It is Illegal for the Reno Airport to Build Taxpayer-Funded Cargo Ramps for Private Companies by Sam Dehne
The Reno Airport's ill-concocted boneheaded scheme to Go Postal is falling apart - thanks to the courageous and tenacious citizens of Reno. The citizens of Reno know much-more-better what is good for this city... than some Janey-come-lately "cargobagger".
CARGO HUBBING IS BAD FOR RENO:
noise,
Lost in the shuffle of this scheme is the fact that the airport funneled $6,000,000 to bribe the Postal Service with a custom-built parking ramp and facilities for its planes and ground equipment (the last $3,900,000 was to beef up the ramp specifically for Postal Services requirements).
Now that the Postal Service might have to take its old polluting planes to a more appropriate venue, the Airport must cancel this huge illegitimate Public Works boondoggle. Building a huge cargo ramp for private cargo companies is forbidden by law... a repulsive plot designed to benefit nobody except these private cargo carriers and local fat cat special interests who run cargo, customs, and Foreign Trade Zone operations.
There is no legal justification for what amounts to crooked misappropriation of $6,000,000. The corporate welfare project was wrong in the first place... now it is even more "wronger". Money laundering is illegal!
The question also still lingers as to whether the airport followed the proper legal guidelines... relative to proper bidding, sewer and building permits, and other technical requirements.
The Federal Aviation Agency should be incensed at this flagrant, gross, and arrogant misuse of taxes... and abuse of fiduciary by airport brass. The manipulations are mendaciouness enough to eliminate all future pork barrel funding of the Reno Airport.
PS
The latest stupid theory wherein the Reno Airport and the Postal Service (USPS) claim there is no need to have to follow the law because they are hiring someone else (a "third party") to do its dirty work is about as disconjerkutigulated as it gets.
The Postal Service and the Reno Airport are trying to beg out of a badly-needed full-blown study of the myriad negative ramifications of its attempted Postal Hub attack on Reno.
It's as dumb as saying that if someone hires someone else (a "third party") to murder their neighbor, then they are not breaking the law. Just more typical Reno Airport hogwash!
Postal Hub Blight Does Not Attract Tourists
Sam Dehne
The Reno Airport is "at a crossroads" because it is being run by aviation amateurs and carpetbaggers who have made themselves subservient to the man posing as Reno mayor and his fat cat friends.
They want to turn a downtown airport, that is supposed to be a passenger facility serving citizens and gambling saloons, into a gigantic cargo hub.
Even a dimwit should know that creating a cargo & postal hub in Reno will not attract additional tourists. It will drive them away because of the myriad negative impacts to the community and quality of life.
The latest perverted postulation posed by the Reno Airport, and reported by the Reno Gazette's erstwhile business reporter John Stearns, would have you believe that people come to places (like Reno) because there are lots of flights.
"Say honey, let's find a city that has lots of airline flights and go THERE!"
"While we're at it, let's make sure there are lots of postal and cargo flights to make noise and pollute the air and cause traffic congestion from the big rigs driving all around town."
"We don't care if it is ugly and smelly there... just make sure there are lots of airline flights."
Excuse us, but this is about as backwards as logic gets. If lots of people want to go somewhere, the airlines will make sure there are enough flights. The number of flights is driven by the number of people wanting to go somewhere... not by cargo/postal hubs.
As far as this flapdoodle about lowering landing fees... the claimed saving of 5 cents reduction per thousand pounds in landing fees equates to about $5 per flight... or about $300,000 total savings per year for ALL of the airlines serving Reno. This pittance will not sway airline decisions to add or subtract flights. They make decision based on how many people want to travel somewhere.
It must be noted that about 1/3rd (one third) of the airline seats in and out of Reno are currently empty. There are plenty of seats. Traffic is down simply because fewer people want to come to Reno... not because there are fewer flights.
Good government demands an investigation into the $6,000,000 cargo ramp being built especially for the Postal Service... an extra-expensive parking ramp that was rammed down the throats of the "trustees" who are mis-running the airport.
Thanks to Reno Citizens' outspoken demands, it looks like the airport may not be allowed to Go Postal. That makes the corporate welfare-concocted parking ramp scheme even more suspicious than before; it should be immediately canceled.
Cargo hubbing is just plain downright dumb for the city of Reno.
And don't let airport brass take credit for deciding that Going Postal might not be the best thing for Reno.
The citizens forced sanity upon them.
Airport Fat Cats are Out to Devastate Your Lifestyle, Your Safety, and Your Bank Account... With Frightful Freight Flights
Sam Dehne
There is still time to stop those noisy cargo jets from destroying your property values and the quality of life you expect and deserve.
