Modiin Municipality’s request for court order to cease the night flights was rejected again by Bagatz

Modiin-Watch unveiled this week that the Modiin Municipality submitted on December 8th an additional request to Bagatz to issue a court order to cease the night flights, and that Bagatz once again rejected this request over a week ago, just like it rejected last August the Modiin Municipality’s first request for a court order.

From the wording of the Bagatz decision it seems as if the Modiin Municipality attempted to use the strike of the State’s attorneys to its advantage.

The end of December will mark six months to the flights over Modiin, and our impression is that Bagatz is not persuaded by the arguments presented by the Modiin Municipality and that Bagatz does not intend to issue a court order to forbid the flights.

The repeated refusal of Bagatz to take any practical steps to stop the night flights is in sharp contrast to the Modiin Municipality’s claims that Bagatz supposedly accepted all its claims.

On a more positive note, it appears that the work on the runways is proceeding faster than planned, and the next phase of the work which will involve closing down runway 30 used for the flights over Modiin may take place as early as July 2011, instead of the end of 2011 as originally projected.

The Modiin Municipality hid from the public the fact that it issued an additional request for a court order and that this request was rejected, and it issued a press release only after this fact was unveiled by Modiin-Watch. The Modiin Municipality also unabashedly claimed that the progress on the runway works is thanks to its legal efforts with  Bagatz, while the truth of the matter is that this progress is due to the large financial bonuses for early completion that the Airport Authority placed as part of its contracts with its contractors – contracts that were negotiated and signed long before the planes started flying over Modiin.

For more information please see the post on our Hebrew Website.

Latest Developments regarding Minister Gilad Erdan’s involvement regardin the Flights

In light of recent developments described in detail in the post on our Hebrew website, the demonstration which we planned to pressure minister Erdan this Friday is cancelled.

We will update this post by tomorrow to provide a summary in English of these latest developments, so please check back again.

Call for Action: Enroll in the Rally we are holding next Friday, November 26th

As you recall, On November 2nd The Supreme court instructed Minister Gilad Erdan, who is in charge of Defense of the Environment, to respond by the end of November and to provide reasoning why he does not exercise his authority and issue a warrant forbidding the night flights over Modiin.

Two weeks ago we wrote Minister Gilad Erdan, and we asked him to wield his authority and issue such a warrant. We also invited Minister Erdan to make a brief visit to Modiin at night and experience the noise levels that the residents of Modiin are experiencing every night.

We’ve been also in contact with Yossi Hazai, advisor to Gilad Erdan, who stated that the minister is planning to visit Modiin at night to gain personal insight to the noise levels that the flights are generating. Hazai also stated that per recent noise level measurements, some 25-30% of the flights over Modiin exceed the 75 Decibel threshold, yet the head of the Noise and Radiation Branch at the ministry of the Defense of the Environment does not deem this to be unacceptable noise levels.

Given that Minister Erdan has not yet  taken the action we are striving for, and given that our window of opportunity to exert public pressure on Minister Erdan will close at the end of the month, we are organizing public pressure on Minister Erdan next week that will peek with a mass protest on Friday, November 26th.

Like in the successful protest of July 2009, we plan to convene starting at 8:00AM the parking lot in front of the Modiin Municipality and head out by 8:30AM to a destination that will be decided during the next few days. We are planning the rally so as to enable the participants to get to the children schools and pick them up by 11:45AM.

We are requesting that you confirm your plan to participate in this rally via email to planes@modiin.us, so that we can monitor the number of people who plan to participate. Please state your mobile phone and the number of participants who will attend.

The rally will be held only if we reach significant participation numbers – so please confirm your participation today!

We also seek volunteers who can help with hanging flyers in entrances to homes, putting up posters,  making phone calls (in Hebrew), assist in directing people during the day of the rally, contribute financially, etc. If you are willing to assist, please email us at planes@modiin.us.

We will also hold a campaign early next week to flood the office of Gilad Erdan with your phone calls, emails and faxes. We will address this in detail in a separate email in the beginning of next week.

Please pass on this message on to your neighbors in Modiin and share the link to our Website post on your Facebook profile.

For more details please see the post on our Hebrew Website.

If you opt to stay at home during the rally – please don’t complain later about the noisy night flights!

The Supreme Court Decision re Petition on Flights over Modiin

Bagatz published on Tuesday its decision on the Modiin Municipality petition against the flights over the city, which was discussed in the Supreme Court on Monday. Bagatz did not accept the Municipality request to issue an injunction to halt the flights over the city at night.

Bagatz addressed four clause (clauses #5-8) of the Municipality 165 clause petition, directing the state to provide answers within 30 days to the Municipality’s questions in these four clauses. Three clauses address the long term use of the landing path over Modiin beyond the period of the Ben Gurion Runway works (the major use of the landing path over Modiin is due until the end of 2011).

One clause (clause #8) is  directed at Gilad Erdan, the minister in charge of Defense of the Environment. Within this clause Minister Erdan is asked to explain why he does not use his power to issue a warrant forbidding flights over Modiin at night.

It should be noted that the State’s response to the petition included a letter from the Ministry of Defense of the Environment, referring to the noise measured during the night flights over Modiin in July, and stating that this noise is not unreasonable noise. Thus, the minister of Defense of Environment is likely to stick to this position.

