By Tom Momberg
Members of the newly formed New York Airport Community Roundtable Committees for LaGuardia and John F. Kennedy International Airports met Tuesday night to install their leadership.
The roundtable last adjourned in November without achieving any aims. But the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey urged things along this time, suggesting the airport committees structure a single coordination committee that would streamline communication between communities around both airports with the Port Authority and the Federal Aviation Administration.
“We don’t want to dictate how this group functions, but we just thought we needed to start somewhere,” said Port Authority Assistant Director of Aviation Public Affairs Ralph Tragale, who also said the Port Authority still had to allocate money for the roundtable’s operations.
The roundtable is intended to mitigate community concerns over air traffic noise and other neighborhood spin-offs from the airports. There is still an effort to be made in getting the group fully organized.
When 36 members met at CUNY York College Tuesday to get the ball rolling, the meeting adjourned with at least some newly appointed leaders. Next time they meet, they willhave to start establishing some bylaws.
After much deliberation, they decided the committee would be led by to co-chairs and two vice chairs: two representing groups near LaGuardia and two representing groups near JFK.
Voting members elected by a voice vote Eastern Queens Alliance Chairwoman Barbara Brown to represent the JFK committee and Queens Quiet Skies President Janet McEneaney to represent the LaGuardia committee. Both are co-chairs.
Warren Schreiber, a vice chairman for Community Board 7, was elected as vice chair from the LaGuardia area. Richard Hellenbrecht, of Community Board 13, was elected as vice chair from the JFK area.
Out of the 64 members of the roundtable, representing government officials, community boards, chambers of commerce, industry boards and committees from around Queens and a few from Nassau County, Brooklyn and the Bronx, only about three dozen were present Tuesday.
They were each handed nomination ballots as they walked in the door of the room, asking them to select one chair, one vice chair and a secretary, but the meeting did not play out so neatly.
Members were only allowed to nominate those who were present.
Then state Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside) chimed in, ultimately limiting the nomination pool by half.
“I don’t think it’s appropriate for elected officials to be nominated for these positions,” he said.
Councilman Eric Ulrich (R-Ozone Park) seconded Avella’s statement by saying he would not accept any nominations for chair or vice chair and after much chaotic discourse, members finally agreed.
Still, people were upset there would only be one committee rather than two to represent each airport, hinting at the need for equal representation. But doubling the executive seats for the committee created more frustration at first.
Members from Nassau were upset they did not have the representation they wanted at the roundtable.
Hempstead Executive Assistant of Intergovernmental Relations Kendall Lampkin originally cast his own nomination into the ring for chair, but got placed down to a nomination for secretary in the configuration process.
But when McEneany and Brown took charge of the meeting after being voted in, they assured that everyone would have an equal vote at the roundtable and that the secretary would still be very involved.
