A Public Challenge to Set Goals for Van Nuys Airport

The Van Nuys Airport Citizens Advisory Council was formed in 1984 to hear and review issues affecting the operation and development of our airport.

For too long, members of this council have been frustrated by a Board of Airport Commissioners that has met too infrequently in the Valley, and a city Department of Airports overburdened with the complexities of running Los Angeles International Airport.

As chairman of the Citizens Advisory Council, I have issued a public challenge to develop a comprehensive set of goals with which every operator at the airport and all affected homeowners can reasonably be expected to live. The primary goal is to minimize airport noise while also minimizing the impact on those who use the facility for business or recreation.

At the advisory council’s Oct. 7 meeting, Jack Driscoll, executive director of the Department of Airports, publicly promised a new era of cooperation and help in making Van Nuys Airport a more friendly place to work and fly and, for the surrounding community, a better place with which to live.

Even so, the battle isn’t over. As I issued my challenge, it became clear that there will always be those who will accept nothing but full and unconditional surrender of the airport. There are still some groups who want to plant daisies on the runway, and others who are bent on so severely hampering airport operations as to drive away the people who operate businesses there. Some aircraft operators live in a past where completely unrestricted flight operations were the rule of the day. Fear tactics from some in the community--such as warnings that “they” planned to extend the runway, implying that bigger and bigger airplanes would come to Van Nuys--have prevented homeowners and airport operators from agreeing on anything. (That threat had no basis in fact).

None of these people will be entirely happy with the new reality. Some people must accept that they own homes under the flight path of one of the busiest airports in the county. Nothing will change that. Likewise, those jet and helicopter operators who believe they have no obligation to mitigate noise to the greatest extent possible are wrong.

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The Department of Airports is promising a new era of cooperation in solving our problems. That’s a big step forward. We have the opportunity to make changes that will make life better for everyone. What we need now is to cooperate among ourselves, to stop the name-calling and personal attacks and to seek solutions to problems instead of just making noise.