However we now have a window of opportunity that is four weeks long to apply public pressure on the Minister of Environment Gilad Erdan to change the position of its ministry and to issue a warrant forbidding flights over Modiin at night.

Clear Skies has already sent a letter last week to Gilad Erdan, urging him to heed the calls of Modiin residents and to issue a warrant forbidding flights over Modiin at night. We enclosed letters we received from residents detailing the adverse effects the night flights have on their ability to sleep, including their children. We asked to schedule an urgent meeting with the Minister and invited him for a brief nightly visit to Modiin to experience for himself the noise levels involved.

We will also ask the media to help by putting Minister Gilad Erdan on the Spotlight. If we do not receive the desired answer from the Minister we will call on you, Modiin-Maccabim-Reut residents, to take an active part in an email/phone/fax campaign targeting Minister Erdan, and if that will not do the trick we will organize a rally.

We feel compelled to protest once again the deception of the Modiin Municipality’s publications, who stated after the court published its decision that “The Supreme Court has accepted all of the Municipality’s claims”. If that were the case, the flights would have of course ceased. You can fool some of the people some of the time, but not all of the people all of the time.

For more details on the Supreme Court decision and its consequences please see the post on our Hebrew website.

Decision on Petition to be published by end of the day Tuesday

The hearing on the Modiin Municipality petition re the flights over the city was held yesterday, Monday November 1st, in the Supreme Court in Jerusalem. Presiding judges were Edmond Levy, Yoram Danzinger & Miriam Naor.

The main advocate for Modiin Municipality was Adv. Neri Yarkoni who specializes in aviation law. Adv. Yarkoni was assisted by Adv. Eyal Mamo. The Modiin Municipality legal team included also the Municipality legal advisor Adv. Dana Chefetz Tuchler and Adv. Einav Livne of the legal bureau.

Also present in the hearing were Mayor Haim Bibas, his two deputies Hanan Bernstein and Moish Levy and the general manager of the municipality, Yoram Carmon. Council member Alex Weinreb also attended the hearing, as well as ~15 Modiin residents.

The advocate for the State was Adv. Shosh Shmueli. Also present in the hearing were senior officials from the Civil Aviation Authority.

The hearing lasted about 50 minutes and at the end of the hearing the judges did not render a decision. Instead they announced that their decision will be published on the Supreme Court Website by the end of the next day, Tuesday November 2nd. An update on the decision will be posted on the Clear Skies Website.

For a detailed description of the court proceedings and their analysis please see the post on our Hebrew Website.

Supreme Court Hearing on the Petition re the Flights is today at 11:30AM

We would like to remind you that the hearing in the Supreme Court on the Modiin Municipality petition regarding the flights over our city is taking place today, Monday November 1st at 11:30AM at hall D. Click here for the Supreme Court location and driving instructions in Google Maps.

If you are working in Jerusalem you can simply take an early lunch break and come to attend the hearing. If you are in Modiin why not hop over? It’s only a half an hour drive. The more residents that are present in the hearing the more likely the judges are going to get the message that this the flights constitute a significant detriment to Modiin residents.

On Friday last week (October 29th) between 2:20-5:00AM an especially large number of flights disturbed the sleep of many Modiin residents. One resident documented the precise hour and minute that the flights flew by and counted no less than 23 flights. Here is the schedule she documented:

02:20

02:25

02:27

02:38

02:42

02:49

02:52

02:55

03:00

03:03

03:10

03:20

03:25

03:28

03:30

03:35

03:40

03:43

04:00

04:06

04:13

04:33

05:00

See you in the Supreme Court hearing!

The Bagatz hearing has been postponed to November 1st

We’d like to notify you that the hearing in the Supreme Court of the Modiin Municipality petition against the flights which was scheduled for tomorrow October 11th has been postponed to Monday November 1st, 11:30AM. The hearing will be held in the hall D of the Supreme Court in Jerusalem.

Clear Skies recommends to Modiin-Maccabim-Reut residents who can attend this hearing to do so. If the Supreme Court Judges see a large crowd of residents they may deduce that the flights severly impact our quality of life. If only a small number of residents are present this may send the opposite message.

We invite residents who plan on attending the hearing to email us at planes@modiin.us and to let us know if you can offer a ride to fellow residents. If you would like to attend the hearing and you need a ride, please also email us and we will try to match you up.

In your email please state the following:

• What hour you plan on leaving Modiin in the morning
• Return destination after the court hearing
• Number of available seats
• Name, email address and mobile phone number

You are welcome to read in Modiin-Watch the letter sent by Giora Rom, head of the CAA, in response to Mayor Bibas strong letter to him (Rom’s letter was not published by the municipality despite Rom expressing interest in its publication to the public).

For more details please see the post on our Hebrew website.

The State's response to Bagatz re the flights over Modi'in raises disturbing questions

Last week the Supreme Court rejected Modi'in Municipality request to issue a temporary court injunction to forbid the night flights over the city. The court decided so after it received the State's response to the Modi'in Municipality petition, and given the Court's ruling, it appears that the Court found the State's answer to be more persuasive.

The impact of this decision is that the flight will continue over our heads for many more months, until the legal process is concluded. The date for the first hearing in the Supreme Court has been set for October 11^th, 2010 at 9am. The discussion is open to the public.

