Brea : 2nd Hearing Tuesday on Bank’s Proposed Helipad

A second public hearing on a proposed helicopter pad that has pitted the Security Pacific National Bank Operations Center against neighboring residents is scheduled for Tuesday night.

The first public hearing before the city’s Planning Commission drew about 300 residents protesting the proposal.

Residents said the noise from the daily use of the helicopter would disturb them. Bank officials said they needed the security and efficiency that a helicopter would provide to transport 3 million documents daily.

Bank representative Roger Grable said during the April 23 hearing that the helipad “is a very important project for the bank.”

Dena Edmonson, a member of the Board of Education, said she was concerned not with the bank’s security but with noise levels and the safety of “the children and parents,” especially since the helicopter’s secondary flight pattern is above a proposed site of Brea’s high school.

“Noise levels are described with standards for this and standards for that. I ask, if it is possible not to increase present noise levels, why increase them? Our airs are already sufficiently cluttered,” Edmonson said.

The hearing is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. at the Brea-Olinda High School auditorium. The Planning Commission is expected to make a recommendation to the City Council Tuesday unless new information is presented, William Kelley, Brea’s development services director, said Friday.