Terminating FAA NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign - A Further Call To Action - URGENT
Thomas Sullivan
Terminating FAA NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign - A Further Call To Action - URGENT
Quiet Rockland asks that every single able citizen, public official, and organization opposed to the FAA’s ill-conceived “NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign”, now please regularly, persistently, and appropriately write and post their opposition to the awful FAA Redesign, at the message-board “Comments” section of the new Internet Blog of our new United States Department Of Transportation Secretary, Ray LaHood.
What we want to do, is thank Ray LaHood, in force, for the opportunity to be heard.
FAA has been deputizing its employees to feign ordinary citizenry and post anonymous blogs to newspapers coast-to-coast for the past several years on this same Redesign topic. It’s time for us to even the score once and for all.
USDOT Secretary Ray LaHood’s Blog is titled and located as follows:
“Welcome To The Fast Lane: The Official Blog Of The U.S. Secretary Of Transportation”
http://fastlane.dot.gov/2009/03/back-on-the-hill-pressing-for-livable-communities-.html
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You will see from the Blog that Secretary LaHood and his USDOT colleagues invite our comments.
If you are opposed to FAA’s Airspace Redesign like I am, then you please need to assume that it is “Speak now or forever hold your peace”. What we are asking for now, is a MASSIVE show of opposition to FAA’s Redesign, posted in the form of individual succinct textual comments to the Blog from individual citizens and organizations.
The comment I just posted to Secretary LaHood’s Blog is as follows. Below that, you will find copies of my prior correspondence to Secretary LaHood for reference purposes if you wish to refer to them:
MY TODAY BLOG TO SECRETARY LAHOOD:
“Secretary LaHood, per my prior correspondence to you, I respectfully request that you and your Department please act to withdraw and terminate the FAA’s ill-conceived and hazardous ‘NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign’. The flight paths should never have been re-drawn to cut through densely-populated areas; FAA should have been required to follow the rule of law and due process; and the Air Traffic Controllers should never have been excluded from the planning of air routes. FAA’s Airspace Redesign ‘Project Manager’ Steve Kelley worked a fatal mid-air crash as a TRACON controller in 1985 in which 14 were maimed and 6 people were killed - this is not a man who should have been at all involved in routing 200-600 jumbo jets a day over people’s heads and houses.
Respectfully,
John J. Tormey III, Esq.
Quiet Rockland”
MY PRIOR BLOG TO SECRETARY LAHOOD:
Dear Congressman LaHood:
1. Quiet Rockland asks that, once sworn-in as Transportation Secretary, you please cause your re-configured USDOT, and the FAA under you, to withdraw the US$53,500,000+ failed boondoggle of the prior administration known as the “NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign”. It never made sense to put between 200-600 new jumbo-jets per day over densely-populated and minority-laden neighborhoods in Rockland County. Our due process rights were blatantly violated in connection with the Redesign, as currently litigated in the consolidated causes of over a dozen plaintiffs before the D.C. Circuit.
2. Quiet Rockland calls for you and your colleagues to please treat and pay all Air Traffic Controllers (ATCs) and Aviation Inspectors fairly; protect them from threat and harm; and listen to them. NATCA needs a real contract. The ATCs and Inspectors are the true aviation professionals. Their input is vital to the future of American aviation safety.
3. The American people must have a federal government that restores, to quote learned Congressman James Oberstar, a “Culture Of Safety” in aviation. An FAA “partnership program”, on the other hand, wherein the Agency with USDOT complicity abdicates its legally-mandated function as regulator and instead adopts a cozy economic pandering relationship unabashedly calling the airlines its only “customers” - is a grotesque, harmful, and abysmal dynamic, and an insult to the intelligence of the American people.
The “customers” are, in point of fact, the passengers and the overflown people on the ground. Federal law requires consideration of both, a fact that the failed “Bobby” Sturgell FAA and Mary Peters USDOT conveniently and consistently forgot.
4. The failed “Bobby” Sturgell lawless yahoo FAA must immediately be re-populated with responsible federal officials for a change. We need government officials who tell us the truth.
5. Finally for now, we respectfully request that you please work with President-Elect Obama to select a new FAA Administrator who understands the complexities of this region and its airspace, and one who will carry out the 4-point agenda hereinabove.
MY DECEMBER 18, 2008 LETTER TO SECRETARY LAHOOD:
Law Office of John J. Tormey III, Esq.