Clear Skies obtained and reviewed the State's complete response to the Modi'in Municipality petition. We found several interesting points in the State's response to Bagatz:

1. It turns out that the Modi'in Municipality misled the public when it announced on July 5th that it first heard about the need to open a window for night flights only July 1st. The State's response discloses on p. 9 that the Modi'in Municipality was fully briefed on June 13^th about the need to open a night flights window.

2. The new LDA landing path over Modi'in went into effect only on July 1^st, and hence the Municipality had a window of opportunity to appeal against it before it became operational. Yet for some peculiar reason, the Municipality chose to do nothing, as well as to hide this information from the public.

3. The Municipality submitted its petition to Bagatz only on July 21^st, a month and half after it first learned about the need for night flights, and 3.5 months after the decision published by the CAA (April 6^th) on the landing path over the heart of the city.

4. This delay significantly hinders the chance of success of the petition, as is outlined in detail in pages 17-18 of the State's answer to Bagatz.

5. The State argues (in page 9) that the reason it needed to open the night flight window is because the Airlines said that the long distance flight, which are large planes carrying heavy cargo and fuel, cannot take off safely on runway 12 (to the East) due to the risk of collision with a mountain. They said that they would have to ship the cargo separately, thus it would not make it economical. Ergo, the argument for routing flights over Modi'in is rooted in the airline's profitability and not in safety considerations per se.

6. It's interesting to note that the Mayor of Holon, Moti Sasson, appealed to Bagatz in May against the State's decision to open a flight window over his city. Mayor Sasson's first request to issue a temporary injunction was rejected by the Supreme Court, but Mayor Sasson did not give up, and submitted a second request, and this time Bagatz issued a temporary injunction forbidding night flights over Holon due to commercial reasons, and allowing only flights due to safety reasons.

7. Thus Clear Skies calls upon Modi'in Mayor to follow Holon Mayor's precedence, and to issue immediately another amended request for a temporary injunction, rather than to wait for the court hearings and to have the residents of Modi'in continue to endure the noise of the night flights for many more months.

8. Clear Skies also learned from city council member Danny Rosenfeld that Egypt recently introduced a sanction forbidding Israeli planes to fly over the area of Taba in their instrument landing approach to Eilat airport. According to Rosenfeld, the CAA approved the use of a visual landing path to Eilat at night, despite challenging terrain. The CAA refused to allow a visual/RNAV (instrument landing system) at night over Ben Shemen forest, and insisted that all planes landing at Ben Gurion runway 30 at night be routed via the LDA path over Modi'in – and the result is the noise we hear at night.

9. Thus Clear Skies calls upon Mayor Bibas to challenge the CAA decision and to explain why it allows visual landings over Eilat at night, but not over Ben Shemen forest.

10. The State's response to Bagatz includes a detailed report of the flights over Modiin in July – the same report that city council Danny Rosenfeld requested in his proposal to city council meeting of July 14^th that the Modiin Municipality publish to the public every month. Yet Mayor Bibas adamantly refused, and all of the city council members (except Alex Weinreb and Yitzhaki Hen) abided by Bibas's directive and rejected Rosenfeld's proposal.

11. The flight report confirms that there are indeed very high noise levels, and there are quite a few flights that exceed the 75dB levels.

12. Yet the Ministry of Defense of the Environment went out of its way in its statement submitted to the Supreme court to claim that the noise levels are not severe, basing their report on the first 12 days of July. The State claims (in p. 10 of its response) that the data for the rest of July, which included noisier days, was not handed at the time to the Ministry of Environment.

Clear Skies' conclusion is that the central government is adamant on implementing the landing path over Modi'in and that the Likud party, whose ministers are in charge of the Transportation Office (minister Yisrael Katz) as well as the Environment Protection Office (minister Gilad Erdan), are instruments in carrying out the State's plan.

The fact that Mayor Haim Bibas is an ambitious Likud member who strives to move on from Modi'in to national politics turned out to be a disadvantage, as we believe that if the ruling party was say Kadima, then Bibas would take off the gloves and fight this decision with full force – something that we think he did not wish to do given his close ties with his patron, Likud Leader PM Binyamin Netanyahu.

The result is that the residents of Modi'in got the short end of the stick, and we will need to suffer the noise of the flights for the next 15-18 months until the work on runway 26 is completed.

Clear Skies activist Ezi Shabi took still camera shots of the night flights from Emek Ha'Ela Blvd. (Tsipor/Cramim neighborhood) during the 90 minute night flight window and you can see the trail of the planes flying to the West. It's interesting to note that instead of doing the full approach over the heart of the city, a few of the planes can been seen making "shortcut" over Kaiser/Avnei Hen and joining in from the left in Ezi's beautiful photo. You can also see in the photo the stripes from the stars due to the Earth rotation.

For more details please see the post on our Hebrew website.

The Municipality filed its petition to Bagatz against the flights

On Wednesday this week, July 21st, the Modiin Municipality filed its petition to Bagatz against the flights. The petition was filed against the Israeli government, in particular the offices of Interior, Environmental Protection, Transportation and the Aviation Authorities. Bagatz instructed the government offices to submit an initial response within 14 days, and will schedule a hearing after the court recess.

