Lexington Minuteman
June 14, 2001

Community opposition works

To the editor:

Great news for the Hanscom area communities! US Airways, citing community
opposition, has announced that they are canceling plans to set up shop at
Hanscom. US Air, the sixth biggest airline in the country, had planned to
start with daily flights to Philadelphia and New York. Those flights, plus
the current Shuttle America flights and additional proposed flights by Pan
Am and Midway, still on the table, would have resulted in 70 passenger
arrivals and departures a day at Hanscom by next September.

The community opposition that US Airways encountered and caused them to pull
out took place at two meetings that US Airways executives attended, to
present their plans. The first was a candlelight vigil on the Concord Green
and boycott of the HATS meeting. The second was a packed hall in Bedford for
an HFAC meeting (some 400 citizens in attendance) where citizens spoke and
demonstrated, with passion, their heartfelt anger against Massport's
juggernaut commercialization of Hanscom, and their determination to stop the
massive increases of passenger aviation that were being proposed.

There is no doubt that those two meetings sent a vivid message to US Airways
and caused them to rethink their move to Hanscom. There have been countless
meetings where reasoned and polite statements have been made, and largely
ignored by Massport. The May 15 HFAC meeting was different. People expressed
their outrage at Massport's actions and stood up for their rights, in the
New England tradition of the Minute Men and the Boston Tea Party.

For every person who has come over the last decade to meetings and rallies
and who has wondered if it makes a difference, here is the answer: it does
and it did, just last month. The battle isn't over. There will be other
hearings and meetings. There will be more occasions for people to speak
their minds. The stewardship of our historic sites is a responsibility we
take seriously in these towns. We won't let up. It is imperative to keep
this airport within bounds, so that it can co-exist with its unique historic
environs without engulfing them in noise, traffic, and jet fuel pollution.

Kay Tiffany

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