John J. Tormey III, PLLC
217 East 86th Street, PMB 221
New York, NY 10028 USA
(212) 410-4142 (phone)
(212) 410-2380 (fax)
Thursday, December 18, 2008
VIA FAX: 1-202-225-9249, and U.S. MAIL
Honorable Ray LaHood, United States Congressman - Illinois, 18th District
United States Congress, United States House of Representatives
1424 Longworth House Office Building
Washington, D.C. 20515 USA
Re:
Quiet Rockland Asks That You Please Do Everything In Your Power As USDOT Secretary, To TERMINATE The FAA’s Ill-Conceived “NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign”
Dear Congressman LaHood:
In the words of the man to soon thereafter become our 16th President:
“I know the American People are much attached to their Government; - I know they would suffer much for its sake; - I know they would endure evils long and patiently, before they would ever think of exchanging it for another. Yet, notwithstanding all this, if the laws be continually despised and disregarded, if their rights to be secure in their persons and property, are held by no better tenure than the caprice of a mob, the alienation of their affections from the Government is the natural consequence…”
- Abraham Lincoln, “The Perpetuation of our Political Institutions: Address Before The Young Men’s Lyceum of Springfield, Illinois”, January 27, 1838
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Please let my group “Quiet Rockland” be among the first to congratulate you and reach out to you as the newly-appointed Secretary of the United States Department Of Transportation. Over the last several years we here in Rockland County, NY have suffered and endured injustice and the trampling of our rights by an unlawful and capricious mob known as the Marion Blakey/”Bobby” Sturgell/Mary Peters FAA/USDOT regime. As Ms. Peters and Mr. Sturgell now eject from office, though, we love our American Government even more, for having survived the failed FAA and USDOT Administrations of both Sturgell and Peters. America has won again. We ask that you and President-Elect Obama fix our nation’s now-broken aviation system. I have recently corresponded with the Transition Team regarding these and the following issues.
As I believe you may already be aware, “Quiet Rockland” is an organization based in Pearl River, New York that has been tenaciously and lawfully fighting the “Bobby” Sturgell FAA and Mary Peters USDOT for the past year-and-a-half. Our organization acts consonant with the interests of thousands of citizens in Rockland County, NY and elsewhere: 47,000 in the Town Of Orangetown, NY; 300,000 in Rockland County, NY; and 30,000,000 in the Northeast.
All of us in Quiet Rockland continue to be threatened: directly and adversely affected by the FAA’s “NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign” (“Airspace Redesign”, or “Redesign”). We have joined forces with ATCs and other aviation professionals, in continued efforts to foster aviation safety in the coming new generation. Quiet Rockland is comprised of New Yorkers, and now, constituents of President-Elect Obama’s new Administration come January 2009. We ask you, please, for your personal attention and help as well. Your response is vitally important. Knowing that you are busy on other pressing transportation and transition matters, we will be as brief as possible:
1. Quiet Rockland asks that, once sworn-in as Transportation Secretary, you please cause your re-configured USDOT, and the FAA under you, to immediately withdraw the US$53,500,000+ failed boondoggle of the prior administration known as the “NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign”. It never made sense to put between 200-600 new jumbo-jets per day over densely-populated and minority-laden neighborhoods in Rockland County. Our due process rights were blatantly violated in connection with the Redesign, as currently litigated in the consolidated causes of over a dozen plaintiffs before the D.C. Circuit. We need environmental justice, a restoration of sensibility, and peace. We need cancellation of the Sturgell/Peters Airspace Redesign. The litigation dollars already wasted on both sides are justification enough for the end of Redesign. That same money could have fed and educated the poor.
2. The American people including Quiet Rockland call for you and your colleagues in the Obama Administration to please treat and pay all Air Traffic Controllers (ATCs) and Aviation Inspectors fairly; protect them from threat and harm; and listen to them. NATCA needs a real contract. The ATCs and Inspectors are the true aviation professionals. Their input is vital to the future of American aviation safety, and they have suffered to a wholly-unacceptable degree during the failed “Bobby” Sturgell FAA and Mary Peters USDOT regime. We ask that you and President-elect Obama please make this country’s amends to them, and tell them that you care. They are my friends, and I trust they will remain yours. A better group of people, I have never known.
3. The American people including Quiet Rockland must have a federal government that restores, to quote learned Congressman James Oberstar, a “Culture Of Safety” in aviation. An FAA “partnership program”, on the other hand, wherein the Agency with USDOT complicity abdicates its legally-mandated function as regulator and instead adopts a cozy economic pandering relationship unabashedly calling the airlines its only “customers” - is a grotesque, harmful, and abysmal dynamic, and an insult to the intelligence of the American people. The “customers” are, in point of fact, the passengers and the overflown people on the ground. Federal law requires consideration of both, a fact that the failed “Bobby” Sturgell FAA and Mary Peters USDOT conveniently and consistently forgot. We know and trust that you won’t.