The Modiin Municipality petition focuses on a demand to the ministry of interior to conduct the due process to change the national outline plan (תמ”א) which does not include the new LDA landing path over Modiin, so that Modiin Municipality is afforded the chance to present its arguments and to demand compensation for the introduction of a new flight path over the city which damages the quality of life of its residents. It should be emphasized that this process will not stop the flights over the city.

This petition has been expanded by a demand to Bagatz to issue an intermediate injunction to prevent the night flights on the grounds of statements issued to Bagatz by the Aviation Authorities over a year ago. The petition also demands that Bagatz issue a ruling that after the runway works in Ben Gurion Airport are concluded (expected in 3.5 years) that the LDA landing path over Modiin will be declared null and void.

As explained in an earlier post, the problem is that Modiin Municipality erased its petition in June 2009, and thus it is essentially relying on a dead process, that was succeeded by a new process with totally different parameters, that resulted with the CAA decision issued in April 2010.

The Modiin Municipality embraced the CAA decision document, overlooking the fact that there was no mention of the hours which this landing path will be used. The petition also does not address the claims by the CAA that the night flights are required for long range flights with heavy cargo who need the longer runway 30.

The Modiin Municipality petition is so desperate that it even references quotes from Joshua book chapter six about how the city of Jericho was brought down with the shofar, in order to claim that it is analogous to the noise from which Modiin residents are suffering.

Council Member Danny Rosenfeld issued a sharp letter to Mayor Bibas in which he pointed out the discrepancies the petition submitted and between Mayor Bibas declarations to city council last week about the petition being against the new landing path and not just against the night flights, and protested the fact that the mayor did not even send a copy of the petition to city council members.. Council member Rosenfeld demanded that mayor Bibas modify the petition so that it is compatible with his statements to city council.

We hope that the petition is successful , although at this time it seems that it will require nothing short of the miracle that brought down the walls of Jericho…

For more details please see our post on our Hebrew website.

The Municipality to Petition the Supreme Court against the Night Flights – but its Chances Appear Slim

On Monday this week the Municipality issued the following press release (translation to English courtesy of Modiinfo):

Municipality to Petition the High Court Against the Night-time Landing Path

The city's management met last night (Monday) in order to discuss the latest developments regarding the nighttime flights over the city.

During the discussion, it was agreed that the city cannot function properly with the noise disturbances caused by the planes and the disruption of the residents' quality of life. It was therefore decided to petition the High Court against the nighttime landing route above the city.

The route is a blatant violation of the entire process that began when the Civil Aviation Authority and the Israel Airports Authority declared in front of the High Court that "the procession will run only during the afternoon hours, depending on the direction of the wind. We are only speaking about approximately 30 landings on weekdays, and around 20 on weekends. The procession is only temporary until Route 30 is renewed, planned, and implemented."

The municipality will hire the services of the former head of the CAA, a pilot and Israeli aviation expert, Neri Yarkoni, esq. In the past, Yarkoni has represented a number of authorities against the CAA and the IAA, and today leads the Holon area against a night-time flight plan similar to the one affecting Modiin.

Yarkoni will join the Municipality Legal Advisor, Dana Chafetz-Tokler, Esq, Einav Livna, Esq, from the Legal Department, and Ayal Mamo, Esq. and Avi Portman, Esq. from Agmon Attorneys.

The basis for the petition as stated above are statements made by the aviation authorities to Bagatz well over a year ago. The problem is that Modiin Municipality erased its petition in June 2009, and thus it is essentially relying on a dead process, that was succeeded by a new process with totally different parameters.

Following the resident protests organized by Clear Skies in July 2009, the municipality and the CAA entered into a new process, in which the CAA evaluated the Modiin Municipality’s proposed landing path. This process culminated in the CAA decision published last April, which included a reduced forecast of 5-10 flights expected to fly over Modiin, but on the other hand the CAA decision did not include even a single word about any restrictions on what hours flights will take place over Modiin.

Instead of appealing to Bagatz against the CAA decision as Clear Skies proposed, the Modiin Municipality embraced the CAA decision document, overlooking the fact that there was no mention of the hours which this landing path will be used. The Modiin Mayor Haim Bibas put his faith in the forecast cited in the CAA document and in the trust relations with head of CAA, Giora Rom.

Thus Clear Skies believes that the appeal to Bagatz has very slim chances of success, and that it is mostly aimed to convey to Modiin residents that its Municipality is doing everything it can to stop the night flights that are disturbing the sleep of its residents.

We sincerely hope that the Municipality’s legal team has some tricks up their sleeves that they are not sharing with us, and that our assessment above will ultimately be proven wrong.

For more details see the post on our Hebrew Website.

The CAA: Oops, Our Forecast was Wrong…

The new LDA landing path over Modiin started operating on July 1st 2010, and ever since then Modiin residents have been suffering from noisy flights every night. Click here to watch a short video filmed by Clear Skies activist Ezi Shabi of these night flights over Cramim neighborhood (Tsipor).

Last Thursday the CAA informed Modiin Municipality that they are forced to open landing window between 11:30PM and 01:00AM for long range flights who carry heavier loads and require the longer runway 30. While the LDA landing path over Modiin is considered by the aviation authorities as the last priority during the day, it is considered by the aviation authorities as the only option during the night for flights landing on runway 30.

BTW, the experienced airline captain who consulted Clear Skies and the Municipality stated that flights can land over Ben Shemen forest (instead of over Modiin) also at night when good weather conditions exist, but the CAA rejected his opinion.

