Thursday, March 13, 2003
Copyright © Las Vegas Review-Journal
Rerouted McCarran jet
traffic questions remain
By FRANK GEARY
REVIEW-JOURNAL
Nearly 200 people attended an Enterprise Town Board meeting Wednesday regarding the Federal Aviation Administration's decision to reroute McCarran International Airport jet traffic over that community.
But FAA officials failed to attend, so town officials adjourned the meeting, and residents went home with unanswered questions.
"I think they (FAA officials) should have been here because they are the ones who would have the answers we need, and they could have given us some direction," resident Rachell Verchick said.
Dell Meadows, the FAA's air-traffic manager for the Las Vegas area, wasn't available for comment on his cell phone Wednesday night.
Town Board member David Broxterman said he asked Meadows to send a representative. The crowd proved too big for the room at the Enterprise Library.
A new meeting will be held within a month in a larger room at the Silverton. Depending on what the FAA says at that meeting, the Town Board might ask the Clark County Commission to intervene, Broxterman said.
"The flag has been raised that we have a problem, and it needs to be addressed," he said. "This isn't over."
Residents say they have had little peace since the FAA in late 2001 started rerouting most airline traffic over their southwest valley homes.
They can't sleep at night and can't step outside because as many as 20 planes an hour soar low and loud over their property, residents said.
"Sometimes you can wave to the pilots because they are flying so low," said Norma Lucero, a resident of the Coronado Ranch development near the corner of Robindale Road and Rainbow Boulevard. "I can read the number on the tail of the planes."
Sandy Lager, a South Arville Road resident, said, "I open my door and I have a jet screaming down on top of me. ... I can't go outside."
The Enterprise Town Board took up the residents' concerns in hopes of addressing the widespread frustration.
Members also wanted to answer nagging questions, such as who rerouted the air traffic, why longtime routes were changed and why the affected residents weren't notified.
"This was a sleazy, underhanded operation from the get-go," resident and retired airline pilot Kevin Kentsler said of the effort to notify the public. "They put a notice in the legal section of the newspaper, and that was supposed to be our legal notification."
Meadows, the local FAA official, said last week that the FAA was scheduled in October 2001 to change McCarran's 30-year-old routes. That was because they no longer are compatible with the increased volume of traffic in and out of McCarran.
However, the final changes aren't expected to be completed for a few more weeks, Meadows said.
The FAA during the summer of 2001 had four public hearings to solicit feedback on the proposed changes and, as required by law, announced the hearings in advance in the legal advertisements of the Review-Journal.
Clark County officials also were notified in 2001 of the pending changes and the hearings. But Meadows acknowledged that only a few residents attended the public meetings and that residents of the Enterprise area weren't told of the proposed changes over their area.
