Local private jet pilot vows to fly to Truckee – residents vow to complain
Don’t Trash Your Own Grandchildren’s Playground
Under the slogan, “Don’t Trash Your Own Grandchildren’s Playground,” Truckee – Tahoe residents are pushing back against a local private jet pilot who had vowed to fly to the Truckee airport despite protests from neighbors concerned about noise, pollution, lowered quality of life, and downward pressure on home values in neighborhoods experiencing increasing noise disturbance.
In an email to Eco Truckee Tahoe, a local private jet pilot wrote:
“I will not be restricted flying into the airport at any time, on any given day. It is my right to fly into Truckee, and people like yourselves are the problem with this community. If you think for a moment that you and your ilk will stop me from flying my jet into this airport, think again.”
A few other individuals posted vulgar comments on our Facebook page and the Truckee Airport page, some with obscene references to body parts and suggestions that the critics of jet noise among the local home owners should move elsewhere. Truckee – Tahoe residents are hopeful, however, that other private jet pilots and their passengers, who now fly to Truckee instead of using the Reno airports, can be educated about the damage their optional luxury travel causes to their neighbors, the environment, their children and grandchildren. Residents hope that more environmentally-sensitive individuals will consider making alternative, more eco-friendly travel arrangements.
Local residents are making an appeal to these affluent flyers to think about how environmentally harmful and wasteful private jet travel will affect their own children and grandchildren who may want to enjoy this beautiful and fragile area provided it is not destroyed by irresponsible behavior and overdevelopment happening right now. They should be concerned what their children and grandchildren will think of them, neighbors said.
In addition to making direct appeals to private jet owners, pilots and passengers, Eco Truckee Tahoe volunteers are planning to contact their local and state representatives and work with local churches and other religious groups and faith-based organizations to protect the environment.
If any of your neighbors are private jet users, frequent flyers to the Truckee airport or promoters of such travel, Eco Truckee Tahoe urges you to talk to them. Eco Truckee Tahoe volunteers say that the argument that these affluent individuals contribute greatly to the economy can easily be countered by pointing out that in fact the vast majority of rich home owners in the area do not fly private jets to Truckee and are considered to be much better neighbors, community members, and participants in the local economy. Truckee Tahoe region needs more affluent people like that and fewer individuals who put their own convenience and pleasure above the well-being of the majority of local residents.
Eco Truckee Tahoe volunteers are also urging Truckee residents to report all loud plane noise and disturbance to the Truckee Airport, using this LINK, to attend the Truckee Tahoe Airport Board of Directors meetings, and to consider running for any future vacant seats on the board. Reporting jet noise is critical as the jet noise problem has been growing from year to year, affecting quality of life, health, and home values.
Local residents are paying approximately $4.5 million dollars annually from their property taxes to the Truckee Airport. They are subsidizing facilities and services for private jets used by about one (1) percent among the local population even though the vast majority of local residents can’t afford to use the Truckee airport for such luxury travel.
6 Responses
What is the airport supposed to be used for? Not trying to be antagonistic- just purely curious. I lived near the airport since 2010 – moved recently to just a little further away on the other side of downtown off 267/89. I guess moving from Sacramento and Rocklin made me immune to noise? I have no complaints – but I am very curious about what the airport would be used for? Would those people lose their jobs? Would the conference centers (I use those) cease to be? It is a nice, professional place to meet – free of charge – for Non profit organizations. Would the other business housed in the area be forced to close?
Hopefully, all of the $4.5 million annual property tax subsidy would be used to benefit the public, such as the public use of the airport, instead of benefitting the one percent who uses it for private jet travel. Reno Airport and many others do not receive a property tax levied subsidy as the Truckee Airport does. The Reno Airport serves well over 90 percent of the local community while the Truckee Airport serves about 1 percent.
100 percent of local Truckee Tahoe homeowners pay the $4.5 million annual property tax subsidy, but only about one percent of local residents can afford to use the Truckee Airport for private jet travel.
Ultimately, it’s up to the local voters to decide how their tax money is used. They can use it to discourage private jet traffic by not subsidizing it, as it causes home values to drop, health problems, and environmental problems, and use it to benefit local NGOs, Public Library and ecotourism. The Truckee Airport can part of the solution.
Are you kidding Truckee was ruined many years ago!! The day it incorporated!!
Well here’s the thing. We live in a ‘free country’. Truckee is a publicly funded, PUBLIC airport. Therefore anyone in said ‘free country’ or anyone else who owns an airplane and has cleared customs into said ‘free country’ is free to land at whatever airport they need/want to. ‘Carbon emissions’ are no different if the jet lands in Reno vs Truckee. I’m sorry if someone may own real estate near an existing airport and ‘noise’ is harshing your mellow but the airport (more than likely) was there before you were so stuff it. Not to mention the economic $$ that might enter the community through said public airport…..
Local taxpayers always have the right to decide how their $4.5 million annual property tax subsidy to the Truckee Airport is used. The Reno Airport serves well over 90 percent of the local community while the Truckee Airport serves about 1 percent.
100 percent of local Truckee Tahoe homeowners pay the $4.5 million annual property tax subsidy, but only about one percent of local residents can afford to use the Truckee Airport for private jet travel.
According to a Harvard University study: “Boston, MA — Older people exposed to aircraft noise, especially at high levels, may face increased risk of being hospitalized for cardiovascular disease, according to a new study from Harvard School of Public Health (HSPH) and Boston University School of Public Health (BUSPH). Researchers found that, on average, zip codes with 10-decibel higher aircraft noise had a 3.5% higher cardiovascular hospital admission rate.” https://www.hsph.harvard.edu/news/press-releases/aircraft-noise-linked-with-heart-problems/
No one is required to pay attention if they don’t want to. But local residents and voters may want to know about:
1. Increasing plane traffic and noise;
2. Negative impact on home values;
3. Negative impact on health;
4. How their $4.5 million annual tax subsidy to the airport is used. Whether it is used to build jet hangars for multimillionaires or whether it could be used for emergency services or the local public library.
No one who is not interested is required to pay attention but it may be better to ask these questions now than 20 years from now when the the rich and the developers exhaust all the public natural resources and beauty of this area and move somewhere else leaving the local middle class to pick up the cost and live with the consequences of overdevelopment, of which increasing travel in loud private jets over residential Truckee – Tahoe neighborhoods to the detriment of home values, health and quality of live of local residents is just one symptom.
I absolutely agree. Moved to Truckee 14 years ago and I must say the plane noise is worse than I can ever remember. The idea that the [Truckee] airport serves 1% of Truckee locals, but we wake up and go to sleep to the noise every day is crazy.
The free country argument is great but ultimately boils down to arrogance…I’m going to do whatever I want!
This is the High Sierra – not sure some folks get that – this is straight up noise pollution.
It is fantastic that some folks have nifty flying toys that they can zip around in the air with, but some respect is in order. The noise is more noticeable to the local public than any local pilot would like to admit. Some mornings the noise is so intense that my cats run under the deck and I don’t even live under the direct fly path!
Respect.
Respect our quiet Sierras, please.
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