As result of the night flights Bibas sent an angry letter to the head of CAA, Giora Rom, claiming that the agreements between the sides were breached and threatened to appeal to Bagatz.

The aviation authorities responded that there was never any agreement between the aviation authorities and the Modiin Municipality - and they are correct. The CAA decision was a one sided document, which Modiin Municipality did not even receive a draft in advance to provide its comments and feedback – and the Modiin Municipality certainly is not a party to any agreement. The CAA worded its decision very carefully and provided what it termed as a “forecast” of 5-10 planes daily that would pass Modiin. In the CAA decision document there is no restriction regarding night flights.

It is precisely because that a “forecast” is such a nonbinding term and because there is no legal binding agreement between the the CAA and Modiin Municipality that Clear Skies pushed to appeal to Bagatz, in order to set clear restrictions to the use of the LDA landing path, and to set sanctions in case these restrictions are violated.

However mayor Bibas ignored all the warnings by Clear Skies and by council members Danny Rosenfeld and Alex Weinreb, and rejected our appeals to go to Bagatz, stating that he has complete faith in Giora Rom, head of the CAA. Bibas persuaded the great majority of the city council members to support his position, relying on these forecasts and presenting them as agreements. Mayor Bibas and the city council members ignored the hundreds of emails sent by Modiin residents responding to our request, urging the mayor and the council members to continue to struggle for clear skies.

Now we are all paying the price of Bibas’s gullibility, vanity and inability to heed others’ advise. 

The main obstacle to go to Bagatz now against a decision made by the CAA in April is that the supreme court rejects appeals that are not made in short proximity to the decision. Thus an appeal submitted by Modiin Municipality in July-August against a decision published in April may be rejected out of hand by the supreme court due to “shihuy” (delay).

We still hope that it is not to late to go to Bagatz, but the likelihood is that our quality of life will be significantly compromised over the next year and a half, and perhaps even longer.

For more information please see the detailed post in our Hebrew website.

Clear Skies Recap and New Revelations

During the past week there were a couple of days with flights over Modiin that were quite noisy. These flights were using the old VOR landing path that has been used on occasion during poor weather conditions, when the alternate eastern runway 26 could not be used. The VOR landing path is being used recently more than before, because the alternate eastern landing path was shut down in the beginning of June for overhaul for a period that is planned to span a year and a half, leaving runway 12-30 as the only operating runway in Ben Gurion Airport during this period.

The new LDA landing path for runway 30 that goes over Modiin will go into effect only on July 1st, and it is estimated that it will be noisier than the VOR landing path, as its altitude over Modiin is 600-1,200 feet lower than that of the VOR landing path. The new LDA landing path instructs pilots to lower the landing gear only after the plane has cleared Modiin, a measure intended to reduce the noise to Modiin residents.

Modiin municipality has setup a committee headed by deputy mayor Hanan Bernstein, that will monitor the flights over Modiin, compare it to the 5-10 flights/day average forecast provided by the aviation authorities, and discuss any irregularities with the aviation authorities. You are welcome to report flights with landing gear down over Modiin, excessive noise levels, etc. to deputy mayor Hanan Bernstein at hanan_b@modiin.muni.il.

Last week we received a complaint from a Modiin resident who arrived per our invitation at the City Council meeting on June 2nd, to witness the discussion and the vote that took place on the Clear Skies initiative to appeal to Bagatz against the proposed landing path, and to use the Supreme Court to turn the so called “forecast” into a binding legal agreement that would include sanctions in case of violations (a proposal that was rejected by city council). It turns out that the Modiin Municipality locked the doors to the meeting immediately after it began, and refused to let residents in, under the pretext that the meeting room was full. Thus the resident left the place frustrated, like other residents who were not admitted to the meeting room.

The truth is that the meeting room was far from full and it had accommodated more than 20 additional people in previous meetings that I have attended there, such as this council meeting. In the 3 years that I have been attending city council meetings I have not seen a precedence to this behavior.  Also, in the morning of the city council meeting we explicitly wrote the general manager of the municipality and asked that measures be taken to assure that every resident who wants to view the meeting will be able to do so. We suggested holding the meeting elsewhere if needed (for example, the first council meeting after the elections was held at the entrance to the municipality to accommodate the crowd). We filed a formal complaint to the Interior Ministry. The local news site mcity also wrote about this incident, stating that it should signal a red warning light regarding the municipality behavior.

Last week I was interviewed by the local newspaper “Hadashot Modiin”, in which the nature of the pressures applied on Clear Skies activists were revealed for the first time. For example, one clear skies activist (who is a most credible person) reported that he received a telephone call from Sharon Maoz (Haim Bibas’s protégé), who told the activist that Bibas is enraged at the Clear Skies email updates that were critical of the municipality, and that Bibas wants to shut down Clear Skies. Sharon Maoz proceeded to tell the activist that “this isn’t a threat, but” Bibas & him need to know if that activist is continuing with Clear Skies, because if there will be more emails from Clear Skies then the remaining activists will be sued. More of these nasty tactics are described in the post titled “The internet troll who wanted to be a city council member”.

