Local private jet pilot vows to fly to Truckee – residents vow to complain

Eco Truckee Tahoe Commentary
 

Don’t Trash Your Own Grandchildren’s Playground

Jet Suite at Truckee Airport

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.

ALSO SEE: Eco Truckee discusses Squaw Valley and Tahoe Ridge development with environmentalists from 20 countries, Eco Truckee Tahoe News, June 19, 2016

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