To the Editor:

The Beacon’s “Plane Truth” editorial of Oct. 2 might more accurately have been titled “The Partial Truth,” as it suggests that those opposed to aggressive airport expansion are, for the most part, Luddite grumblers, “who will never be satisfied with any compromise or accommodation made with RIAC.”

This is an easy conclusion for the editorial writer to have reached, having for years put in agonizing hours at meetings, listening to the great hue and cry of those most directly affected by anticipation and execution of these plans. For lack of research, legal savvy and poise, many of these protesters do indeed come off as “so unreasonable that no progress is made.”

What is overlooked in this progress vs. stasis simplification is the plain truth that the people, however loud, wildly emotional, and piteous their cries, have legitimate concerns which are being heard but not adequately addressed. City-RIAC information meetings have, over the years, featured ringing oratory about cancer deaths in especially befouled neighborhoods, along with respiratory problems, oil slicks on swimming pools, filthy windowsills and a host of other ills. As airport reps sit impassively onstage, perhaps downplaying the impassioned reports and holding fast to Mr. Spock’s dictum – that the good of the many outweighs the good of the few – no understandings or agreements are reached. Nor are there answers to most of the polite inquiries from people who have been waiting almost a decade for RIAC to buy their homes.

As many strung-along homeowners, now moving into their seventies and eighties, wait patiently to get the facts on runway lengthening and the fate of their homes, the runways of their own lives run short.

At these public meetings, those sensitive to the underlying dynamic may sense the same kind of inexorable drumbeat-to-war that was nearly audible in 2003, when Hans Blix conducted his futile search for WMD in Iraq.

The gleam in George W. Bush’s eyes and the eagerness in his words spoke unambiguously of his passion and determination for war. His personal agenda would prevail, regardless of what Hans found or did not find. Likewise, as RIAC makes its very puny compromises and seems to be attuned to citizen input, it knows it will prevail. All of which would perhaps be acceptable if the airport were always truthful in its reports of profits and losses, thus assuring us of the need for expansion. One recent sleight of hand is the disingenuous statement of a former official that this has been Green Airport’s “best year yet,” when “the rest of the story” is that passenger counts went up a little from the prior year but the total number of passengers was still very much in the dumps.

While these observations may not be helpful in any pragmatic way, I hope they will give strategizing pause to those who, with courageous and pounding hearts, take to the podium in valiant but perhaps doomed efforts to move mountains.

Jo-Ann Langseth

Warwick