The interview also contains an analysis of the schedule of the Ben Gurion runway overhaul project, and how this schedule perfectly coincides with the schedule for the municipal elections due for November 2013. This may provide rationale for the surprising turnaround of mayor Bibas regarding the struggle for Clear Skies, in addition to Bibas’s conflict of interest betwen his loyalty to Modiin residents and his dependence on and loyalty to his Likud party leader Binyamin Netanyahu.

The interview is available on the Hadashot Modiin website, and an expanded version is available on Modiin-Watch, including a reprint of the Yediot Ahronot article on the Ben Gurion runway overhaul project schedule.

A year ago, a group of Modiin volunteer residents heeded the call of the Modiin mayor who asked us to lead a public struggle against the planned landing path, in order to provide the public backing to the municipality in its dealings with the aviation authorities and with the ministry of transportation. A few months ago the Modiin mayor has drastically changed his position on the struggle for Clear Skies. Differences of opinion are of course legitimate, however we suddenly found ourselves the target of pressures, intimidations & threats by the Modiin Municipality and its messengers, and that is totally unthinkable.

Thank you to all of you who cooperated with our calls for action, especially to those who attended the protests during the heat of July. Thank you to those of you who generously donated to help finance Clear Skies activities.

Yours truly,

Yaki Beja, Eli Gal & Ezi Shabi -the Clear Skies Activists left standing all the way to the very end.

Fore more details see the Hebrew version of this post on our Hebrew Website.

The struggle for Clear Skies is over

Modiin city council, with all of its 17 council members present, discussed Wednesday evening the proposal submitted by Alex Weinreb to submit a petition to Bagatz against the CAA decision to establish a new landing path for commercial jet planes at height of approximately 400 meters over the heart of Modiin-Maccabim-Reut. Only ~15 residents heeded our call to come to vote, and 50 residents sent emails to the city council members.

Council member Danny Rosenfeld was predominant in the discussion, asking challenging questions and claiming that without a binding legal agreement we have no guarantees that the “forecast” presented by the CAA of 5-10 flights per day over Modiin that will end by December 2011, will indeed materialize. But Rosenfeld’s arguments were dismissed.

According to reports we received, council member Levana Shifman (#2 on Weinreb’s Greens list) was very persistent in the discussion on the flights held Monday night in the coalition management forum, and asked challenging questions. That discussion ended with a coalition management decision that supports the process led by mayor Bibas and Deputy Mayor Bernstein, and opposes the proposal to appeal to Bagatz against the CAA decision. Coalition members are expected to adhere in their vote in city council regarding matters discussed and decided in the coalition management forum.

When Alex Weinreb’s proposal was brought to a vote, it was supported only by council members Weinreb & Rosenfeld. All the other council members present supported the counter proposal submitted by mayor Bibas, describing the management forum decision. Council member Levana Shifman left the meeting room just prior to the vote.

Mayor Bibas said he plans to file a lawsuit for loss of property value due to the CAA decision, but that will have no impact on the decision itself. According to the information presented to council members, the prospect of success for such a lawsuit are deemed very slim.

Mayor Bibas continued to disseminate disinformation during the meeting, and adamantly refused the request of council member Danny Rosenfeld to allow the Clear Skies delegates to present words to city council – even though that it is a common practice to do so when groups struggling for a come to city council (examples: parents from Reut school, resident struggling for a synagogue in Maccabim, residents struggling against cellular antennas – all got their say).

We are now at the mercy of the CAA and the Airport Authority, and we can only hope that their forecast – of 5-10 flights per day over Modiin that will end by December 2011 - will indeed materialize. The flights are due to start July 1st.

Senior CAA and Airport Authority officials laugh in our faces in a meeting held September 2009 – they knew why (photo: Eli Gal)

Come tonight at 6:45PM to the Municipality Bldg for our last chance to divert the planes

Tonight, Wednesday 2.6.10 at 7PM a Modiin city council meeting will be held in the municipality building, 1 Tiltan St. The first item on the agenda is a proposal for the municipality to appeal to Bagatz against the CAA landing path of jet planes over the heart of Modiin-Maccabim-Reut.

The appeal to Bagatz is our last chance to divert away from the city’s populated areas the jet planes that will start landing over our heads on July 1st 2010.

During the past few days we met with several key city council members and we asked for their support for the appeal to Bagatz. There are still quite a few city council members who have not made up their mind. Some of the city council members are influenced by pressure from the mayor, and they hesitate from going against the mayor’s position, who opposes the appeal to bagatz -  despite the fact that mayor Bibas explicitly promised Modiin residents that he will exhaust all options at our disposal in order to prevent the noise and pollution from these jet planes.

Therefore it is imperative that as many Modiin-Maccabim-Reut residents show up tonight at 6:45PM at the municipality building, and stare at their elected representatives in the eye, and ask them to serve their constituents, and appeal to Bagatz. Please print and hold in your hands this simple message, or attach it to your shirt.

Please also email today the city council members using this email address: council@modiin.us . It's enough to write a title like "please decide to appeal to Bagatz against the landing path!" and to sign your name. If you have any connection to specific city council members, now is the time to contact them and ask them to support the appeal to Bagatz. Their contact info is available here.

The call to appeal to Bagatz is backed by both Green parties, who rarely unite on anything: The Green party leader in Modiin, council member Alex Weinreb, who picked up the gauntlet and submitted the proposal to appeal to Bagatz to city council, as well as Eitan Keter Yaakov, the head of the Modiin branch of “ha’tnuaa ha’yeruka”.

