Overview
SFO Airport/Community Roundtable
Meeting No. 286 Overview
Wednesday, June 5, 2013
I. Call to Order / Roll Call / Declaration of Quorum Present
Roundtable Chairperson Jeffrey Gee called the Regular Meeting of the SFO Airport/Community Roundtable to order, at approximately 7:06 PM, in the David Chetcuti Community Room at the Millbrae City Hall. James A. Castañeda, AICP, Roundtable Coordinator called the roll. A quorum (at least 12 Regular Members) was present as follows:
REGULAR MEMBERS PRESENT
Doug Yakel (alternate) – City & County of San Francisco Airport Commission
Dave Pine – County of San Mateo Board of Supervisors
Richard Newman – C/CAG Airport Land Use Committee (ALUC) Elizabeth Lewis – Town of Atherton
Cliff Lentz – City of Brisbane
Michael Brownrigg – City of Burlingame Carol Klatt (alternate) – City of Daly City Alvin Royse – Town of Hillsborough Robert Gottschalk – City of Millbrae
Sue Digre – City of Pacifica
Ann Wengert – Town of Portola Valley
Jeffrey Gee, Roundtable Chairperson – City of Redwood City
Ken Ibarra – City of San Bruno
Pradeep Gupta – City of South San Francisco
David Burow – Town of Woodside
REGULAR MEMBERS ABSENT
City & County of San Francisco Board of Supervisors (Vacant) City & County of San Francisco Mayor’s Office
City of Belmont
City of Foster City
City of Half Moon Bay City of Menlo Park City of San Carlos
City of San Mateo
ADVISORY MEMBESR PRESENT
Don Kirby – Northern California TRACON Glen Morse – United Airlines
ROUNDTABLE STAFF
James A. Castañeda, AICP – Roundtable Coordinator Cindy Gibbs – Roundtable Technical Support (Consultant) Harvey Hartmann – Roundtable Technical Support (Consultant)
SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT STAFF John Bergener, Planning & Environment
Bert Ganoung, Noise Abatement Manager
Ara Balian, Noise Abatement Specialist
David Ong, Noise Abatement Systems Manager
Chairperson Gee, with the Roundtable’s permission, set the agenda to hear certain agenda items out of order. This meeting overview is reflective of the order in which agenda items occurred at the meeting.
V.E. Work Program for FY 2013-2014
Cindy Gibbs, Roundtable Technical Consultant, provided a brief overview of the draft Work Program and the efforts by the subcommittee to develop the document.
COMMENTS/DISCUSSION: Various comments were presented by Roundtable members, which were summarized by Chairman Gee as 1) formulize meetings with other noise forums (i.e. Oakland Noise Forum) in order to outreach, discuss and share information, 2) prioritize items within the Work Program and consider the use of a matrix, and 3) consider the possibility of submitted a problem statement dealing with the Oakland and San Francisco departures as possible Airport Cooperative Research Project. Bert Ganoung, Noise Abatement Manager, suggested finding similarities in other regions to broaden the problem statement in order to increase the likelihood of the proposal to be considered.
ACTION: Richard Newman MOVED the approval of the Work Plan, with the suggestions recommendations, for fiscal year 2013-2014. The motion was seconded by Ken Ibarra and CARRIED, unanimously.
V.F. Budget for FY 2013–2014
Roundtable Coordinator James Castañeda provided an overview of the proposed budget for the upcoming fiscal year. The history of the Roundtable’s budget from
1999 was illustrated in order to give Roundtable member an understand of the funding and expenditures associated with the budget over the years.
COMMENTS/DISCUSSION: For the benefit of new members, James Castañeda explained the staffing history of the Roundtable and the associated costs. Member Elizabeth Lewis asked for an estimated cost per meeting in order to get an understanding of the number of meetings the Roundtable can maintain before running down reserves. James Castañeda responded that while difficult to sector out the cost of tasks only associated with the preparation of meetings, as well as the variability of meeting items, an educated guess would be approximately
$7,000 to $9,000 per meeting.
Chairperson Gee expressed working with staff on looking forward on goals and items contained in the Work Program on a roll schedule to anticipate additional efforts and resources on specific long term tasks, and as such the associated cost.
Roundtable Consultant Cindy Gibbs indicated that the fees for member cities
(which at current is 50%) will return back to 100% in FY 2014-2015.
ACTION: Elizabeth Lewis MOVED the approval of the budget for fiscal year
2013-2014. The motion was seconded by Sue Digre and CARRIED, unanimously.
II. Public Comments on items NOT on the Agenda
None
III. Consent Agenda Items
III.A. Review of Airport Director’s Report for March 2013
III.B. Review of Airport Director’s Report for April 2013
III.C. Review of SFO FlyQuiet Report Q1 2013
III.D. Review of Roundtable Regular meeting Overview for April 3, 2013
COMMENTS/DISCUSSION: None
ACTION: Pradeep Gupta MOVED the approval of the Consent Agenda items. The motion was seconded by Dave Pine and CARRIED, unanimously.
