Big money from helicopter advocates is pouring into the East Hampton Town candidates running against incumbents who’ve implemented use restrictions on the town airport, alarming citizen groups on both forks who’ve battled to see those restrictions adopted.
A new super PAC called the East Hampton Leadership Council, whose treasurer is a NYC attorney, reports taking contributions of $60,000 in the past week from YGB Holdings LLC, a company with a Manhattan address. East Hampton Leadership Council also reported payments totaling more than $45,000 this week to a Manhattan public affairs firm for “printing expenses” in support of Republican candidates for East Hampton Town Board.
In addition, the East Hampton Republican Committee reported income of $62,500 in its last campaign filing, the 32-day pre-general election report — $45,000 in contributions from helicopter advocates, according to Quiet Skies Coalition member Kathleen Cunningham. Cunningham spoke at a meeting of the Southold Town helicopter noise committee Saturday morning at the Peconic Lane rec center.
Among the contributions listed in the party committee’s most recent disclosure report are contributions of $5,000 apiece from Heliflite Shares LLC, a Newark N.J. helicopter operator and a plaintiff in the lawsuit currently pending in federal district court challenging the town’s new airport regulations, and MVRE LLC a company that shares the same Brewster Road, Newark, N.J. address. Both contributions were made on July 20, according to the report.
There are several $5,000 and two $10,000 contributions made by individuals,some who share the same Manhattan address and a number of them made on that same date.
“We’re talking well over $150,000,” Cunningham said. “And this — the last few weeks of a campaign —is when the pedal goes to the medal.”
The influx of cash to the town Republican committee is likely unprecedented. In the last four local election years, contributions to the East Hampton Republican committee never exceeded $75,000 for the whole campaign — including the 32-day, and 11-day pre-election reports and the 27-day post election reports, according to filings for the 2007, 2009, 2011 and 2013 local election years.
The three East Hampton Town Board members seeking re-election are all Democrats: Supervisor Larry Cantwell, and council members Sylvia Overby and Peter Van Scoyoc. All three are completing their first terms of office.
The Republican candidates are East Hampton Republican Committee chairman Tom Knobel for supervisor and Margaret Turner and Lisa Larsen for town council.
Cunningham said the East Hampton Republican candidates refused to respond to a Quiet Skies Coalition survey on airport use.
“We’re very worried about Sylvia Overby, who has been our champion,” Cunningham said Saturday, who she said “really took a beating” during the prior administration because she released a memo to the town board by its aviation consultant “that the public should have been made aware of” but the administration was not disclosing.
“I’ve been critical of this board,” Cunningham said, noting that she is not affiliated with any political party. The current board has only one Republican member and Cunningham worries that it might seek to restore more “balance” to the board and vote Republican — at the risk of unraveling progress made to control airport noise through regulation.
“There’s no loyalty here,” observed a man in the audience. “It’s just a matter of throwing money at the opposition to disrupt the action that’s been taken by the current board. It doesn’t matter what the party is.”
East Hampton adopted new rules for its airport in April. The new rules imposed three access restrictions: (1) a mandatory curfew, which prohibits all aircraft from using the airport between 11 p.m. and 7 a.m.; (2) an extended curfew, prohibiting “noisy aircraft” from using the airport from 8 p.m. to 9 a.m.; and (3) a one-trip limit, a weekly limit prohibiting noisy aircraft from using the airport more than two times per week during the months of May, June, July, August and September.
Friends of the East Hampton Airport along with five aircraft operators and two trade organizations immediately brought suit in federal district court, seeking to set aside the new rules and seeking a preliminary injunction to prevent the town from implementing the new rules while the case is litigated.
The court in June denied the preliminary injunction on the mandatory curfew and the extended curfew but granted a preliminary injunction on the one-trip limit.
Both the plaintiffs and the town have filed appeals of the district court’s rulings on the preliminary injunctions. The case itself remains pending in federal district court.
Cunningham said all East End residents should be concerned if helicopter-backed candidates unseat the board that put those restrictions in place. A new board can simply undo what’s been done and settle the suit.
“To me, this is a fight for the identity of the East End,” said Cunningham, an East Hampton resident. “We do not want corporate interests to wash over us.”
She urged North Fork residents to get involved by, at a minimum, making sure all candidates running for office in Riverhead and Southold towns are aware of the issues and are asked to voice their opinions on the issues.
Both Riverhead and Southold officials have been very supportive of East Hampton’s efforts, Cunningham said.
She expressed frustration with federal officials and their inability to get the Federal Aviation Administration to respond to the concerns of local residents, who want the FAA to impose a flight route that would require helicopters destined for South Fork airports to stay off-shore over the Long Island Sound and fly around Orient Point instead of cutting across the North Fork.
“We are getting nothing from our federal officials,” Cunningham said. “We’re getting nothing and it’s infuriating because they come out here and they raise a bunch of money to run for office and then they just cut us loose,” she said.
This summer, Rep. Lee Zeldin successfully got an amendment to the transportation funding bill that would block the FAA from taking punitive action against East Hampton for enacting noise restrictions and force the agency to pay attention to the noise issue on the North Fork, which the congressman hailed as an important victory for the East End. But the transportation bill, though it passed the House with Zeldin’s amendment attached, has not yet become law.
Southold Councilman Bob Ghosio, liaison to the helicopter noise committee, said the incumbents running for re-election in Southold all support East Hampton’s efforts.
Mattituck resident Theresa McCaskie, who has spearheaded helicopter noise opposition on the North Fork, noted that the Democratic candidates also voiced support of the new airport rules during last weeks’ candidate debates.
“This is not a partisan issue,” Councilman Bill Ruland said Saturday. “It’s about what’s right and wrong.”
