Rancor Gone for Van Nuys Airport Panel : Factions in Noise Fight Talk Calmly at Meeting

The July meeting of the Van Nuys Airport Citizens Advisory Council broke up in disarray, with half the members storming out after trying unsuccessfully to disband the Los Angeles City Council-created group.

Anti-noise activists who walked out complained that the advisory council was stacked in favor of those who want to expand the airport.

But when the group met again Monday, all was harmonious. Members of the anti-noise faction who had walked out last month exchanged ideas without rancor with those they had bitterly criticized at the July 11 session.

Nonetheless, at the close of the meeting, council Chairman Clay Lacy couldn’t resist bringing up what he termed last month’s troubles. Lacy said he was particularly upset about charges that a majority of council members have a financial stake in the airport’s expansion.

Lacy, who operates an aircraft charter firm at the airport, noted that he was one of only two of the 16 council members who owns an airport-dependent business, adding: “If anything, I think the council is loaded the other way.”

Bias Charged

But Don Schultz, president of Ban Airport Noise and a leader of the council’s anti-noise faction, insisted that the group’s pro-airport bias has showed in its actions since its creation in 1985.

“What have we done to relieve noise in the four years we have been around?” he asked. “Nothing.”

Wilford H. Ross, another council member who has long campaigned to reduce airport noise, said after the session that despite statements to the contrary last month, the five who walked out were “not intending to resign or destroy the council. We just wanted to make a point that compromise requires give by both sides and we don’t see them giving much.”

In the spirit of harmony, members agreed to study a recommendation by Gerald A. Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino, to ban use of the airport by planes that create more than 75 decibels of noise on takeoff or landing. The airport has a curfew barring departures between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m. by planes rated by the Federal Aviation Administration as creating 74 decibels or more on takeoff, except for police, fire, emergency and military flights.

Silver said the ban would eliminate one-fourth to one-third of the airport’s roughly 500,000 takeoffs and landings each year.

Older Planes Blamed

A study of airport logs indicated that the noisier flights are mostly by older executive jets that don’t meet modern noise rules, Silver said, suggesting that firms using the older planes would buy newer ones if the old planes were banned.

Council members also agreed to lobby city Department of Airports consultants, asking them to consider a plan backed by the citizens council to build an aerospace museum and park on airport land being vacated by the Air National Guard.

Museum proponents want 15 to 20 acres of the 62 acres to be used to display historic and exotic aircraft.

While some sort of museum was included in preliminary drafts of four options for the property prepared by a consulting firm, Lacy and others said they doubt that planners took the project seriously.