To the Editor:
As has been well publicized, the Warwick City Council has voted unanimously to file an appeal of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Record of Decision (ROD) for T.F. …
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To the Editor:
As has been well publicized, the Warwick City Council has voted unanimously to file an appeal of the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) Record of Decision (ROD) for T.F. Green Airport. The council’s action has attracted a good amount of media coverage in print, radio and on television. My administration has worked diligently for more than 10 years throughout the Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) process, engaging the Rhode Island Airport Corporation (RIAC) and the FAA at every step to ensure that all of Warwick’s concerns were adequately addressed and that the EIS process was followed to the letter of the law.
Further, throughout the past decade, my administration spent a substantial amount of time researching the city’s legal options and interviewing no fewer than eight nationally prominent law firms with considerable experience in airports and aviation law. We were advised as we worked our way through the process that we should keep all of our legal options open but that the most beneficial course of action was to negotiate an agreement with the airport operator (RIAC) and attempt to have that agreement included in the final ROD.
Approximately 16 months ago, in July 2010, following several months of negotiations with RIAC, I submitted to the Warwick City Council for its consideration a Draft Memorandum of Agreement (MOA) with RIAC. The Draft MOA was rejected by the City Council with minimal discussion, no suggestions on how to improve the agreement and with no direction to RIAC or the administration as to what the City Council wanted to include.
The Draft Memorandum of Agreement included such items as:
Relocation of the Winslow Park facilities (home of Apponaug Girls Softball and Warwick Firefighters Soccer leagues) to new facilities adjacent to the airport but in an area out of the existing flight path.
Set mutually acceptable (to RIAC and the City) boundaries for the extent of homes to be acquired for noise mitigation rather than following the piecemeal practices of the past that have resulted in isolated homes and fractured neighborhoods.
Development of a Comprehensive Land Use Plan that would allow for the creation of appropriate development around the airport. This puts property back on the tax rolls – Warwick currently loses roughly $11 million annually in lost property tax revenue due to prior land acquisitions – and RIAC would pay 25 percent of the cost for the city’s comprehensive plan update, which is currently underway.
The relocation and installation of a new water main on Airport Road at no cost to the city. This critical piece of infrastructure has a long history of breaks resulting in disruption of service and continual emergency repairs annually.
RIAC agreed to continue performing air quality monitoring in accordance with state laws, to add an additional air monitoring station at Wickes Elementary School and to extend the air monitoring beyond the statutory end date of July 31, 2015.
At the time, RIAC also agreed to petition the FAA to include the Memorandum of Agreement as part of the FAA ROD, thereby making it legally enforceable and making FAA funding contingent upon adhering to the terms of the agreement.
The ability to include the MOA in the ROD has now passed, however, due to the City Council’s inaction on the MOA.
And for these concessions, the city would simply agree not to challenge the ROD on the mutually agreed-upon points that are contained in the agreement. This seemed a reasonable position in that one would not appeal items that were determined to be mutually agreed upon.
Yet now certain City Council members are quoted in the media as claiming that they needed to sue the FAA in order to negotiate such an agreement with RIAC due to concerns about such issues as air quality monitoring, a schedule for residential acquisition, etc. The fact of the matter is these issues were all addressed in the Draft MOA that was offered to and rejected by the City Council in July 2010.
Scott Avedisian
Mayor
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RichardLangseth
Mr Mayor:
This is the status of things as of last March. The Beacon reported on March 11th that "Asked about reaching agreement on issues relating to the runway extension – RIAC recommends an 8,700-foot runway that would require a realignment of Main Avenue – Dillon said he has not been contacted by the City Council since it voted down a proposed memorandum of understanding."
"Among other things, the agreement would have had RIAC relocating Winslow Park playing fields to RIAC land off Strawberryfield Road."
This Strawberry Field location was totally unacceptable to a lot of people because it is the center of the bad air study that the Department of Health published. No place for ball fields.
So many in the city were not thrilled with that location for the ball fields, a location that would have been cast in stone if the city council agreed to the MOA.
And RIAC has yet to figure out how to fund the pollution control project or its match for the runway improvements. Even if the MOA were signed, it is probable that there would be some kind of litigation because RIAC would not have been able to fund both the Buckeye Brook pollution project and the mitigation associated with the runway improvements.
So now we have a court to supervise all of this to make sure the city gets a fair shake.
Tuesday, December 6, 2011 Report this
anonsnoinipo
The mayor outright rejected RIAC's proposed agreement because it wasn't worth the paper it was written on.
Scott Avedisian is a traitor and all Warwick residents should beware of the 180 he's done turning his back on over 80,000 of his constituents.
The mayor has totally mismanaged airport / community relations for years. He has gotten very little for constituents and a lot for the business community. So now we know who he really represents.
The City Councils should let the review go forward before sitting down to negotiate anything with RIAC as 1) RIAC is not a part to the Review and 2) because until the review is finish City Council won't know what to negotiate.
How much does the airport cost Warwick taxpayers? According to the mayor, over $2mm a year. At the same time, he has never done a full bottoms up estimate, and that's because he really doesn't want constituents to know how much the airport is costing residents.
Thursday, December 8, 2011 Report this