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.