtables, criticized the lack of representation for average citizens or civic groups.
She said the committees ultimately have to answer to the executive committee so it does not satisfy their desire for separate roundtables.
“The difference is where the locus of decision-making rests,” Brown said.
The next meeting will be held April 7 at 6:30 p.m. at York College.
Reach reporter Madina Toure by e-mail at mtour