Please remind yourself how the Modiin public rallied in their masses in July last year, when about a 1,000 residents drove in a convoy of 350 cars to Ben Gurion Airport to protest the aviation authorities decision to setup a flight path over the heart of Modiin. Recall also the declarations made by Haim Bibas that if the path is not shifted to the unpopulated areas, then we will go back to appeal to Bagats. Watch this video from the protest last July:

http://www.flix.co.il/tapuz/showVideo.asp?m=3310243

If a large number of Modiin-Maccabim-Reut turn up tonight we stand a good chance of affecting the decision. Be there!

Please see our Hebrew Website for more details.

New Landing Path Officially Published - Time for Bagatz

Last week Clear Skies for Modiin learned by accident that the new flight path over Modiin was already formally published, without the CAA or the Modiin Municipality informing the Modiin public. The flight path was initially published as going into effect on June 3rd, 2010. This publication was replaced by a second publication according to which the flight path will go into effect on July 1st, 2010. Given that new flight paths need to be published 45 days before they go into effect, this means that the new flight path was published no later than April 19th 2010 – well over a month ago, without informing the Modiin public.

Our only course of action at this point is to appeal to the supreme court of justice against CAA’s chosen flight path, stating that viable alternative flight paths that are less damaging to Modiin residents have been proposed, and that these alternate flight paths have been rejected out of hand by the CAA. Clear Skies has found a law office that specializes in aviation law, who are very well versed with the legal aspects of the flight paths. Their lead solicitor was the legal council to the Lapidot committee, which one of its recommendations was to setup an instrument landing approach to runway 30 (which resulted in the flight path over Modiin). The law office believes that we have a good chance of changing the CAA decision via a petition to Bagatz, but that we must act fast.

We conveyed the above information to mayor Bibas a week ago and we asked for an urgent meeting to promote the petition to Bagatz, but we were ignored - just like the hundreds of emails sent by Modiin residents earlier this month were ignored.

During the course of the past few weeks Clear Skies members have been under a great deal of pressure by elements in the Modiin Municipality to close shop, as the Modiin mayor announced that as far as he is concerned, the struggle for Clear Skies is over and that we need to accept the CAA decision. Sharon Maoz resigned from Clear Skies three weeks ago, stating in a newspaper interview that he had no choice but to side with the mayor, and last week four more activists followed suit.

Those of us who  continue the struggle for Clear Skies remain committed only to the 5,000 residents who signed the Clear Skies petition, demanding:

“to wage a stubborn struggle for our quality of life and for our property, via any legal, judicial or public means against the proposed flight path, because we will not let Modiin-Maccabim-Reut become Israel’s neglected backyard!”

Thus we are taking the struggle to the city council arena, and we are calling on the general Modiin-Maccabim-Reut public to demand from Modiin city council on its meeting on Wednesday this week, June 2nd, 7PM, to decide on urgently submitting a petition to Bagatz by the Municipality against the CAA flight path.

It is imperative that a great deal of Modiin residents show up for this city council meeting, stare the city council members in the eye, and demand them to submit a petition to Bagatz. The cost of submitting such a petition is negligible (~one shekel per Modiin resident) and we have nothing to lose by submitting it, and a lot to gain.

Please note Wednesday June 2nd 7PM in your calendar and follow closely our announcements this week.

Your active support this week is crucial for the struggle to keep our Skies Clear of  noisy and polluting jet planes.

See the announcement on our Hebrew Clear Skies website for more details.

Call for action: Flood the mayor’s office with emails calling to continue the fight for Clear Skies!

On Wednesday this week, May 5th, at 7PM a city council meeting will be held in the municipality building. We would like to use this opportunity to apply public pressure on the Mayor Haim Bibas and the city council members, to pass a decision in city council declaring that the Modiin City Council decides to continue the forceful struggle against the proposed flight path over Modiin, using all the means at the municipality’s disposal.

Thus we call upon all the residents of Modiin-Maccabim-Reut to flood the mayor’s office from now until Wednesday night with emails, faxes and phone calls, in which you will convey to Mayor Haim Bibas that the residents of Modiin-Maccabim_Reut expect him to continue to lead the struggle against the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) flight path, and that the residents of the city will continue to give the mayor all the public backing that he will need, as we have done throughout the past year.

We have designated a special email address (council@modiin.us) in order to keep track of your emails and so as not to flood the emails of the council members who are mostly volunteers. We will update the city council members every day on the number of emails you sent.

Please send your emails to: haim-bibas@modiin.muni.il; council@modiin.us

Proposed title: Mayor and Council members – keep fighting for Clear Skies!

Write a few words in the body and sign your full name and city of residence. You can use the sample Hebrew letter included in this link.

Fax the mayor’s office at: 08-9721034

Call the mayor’s office at: 08-9726010

Please pass on this message to your email contacts in Modiin and ask them to do the same.

Let the mayor know that you you are not ready to give up yet!

Please see the announcement on our Hebrew website for more details:
http://planesmodiin.blogspot.com/2010/05/blog-post.html

We are being misled!

Two weeks ago we received from Mayor Bibas a copy of the Civil Airline Authority (CAA) document which outlines its decision to implement the original landing path over the heart of Modiin, with some minor modifications. We have also received volunteer advice from a flight expert who is a resident of the city.

