News

Let’s continue to be vocal so the FAA hears us loud and clear regarding the airplane noise from the Burbank Airport flight paths!  If you attend the next meeting, take a speaker card so you may say a few words about the noise issues you are experiencing.

Plans for a 234-unit apartment complex that will repurpose a Chase bank right off the 134 freeway in Toluca Lake at Lankershim and Riverside Drive were approved Tuesday by the Los Angeles City Council’s planning and land use management committee.   Read more…

Read the entire Mosquito Guide

THANKS to the hundreds who attended and spoke out at the second meeting of the Southern San Fernando Valley Airplane Noise Task Force last night at the LA Marriott Burbank Airport Convention Center!

UproarLA kicked off the meeting, and was given 20 minutes to present. They explained the devastating health effects on residents of the new BUR flight paths, as well as interim solutions — jointly presented with former BUR Executive Director Dan Feger. These solutions could be implemented immediately and without the need for FAA approval — providing immediate relief to suffering residents. UproarLA presenters also touched on our F.A.I.R. long-term plan, which will be discussed in more detail by Mr. Feger during Studio City for Quiet Skies’ presentation at the next Task Force meeting.

Task Force members were provided binders containing the presentation, along with hundreds of pages of supporting documents: emails, memos, government studies, sound scientific data — which support the facts laid out by UproarLA. UproarLA’s Powerpoint presentation, including Mr Feger’s remarks, can be found HERE.  All supporting documentation is available HERE.

We are incredibly grateful to Mr. Feger, who traveled to join UproarLA’s presentation, provide his expertise and elaborate on solutions to the problem.

Many Task Force members gave careful consideration to the facts presented, and were given an opportunity to pose questions to the FAA, BUR and VNY. Many of the questions were suggested within UproarLA’s presentation, including: 

• Why did the FAA violate its own policy and shift noise over a NEW community? 
• When and why were the flight paths changed? 
• By whom, how, and when are aircraft vectoring (turning) decisions made? 
• Why has there been no official noise monitoring in the new affected community? 

We need the Task Force members to insist on timely, complete, and honest answers from airport staff and the FAA. We, and all of our elected officials, must keep the pressure on BUR and the FAA. Because of the FAA’s/BUR’s history of lies and obfuscation, we all must be diligent in demanding meaningful answers, transparency and accountability by those organizations.

Absent from the meeting were the Mayors of Glendale and Pasadena, who are voting Task Force members. We hope they or their representatives will be able to attend these important meetings in the future.

Each of 65 speakers was then given 90 seconds to voice concerns over the effects of the deafening, nonstop noise, pollution, and increased fire hazard. We are grateful to you all for sharing your personal stories with the decision-makes in the room. Your voices are being heard!

NOW we must keep up the pressure!

Call your local officials (contact info below) and 

• Thank them for participating in the Task Force
• Ask them to advocate for the New Community being devastated by the new flight paths
• Insist on full disclosure and answers to all questions from the airports and the FAA
• Demand the FAA fix this problem now: it has the tools to do so immediately, but as of yet, has refused.

And contact Southwest Airlines, whose flights represent an astonishing 70% of the ultra-low flights over our neighborhoods — tell them how their noise and pollution is upendcing your lives! Tell them about the F.A.I.R. solution:

And please take a minute out of your day to call our elected representatives — they are listening! — and tell them you join LA Councilmembers Krekorian & Ryu in supporting UproarLA’s FAIR plan for SFV aircraft traffic!

LA Councilman Ryu: Justin Orenstein  213-473-7004
LA Councilman Krekorian: Doug Mensman  818-755-7676
City Attorney Feuer: Rob Wilcox  213-978-8100
Mayor Garcetti: David Reich  213-978-0331
Sen. Feinstein: Peter Muller  310-914-7300
Sen. Harris: Heather Hutt  310-231-4494
Cong. Sherman: John Brodtke 818-501-9200
Cong. Adam Schiff: Joe Jankiewicz 818-450-2900

SB 592 and SB 330 have cleared committee hurdles and will be headed to the Assembly and then the Governor’s office by, or around, September 13th.

We must let our representatives know that we DO NOT SUPPORT ANY BILL THAT DESTROYS SINGLE-FAMILY NEIGHBORHOODS.

Furthermore, neither of the Bills addresses the real problem in California which isn’t a housing shortage, but a shortage of affordable housing.

Please feel free to let our State Representatives, and the Governor, know that there are better ways to solve this problem than ruining neighborhoods.

We can up-zone commercial corridors, develop underutilized state property (thousands of lots), encourage employers to establish their companies further

out in the suburbs in order to change commuting patterns…. We just need the time to RESPONSIBLY figure this out.

PLEASE WRITE, OR CALL, IMMEDIATELY to oppose the passage of these bills.

assemblymember.nazarian@assembly.ca.gov  (818) 376-4246 or (916)319-2046

senator.hertzberg@senate.ca.gov  (818)901-5588 or (916) 651-4018

governor@governor.ca.gov  (916) 445-2841

gavin.newsom@gov.ca.gov

Just a reminder that SB 330 and SB 592 are being heard on Wednesday, Aug 28 in the Appropriations Committee of the Assembly, chaired by Assemblymember Lorena Gonzalez and sitting on that committee are Richard Bloom( BH) and Jesse Gabriel (Encino).

assemblymember.gongalez@assembly.ca.gov  

assemblymember.bloom@assembly.ca.gov;

assemblymember.gabriel@assembly.ca.gov

Also letting Senator Portantino know that we support the suspension of SB 50 is important because Wiener is trying to reintroduce this bill.

senator.portantino@senate.ca.gov

Our representatives in both the Senate and the Assembly are under great pressure to support Wiener’s bills.   Our representatives need to hear that their constituents oppose them.

If these bills get through the Appropriations Committees then they get full Senate and Assembly votes before going to the governor.  We don’t have much time.  September 13 is the date that these bills must be approved and sent to the governor or they die.

Encourage everyone to reach out to their representatives and to this committee chair and voice your opposition.  Everyone’s voice matters here, there is a lot of monetary support behind the bills from the Zuckerberg Initiative. So fighting to keep our local control and single family neighborhoods from upzoning needs a lot of voices in opposition to make the difference.

Together with Studio City for Quiet Skies, we are providing this update to you about some very disturbing developments regarding the new Van Nuys Airport (“VNY”) “fix.”  We have reviewed the FAA materials produced online and watched the FAA presentation of August 6, 2019.  Shockingly, this “fix” appears to create a second superhighway of departures out of VNY running along almost the exact same path as the Burbank Airport (“BUR”) proposed procedures that our communities have vehemently opposed – just in reverse. 

Happy Fiscal New Year: The 2019-’20 City Budget Begins

The new fiscal year began on July 1, and with it came a number of new budget items that our Councilmember, David Ryu, has been fighting for. The new budget includes an additional $25 million for tree maintenance and increased staff at the Urban Forestry Department, $47 million of sworn overtime of LAPD officer overtime to increase neighborhood patrols, $25 million for repairing broken streets, concrete streets, and alleyways, and greater allocations into addressing homelessness and the City’s reserve fund. A more in-depth analysis of the City Budget can be found here.