Nassau under-represented at plane noise round table

Since Gov. Andrew Cuomo mandated the creation of the New York Airports Community Roundtable, to address airplane noise in communities surrounding John F. Kennedy International and LaGuardia airports, there have been no decisions on the group’s size, membership or procedures.

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey has finally supplied some answers, and they aren’t making too many in Nassau County happy.

In late February, the Port Authority distributed a letter to “airport stakeholders,” stating that it would establish one round table with two airport committees — one for JFK and one for LaGuardia. Each committee would have 32 representatives, who would address residents’ plane noise concerns.

The issue for Nassau residents, however, is that only four of the 64 round table seats have been assigned to people who exclusively represent Nassau County residents.

“How do they come up with assigning only 6 percent of the seats to Nassau County?” asked Larry Hoppenhauer, who represents Malverne at the Town Village Aircraft Safety & Noise Abatement Committee meetings. “These seats should represent an opportunity for the residential community affected by airplane noise to sit down with the FAA and the airport’s governing body and deal with issues of noise,” he added, referring to the Federal Aviation Administration.

The Port Authority assigned Nassau County’s four seats to the office of U.S. Rep. Kathleen Rice, the office of County Executive Ed Mangano, and the Towns of Hempstead and North Hempstead.

Kendall Lampkin, the executive director of TVASNAC for the Town of Hempstead, said that because the Port Authority’s charter is controlled by New York City, there “may have been some attempt” to reserve numerous seats for those representing city interests. “It looks like lopsided representation, with the weight stacked in New York City’s favor,” Lampkin said. “But we’re guests at this table; we’re not allowed to decide who gets invited.”