4. The failed “Bobby” Sturgell lawless yahoo FAA must immediately be re-populated with responsible federal officials for a change. People like FAA Airspace Redesign “Project Manager” Steve Kelley, a former ATC who once worked a 6-fatality mid-air crash, must not be kept in a position wherein he is allowed to facilitate placement of traffic patterns over densely-populated neighborhoods. Useless functionaries like FAA “COO” “Hank” Krakowski and FAA aeropublicist-enablers like Jim Peters who have overtly antagonized NATCA in the media, must be given their walking papers now, too. The FAA FOIA unit, a pack of liars, should be fired en masse. We now need government officials who tell us the truth. I know and trust that you agree.
5. Finally for now, we respectfully request that you please work with President-Elect Obama to select a new FAA Administrator with ties to the Northeast who understands the complexities of this region and its airspace, and one who will carry out the 4-point agenda hereinabove. For the last 8 years we have listened to the Blakey/Sturgell/Peters regime disingenuously seek to blame all of the nation’s transportation evils on the Northeast. Assuming that their word was true (though it wasn’t), then why wasn’t it ever manifest that the FAA Administrator should have direct ties to and familiarity with the most important part of the nation’s airspace? In any event, if we are an inadvertent player in the aviation scheme of things, then we need representation, at minimum – Sturgell, Blakey, and Peters aeromercantile lies notwithstanding.
Quiet Rockland, and the people and elected officials of Rockland County, stand ready to meet and confer with you regarding aviation and this region, at any time as you might be available. Aviation safety is a non-partisan issue. So is decency. We know and trust you agree, and again congratulate you on your recent appointment. We await and look forward to your reply. Thank you for your kind consideration of this letter.
Again, in the words of President Lincoln which we hope will some day be accurately recapitulated:
“The year that is drawing towards its close, has been filled with the blessings of fruitful fields and healthful skies”.
- Abraham Lincoln, October 3, 1863
Respectfully yours,
John J. Tormey III, Esq.
Quiet Rockland - No New Flights Over Rockland County, NY
RECENT LYNNEOSMUS.COM AND JURASSIC BARK BLOGS:
USDOT Secretary Ray LaHood Responds To FAA Airspace Redesign Non-Inclusion Of ATCs, Promises Changes Are Coming
Although it is too early to tell, as posted on the aviation-themed “Jurassic Bark” website, our friends at NATCA and the Air Traffic Controllers might have just helped Rockland County’s Airspace Redesign fight for us. In a recent meeting with new USDOT Secretary Ray LaHood, the Controllers were able to get an important point through to him, and get an important acknowledgment from him.
http://jurassicbark.blogspot.com/2009/03/meeting-with-LaHood.html
Excerpt:
“Here are what… Secretary [LaHood] said…
… [In the paraphrased words of an apparent ATC questioner] – “The FAA procurement process is flawed and [FAA management has] wasted millions. Any procurement process for equipment or any [A]irspace [R]edesign needs to include the very people who work the airplanes and the airspace.
[Secretary LaHood] was told that currently controllers are not included in anything.
[Secretary LaHood] seemed surprised by that[,] and assured us that changes would be coming.”
Quiet Rockland is determined to lawfully terminate FAA’s NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign rather than simply change it. However, any interim recognition by USDOT and new USDOT Secretary LaHood that the underlying process for the NY/NJ/PHL Airspace Redesign was flawed, could potentially and at minimum necessitate a de facto re-start of the 9-year (or similar) clock. That would be at least a partial “Win” – both for the purposes of the Airspace Redesign litigation, and for the Northeast communities generally. Once it is fully exposed why and how the ATCs were uninvited, it will become further clear why the Airspace Redesign is dangerous and un-implementable. All Redesign is, is an aero-mercantile money-grab expressed through false PowerPointed pretenses, all at the expense of the safety and health of the overflown-intendeds.
The reason FAA management excluded ATCs from meaningful participation in the Airspace Redesign for the past 9+ years, is because ATCs tell the truth, and FAA “managers” and “officials” don’t. As the entirety of the Airspace Redesign is predicated upon several key lies, FAA “management” could not afford to include ATCs in the Redesign. Every Controller in the Northeast knows this.
Quiet Rockland thanks NATCA and the Air Traffic Controllers – for helping us in the context of this meeting with Secretary LaHood, and for helping us in the context of Patrick Harten’s recent Congressional testimony and rightful slam of Congressman John “Topstick” Mica.
Quiet Rockland thanks Jurassic Bark and all others who may have first reported on the meeting with Secretary LaHood.
Quiet Rockland also thanks Secretary Ray LaHood for acknowledging our own surprise when we first learned ATCs were not meaningfully included in Airspace Redesign planning and execution – and for not joining disgraced former USDOT Secretary Mary Peters in her motorcycle-riding foibles in Arizona, for that matter. It is a pleasure to have a public official running the Department of Transportation who befits the dignity of the office, and who actually takes the requisite time to listen and think before deciding and speaking.