Residents Spoke at Council Meeting 01/09/2018

Post date: Jan 11, 2018 4:20:14 AM

Video Link (Oral Communication starting at time 14:35)

Happy New Year!

New year, new plan, new action. 

The year 2017 was a year when we woke up and got organized. Last year was also a year filled with meetings, protests, letters, poster, flyers. Last year, we grew our groups effectively and we organized better and better working on this issue. 

Thank you everyone! Every little thing you have done on the cause of 'Restoring Our Calm Skies' added up to a big change to coming! Nice job!

In the new year, we will not just be responding, reacting, instead we will try to be more aggressive tackling this issue. 

Let's keep up the spirit!

Below is the great speech our heroin made at the Council Meeting 01/09/2018:

"Sunnyvale City Council members, I’d like to thank you all for your dedicated service to our city.

I am here representing the more than 500 members of the Sunnyvale Airplane noise group coalition.

During the past two years, there have been major airplane flight path changes over Sunnyvale.  Residents are enraged and concerned.  These newly formed flight paths seriously impact the quality of life for tens of thousands of Sunnyvale residents. 

When we moved to Sunnyvale, we made decisions based on the existing flight paths in the area.  Now flight paths that have been in existence for many years are being shifted & concentrated directly over homes that were not previously impacted.  On rainy days, some Sunnyvale neighborhoods have over 200 flights flying overhead on a daily basis.

Flight paths from alternate cities have been shifted over to Sunnyvale, and there is pressure to continue this shifting of airplane noise. 

Palo Alto has hired an aviation consultant and a Washington lobbyist; San Mateo County voted to approve 1 million dollars to solve their airplane noise issue.  Other cities are expending extensive resources and money to protect their residents, and these efforts are paying off.  At least one flight path has already been shifted from the peninsula cities over to Sunnyvale. 

We fear that if Sunnyvale does not step up to the plate, our city could easily become an airplane dumping ground.

We appreciate our cities efforts so far. Mayor Hendricks and councilman Larry Klein have worked hard on this issue. But we ask that Sunnyvale city council and staff become more engaged in solving our airplane noise issue, as have other Bay Area cities. We need the formal support of the full council in order to effectively tackle this problem.

Other cities have taken a very active role in shifting their noise to other neighborhoods & to cities like Sunnyvale.  A lack of engagement by Sunnyvale at this time, could set precedence for future noise shifting over our city.   Sunnyvale cannot wait any longer to tackle this issue, or to simply sit idle.  

We ask for the Sunnyvale City Council to consider a study issue regarding the airplane noise issue.  At this time, we request no disposition from Council. 

At the next Council meeting on Jan 23rd, we will present a more detailed study issue request. We hope you will give your support for sponsorship at that meeting. 

The airplane noise issue is very important to many residents, and we respectfully ask the city to take a more active role in the future.   

In the meantime, we thank the council and mayor for their time regarding this matter.  "