On Sun, 18 Apr 2004 17:02:49 -0400, "John Harlow"
wrote:

I think the Stop The Noise idiots are pretty funny.

Is your opinion the "Stop The Noise idiots" (sic) are completely insane and
there is absolutely no validity to their complaint whatsoever?

I consider them idiots. I consider many of them unbalanced (read the
alt.activism.noise.pollution group some time), some are fanatical, and
I consider some of them dangerous. Some are to the point like the
guy down south that took a few shots at the crop duster because the
noise was bothering him while he watched the races.

Certainly, *some* of them have valid complaints, but from what I've
seen they are more of a problem than the noise in most instances.

Unfortunately for us, the courts do listen to the lunatic fringe,
particularly when they can afford lawyers, or lawyers see a cause to
champion.

OTOH the lunatic fringe can be sued for harassment if you can afford
it and are willing to take the risk.

We had a noise problem here and it was stirred up by a few agitators
who had built new and expensive homes right off the south end of
18/36.

One thing in our favor was a couple of the obnoxious ones got carried
away and were making false complaints. At that point they lost
credibility with the city.

Now they could have sued at that point, but as they had already been
put on record as making false complaints they would have had one
strike against them. The second strike was the city over all is pretty
much pro aviation. They do see how much the airport is bringing into
the city while industry is leaving.

The city commissioned a study as to how much the airport was costing
and it turned out it was brining in a lot more money than any of us
had thought. The opponents called the study biased and commissioned
their own. The results were their study showed the airport bringing
in about 50% more than did the one by the city.

Fortunately it was the agitators who made the mistakes and the rest
pretty much dropped the whole affair when the agitators gave up.

They gave up, but we never want to count them out.

Roger Halstead (K8RI & ARRL life member)
(N833R, S# CD-2 Worlds oldest Debonair)
www.rogerhalstead.com