The flight expert has gained access to the details of the CAA flight path which for some strange reason are omitted from the 47 page document of the CAA. We have learned that the flight path crosses Menachem Begin Blvd at 2,900 ft, continuing its descent over Moriya & Shvatim (Buchman South & North), Reut, Mesuah (Giva C), Nechalim (Sfadia), Prachim (Meromi) until finally leveling at 2,300 ft over Cramim/Neviim (Tsipor/Shimshoni).

The heights stated above are relative to sea level, and as Modiin is situated at 800-900 ft above sea level, this means that flights will fly as low as 1,400-1,500 ft., or 426 meters. This is before bringing into account the height of buildings, particularly the tall towers.

The original flight path revealed in September 2008 features the same exact geographic pattern as detailed above, crossing Menachem Begin Blvd at 2,650 ft and leveling out over Tsipor/Shimshoni at 2,300 ft., precisely at the same height as the current CAA landing path. Ergo the current landing path features only a marginal increase of between 0-250ft., which are an average of 125 ft.=37 meters in the height over the city than the original path.

Yet the municipality boasted only two weeks ago that the new landing path is 1,300 ft. higher than the original landing path, and thus it would supposedly significantly reduce the noise levels. Most remarkably, when confronted with the data revealed this week about the landing path and its height, the municipality continued to stick to their original position in their responses to the local press.

Our flight expert has also proposed that the 180 degree turn conducted over the heart of the city be shifted 2.5 km north-west, instead of a 2.5 km leg of level flight, using the same exact patter suggested by the CAA. This way the U-Turn would take place mostly over unpopulated areas. The expert said that the same approach is used in Ben Gurion Airport for runway 26, also via instrument landing. However his proposal was rejected out of hand by the CAA, without offering any reasoning.

We have requested a meeting with Giora Rom, head of the CAA, who met us in July 2009. However this time he rejected our request.

To sum it up: It looks as if the CAA is determined to push through with its landing path and that the Modiin municipality has laid down its resistance.

We at clear skies think that unless the CAA offers solid reasoning why not to implement a landing path that is least damaging to Modiin residents, and provides guarantees that will limit the flights over Modiin to 5-10 flights a day as the CAA declared - that we should continue the struggle. In order for that to happen the public will first have exert enough pressure to convince the municipality to change its mind.

Please see the map of the landing path and more detailed information on our Hebrew website.

The Aviation Authorities rejected the Iriya's proposals

Modiin mayor Haim Bibas has met last night with Clear Skies activists in order to update us on a formal document received from the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) regarding the landing path chosen for LDA instrument approach to Ben Gurion Airport from the east.

As it turns out, the CAA has rejected all the alternative landing paths proposed by the municipality. The landing path chosen by the CAA is the original landing path that flies over the heart of the city and most of its neighborhoods, but with elevated flight level of 3,500 feet instead of 2,200 feet as originally proposed - which should reduce the noise level experienced by Modiin residents. The Western approach over uninhabited parts of the city did not pass the simulator tests conducted in the US last November. The eastern approach, over fields east of Yair Pereg BLvd was deemed as "מעט פחות טובה" (slightly inferior) to the original approach chosen by the CAA.

The CAA has also agreed to direct planes equipped with R-NAV systems to do the turn over Ben-Shemen forest instead of over the city. This is expected to significantly reduce the number of flights from 20-30 per day to 5-10 flights per day. On days with limited visibility (as was on Sunday this week), all planes will use the LDA approach over Modiin. The eastern approach to Ben Gurion Airport is used when there are strong western winds, per the CAA this is between 12:00-19:00 (originally we were told that it would be 13:00-18:00). However in certain parts of the year there are strong Western winds in other hours of the day, including at night. The CAA estimates that such weather conditions exist in up to 30 days in the year.

The CAA has notified the mayor that it will publish their chosen landing path within a week, and it will go into effect 45 days later. This landing path is expected to be in use until December 2011, when runway 12-30 will be shut down for work in Ben Gurion Airport. At the end of 2013 runway 12-30 is expected to reopen, and at that time most landings will be conducted from the north. It is unclear under what circumstances the landing path over Modiin will be used from 2014 and beyond.

We in Clear Skies think that it is not time to give up yet:

1. In our meeting with Minister of Transportation Yisrael Katz last September, we emphasized that the guiding principle should be that from all the alternatives that pass the required safety threshold, to choose the one that least impacts the residents of Modiin. The minister accepted this principle. Therefore, as the eastern approach was not rejected in the simulator tests and was only deemed as slightly inferior to the original flight path, we believe that we should continue to demand that the eastern path will be chosen.
2. We also think that the municipality should demand from the CAA not to create any facts on the ground by publishing the new landing path, and that it should wait until the municipality has ample time to assess the report and provide the CAA with feedback, including with feedback from its expert abroad.
3. We are also concerned with the lack of data regarding the use of the landing path over Modiin in 2014 and beyond, as this is a permanent situation, and we call the CAA to provide the municipality with explicit details of the use of the landing approach over Modiin in 2014 and beyond.
4. We also think that there should be put into place procedures to monitor the number of flights, their height, noise level , etc. in order to assure that these agreements are implemented, including sanctions in case of exceptions.

See our detailed report on our website (in Hebrew):
http://planesmodiin.blogspot.com/2010/04/blog-post.html