Northern Hills Homeowner's Association

Bonnie Connor (District 8) Reply

Councilwoman Connor answers...

Thanks for contacting me concerning the airport. I appreciate your concerns
and views. This is what I know...

According to the information available to me, the Planning Department sent more than 200 letters out to promote community involvement. [The Northern Hills HOA was offered a spot on the Technical Advisory Committee and declined.] This all transpired during Jeff Webster's term which was some
time ago. This is obviously not a new item and an issue being reviewed for some time now.

The study I believe you are referencing is one going to Council for a vote to send the study to the FFA. Once the FFA has it, they will do their own studies and evaluation. The whole process is estimated to take a long time to complete and then again be brought before Council in about 8 years.

One of the recommendations in the San Antonio study is to extend the runway, which will require an environmental statement. This will also extend the time before possibly impacting the community. So, as you can see, we are talking about a long, involved and time consuming process, not one in the immediate future.

In the immediate future however, Policy and Planning will be reviewing plane
contracts to limit building to Stage 3 Manufacturing Planes (Quiet planes.)
This will help in the current level of noise given the planes will be quieter.

I appreciate your concern over home value. As a homeowner and a retired
teacher, I understand your concerns. Hope all of this information is useful
and addresses some of your concerns. Thanks for contacting me and being an
advocate in our community.

Regards

Bonnie
Bonnie J. Conner
Councilwoman, District 8
San Antonio, TX
207-7086 - Office
207-7027 - FAX

If you get this form letter

Ask these questions.

1) Northern Hills has NEVER had a noise problem, so why should we want to attend these boring meetings? Les was the Noise abatement officer for the San Antonio Airport, and if you had advised him of the plan to divert traffic 15 degrees (over Northern Hills), I guarantee Northern Hills would be represented on the committee. I'll bet they don't have the fortitude to ask someone from Northern Hills to be on the committee now, do they?
2) The FAA, not the FFA, will review the proposal. They plan to complete their evaluation within six months, according to what I heard at the Noise abatement committee meeting on May 6th. It will not take 8 years (or even six).
3) The six-signature memo was written to circumvent the need for FAA approval.
4) Anyone who tells us it will be a long time is hoping we will fall asleep and forget about it.
5) Because San Antonio forgot to outlaw retrofitted planes in 1999, they CANNOT outlaw them in the future.

Let's make them listen.

In the book "Seven Habits of Highly Successful People", Dr. Covey explains that there are 5 levels of "LISTENING".

1.) Ignoring
2.) Pretending to Listen
3.) Selective Listening
4.) Attentive Listening
5.) Empathic Listening

Most people assume that when a meeting is held, and the program states that
"Citizens will be heard", that the panel will be listening at level
four or at level five. The sad truth is that our City Council listens to citizens at level one or two at best.
Now that Redondo and Associates has postponed the final draft of the proposal to the end of the summer, I think we should all continue to ask our councilman questions about their meanings when they do reply.
We must seek to have our City Council let us know their intentions, and make sure that they seek the truth as well.

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jpenry@stic.net