City, FAA not listening to public on diagonals

I am amazed at the recent turn of events on the future of runways at O'Hare. Three meetings have been scheduled by the city of Chicago with the FAA and FAiR. The first two meetings have taken place. The meetings were private, limited to invited guests, no press allowed. However a listen-only phone number for the second meeting, held on July 20 was inadvertently leaked to the press and details of the meeting were published in the following day.

How can the city of Chicago and FAA meet privately with FAiR, a special interest group whose single goal is to damage the quality of life for thousands of their neighboring citizens? If these meetings are held at all, they should be open to the public.

The city and FAA appear to be signing on to FAiR's self-centered agenda. To satisfy the demands of this special interest group, the city appears to be ready to risk the safety concerns associated with continued use of the diagonals as well as the efficiency the parallel runways present.

They also seem to accept the additional maintenance cost and technical issues. The FAA appears prepared to ignore their own rules on intersecting runways.

The new configuration has reduced, but not eliminated noise for citizens impacted by the diagonal runways. Planes turning north and east after taking off to the west still create a substantial noise print for the Northwest suburbs.

Since the above meetings are private with no room for comment, there is no forum for presenting this fact. Finally, anyone who has moved to the Northwest suburbs since the diagonals opened in 1955 has shouldered the noise burden presented by the airport. Is it really fair to require they continue to do so even when the facts indicate that is not the right decision?

Roger Czajkowski

Arlington Heights