IV.A. Airport Director’s Comments
Airport Public Information Officer, Doug Yakel, indicated that the FlyQuiet report for the first quarter have been completed and distributed. An update was provided regarding the series of runway closures; two were remaining for late June. Coordination with the Oakland Noise Abatement office has begun in order to conduct a joint noise monitoring exercise in Woodside. It was indicated that the SFO Noise Abatement Office will be hosting a booth at the “San Carlos
Airport day” on June 22, 2013. And finally, Mr. Yakel announced he has accepted the permanent position as Public Information Officer at SFO.
V.A. SFO Construction Update & Departure/Arrival affects
Bert Ganoung, Noise Abatement Manager, indicated that next 48-hour runway closure will occur at the end of the month on the weekend of June 26-28, 2013. FAA will also be doing flight checks at the end of the month on the runway to confirm the equipment operations, so it should be expected to see numerous over flights of a Learjet during that time.
COMMENTS/DISCUSSION: Chairperson Gee ask for clarification on the landing/departure effects as a result of the runway closure. Mr. Ganoung indicated that delays would be expected with arriving aircraft, and that the airport will operate with single runway operations as efficiently as able to.
V.B. Update on FAA’s PORTE Departure Analysis
Chairperson Gee indicated with the approved Work Plan, the Work Program Subcommittee will proceed to work with on this effort. It was indicated that he would like to work with the FAA in investigating the additional flights during the
10PM to 6AM period, and work on returning those to pervious levels.
V.C. Report and assignment to subcommittee, Oceanic Arrivals Over the
Woodside VOR
Chairperson Gee indicated that the Work Program subcommittee will begin research and investigation for possible ways to recommend addressing the issues as part of a Work Plan objective.
COMMENTS/DISCUSSION: Woodside resident Jim Lyons wished to make a few remarks regarding the oceanic arrivals over the Woodside VOR. It was
expressed that the FAA has been ignoring its own rules on noise abatement in accordance to those indicated on NCT 711.65U document, which specifies that all oceanic jet arrival inbound from the west shall cross the VOR at or above
8,000 feet mean sea level, traffic/weather permitting. Mr. Lyons recounted his observation from Memorial Day weekend where 15 oceanic arrivals flew over the Woodside VOR in a 24-hour period below 8,000 feet. It was suggested that the Roundtable add to their agenda discussion on how to engage with the FAA to ensure that they meet their own obligations and rules.
Portola Valley resident Tina Nguyen took an opportunity to recount her experiences on Memorial Day weekend, and presented data and research she conducted on the Portola Valley over flights. She found that within a 24-hour period, 183 flights flew over Portola Valley at an altitude of less than 10,000 feet, of which 78% where arriving SFO from destinations such as London, Paris, Munich, Dubai, and Japanese cities. The average altitude of these flights was
6,028 feet above sea level. Ms. Nguyen also expressed issue with the constant stream of flights between midnight and 1:00 AM, and suggested the FAA consider routing over the ocean like other airports do. Lastly, Ms. Nguyen indicated that as a recipient of a portable noise monitoring station, two of the ten days of the deployment were “reverse flow” days, and not representative of an overcast day over the peninsula.
Bruce Fitzgerald, who manages properties in the Kings Mountain/Woodside area, shared qualitative observations from a resident of increase over flights. He expressed support of the Roundtable to continue working on a solution to the noise impacts of the area.
Airport Noise Abatement Manager Bert Ganoung indicated that the weekend of Memorial Day did experience weather conditions resulting in delayed vectoring that resulting increased over flights throughout Woodside and Portola Valley. Mr. Ganoung illustrated the flights Mr. Lyons had indicated and broke down the various vectors and holding patterns.
Woodside representative David Burrow asked if it is possible to include the number of flights below 8,000 feet at the Woodside VOR as a scoring metric within the FlyQuiet program. Mr. Ganoung indicated that, while possible, the flights below 8,000 feet that account for less than 4% of total flights. Roundtable technical consultant Cindy Gibbs expressed that the monthly Director’s Report might be the more appropriate place to consider such recordation of flights below
8,000 feet at the Woodside VOR.
Roundtable technical consultant Harvey Hartmann indicated that additional sit- down education of the air traffic capabilities would benefit Roundtable members, and would be happy to entertain such.
San Mateo County Board of Supervisor representative Dave Pine asked for clarification in regards to the next steps on the issue, and what should be the expectations. Ms. Gibbs indicated that the Work Program subcommittee will now look into the issue further, and come back to the Roundtable with data analysis that will help determine what might be appropriate metrics to suggest as goals to work towards in address the issues.
Daly City alternate representative Carol Klatt reminded Roundtable members of the progress the Roundtable has made over the years to implement change, and the improved partnership with the airport she’s observed since her involvement beginning in 1994.
V.D. Report and assignment of subcommittee, Optimization of Airspace & Procedures in the Metroplex (OAPM) Environmental Review
This item will be discussed at a future meeting.
IV.B. Noise 101, PART 3
This item was postponed to a future meeting.
VI. Airport Noise Briefing
Roundtable technical consultant Cindy Gibbs updated the Roundtable on 1) the impacts of Sequestration, 2) overview of the ICAO CAP program, 3) new engines in development by Pratt & Whitney with increased bypass ratio of 12 to 1, and 4) the allowance of non-voting city members on the Minneapolis-St Paul noise committee.
VII. Member Communications / Announcements
None.
VIII. Adjourn
The meeting was adjourned in memory of Millbrae vice-mayor Nadia Holober at approximately 9:00 PM.