I, too, thought the exchange between Russ and Carol Becker was a very good
discussion of issues relating to Minneapolis and the upcoming Mayor's race.
I will really miss Russ's postings about this City.
However, I did want to clarify something in his post. He said that the Mayor
was not using her power to do something to reduce airport noise. The truth
is that the Mayor has no direct way to reduce airport noise. The City does
not own the airport, the City cannot tell the airlines how many flights to
schedule. The Mayor has one appointment to a 15 member board (the MAC) that
does run the airport. Unfortunately, the other 14 members of the board do
not always agree with the City of Minneapolis and its representative. I
know, I served on that body for 13 years.
In the past 15 years the number of operations at the airport has nearly
tripled. Part of that is due to more people wanting to fly (the Mayor cannot
control that) and the fact that Northwest has decided to make MSP a hub
airport (again the Mayor cannot control that).
The City could not decide that there should be a new airport - others were in
charge of that choice and the forces aligned against that included everyone
from Dakota County, the airlines to the Sierra Club and the land stewardship
group from the Archdiocese of Minnesota plus umpteen others. I agree, all of
them may have been shortsighted, and in 10 years the region will pay an
economic price for that, but in 1996 that is the decision that was made.
That leaves the City with trying to do something with nothing as far as noise
relief goes. The Mayor has done well in working with other cities to craft
provisions that do provide some noise relief. I fail to understand how
anyone cannot see the benefit of the noise insulation program - over $100
million since 1992 has been spent in Minneapolis home to provide noise
attenuation and in the process the housing stock has received a very needed
uplift. Tens of millions have gone into air conditioning the schools -
again, is that not a good thing? Of course, it doesn't do anything when you
are outside, but because you cannot win the whole prize, will you not be
grateful for at least something. The Mayor has also been active at the
Federal level (which does have power over some aspects of airport noise, such
as the certification of noise levels, etc.) and she has been effective at
raising the issues in the proper forum.
And, folks, even if the choice had been to build a new airport in 1996, the
planes would still be going over Minneapolis today and would be for the next
at least five if not 10 years while litigation was straightened out and
actual construction completed.
Airport noise is not an easy issue anymore that affordable housing is. In
fact, I daresay, the City of Minneapolis can do far more about affordable
housing than it can about airport noise.
Jan Del Calzo
Lynnhurst
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