But you must IMMEDIATELY step forward and act to stop the draconian Reno Airport scheme to fly cargo planes over your homes all night long.
Because of the greedy perversions of airport brass and many local political "leaders"... including the trucker/importer/cargoman who is posing as mayor of Reno... your lives are being endangered and your financial welfare is being jeopardized. What can you do about it?
1. You can sit on your buttafookoes and do nothing. (Don't do this!)
2. You can take your destiny into your own hands and join in the effort to fight against the self-serving oafs who want to kick you in the face.
Call these numbers... over and over (and tell your friends to do the same). They are the bureaucrats who have the say in the repulsive Postal plot to annihilate the environment with a hub in Reno and inundate your homes with the noise, danger, pollution of all-night Postal & Cargo flights.
Reno Airport "Trustees":
Chairman Geno Menchetti (a lawyer - lives at Lake Tahoe!), wk 831-0326, 831-5116 car 750-7999
Vice Chairman John Farahi (a casino mogul!!), wk 824-4402
Tom Gribbin, 829-0668
Phil Miller, hm 825-6167
Richard Hill, 747-5095
John Moore, hm 626-1101, wk 355-7799
Ed Bruce, hm 355-9232
Larry Martin, 322-5163
(Some of these may be business phone numbers. Demand that they give you their home numbers... so you can call them in the middle of the night... when YOU are startled out of sleep.)
THESE MEN DO NOT HAVE AVIATION BACKGROUNDS.
Compare this to my flying background (click).
And here are the critters at the Postal Service who are responsible:
Al Lister and Larry Quantaro (317) 487-4005 Roger Wilson and Richard Leopold (317) 464-6273
Call them day or night - whenever a noisy jet plane flies over - leave a message. Tell that them you do not want them here because:
1. "The airport is in the middle of town and this is a stupid idea... period."
2. "The USPS was kicked out of Oakland. Are Oakland citizens better than Reno citizens? We don't want them here either."
3. "The Reno mayor has very questionable contracts with the airport that will illegally enhance his personal pocketbook considerably and as such, we take extreme exception to such a conflict of interest."
4. "Your Postal business does nothing good for our community... in the form of positive tax base, well paying jobs, inventory tax or anything else."
5. "There is no type of plane that will be quiet enough or safe enough to be allowed to fly over tens of thousands of us citizens every night."
6. "Go to Fallon NAS or Nellis AFB where the takeoff and landing zones are somewhat controlled and vacant of residents."
7. "The airport does not even own the land where they want to put this Postal and cargo mess. And they are trying to steal land from innocent citizens under the guise of eminent domain... using illegally obtained noise money (OUR TAXES) from the federal government."
Let them know that there are people out here who have enough fortitude to act. If this scheme is not foiled, this Postal Perversion will be just the beginning of the evil destruction of Reno, Nevada. The brand new carpetbagger airport executive has a track record of playing into the hands of the cargo aspirations of companies... many of whom who are not up to any snuff when it comes to being able to follow the general rules of safety and consideration of citizenry. This type of business will not help any of you... it will harm you.
Act Now! Be fortuitous! If you are not, then you will deserve it when you are awakened from sleep in the middle of the night and break out in a sweat of fear of an airplane flying into your bedroom. Don't make your neighbors do all the work. Husbands and wives and children, unite against this elitist oligarchy!
Sam Dehne
Reno Airport Puts the Cart in Front of Its High Horse
by Sam Dehné
The Reno Airport, headed by its brand new carpetbagger czar, is adding its own twist to the ubiquitous plots that are devastating Reno. Thet want to create a preposterous polluting postal hub. The law, however, plainly says that an airport must consider the negative results (noise, danger, pollution, blight) before it can expand into areas of operation that are harmful to citizens and the environment.
This technique of listening to, and obeying, outraged citizens is called a "FAA Part 150 Study". It is supposed to allow citizens to point out the folly of airport decisions, with the FAA supposedly listening; and refraining from throwing (more) tax dollars at dimwitted plans.
Ah, the FAA... that lethargic, apathetic, and paralysis-of-habit-infested organization. It is a government body that is both judge, jury, and executioner. It presumes to both monitor and supervise airports and at the same time appease and placate them. This is virtually impossible to do without endangering residents and the traveling public somewhere along the way.
The ongoing mess at the Reno Airport is a perfect example of this feebleminded theory of "governance". The FAA throws $$millions and $$millions of citizens' tax dollars at Reno's airport (promoting expansion) and then presumes to monitor it... but instead urges the airport to expand without regard for the noise, danger, and pollution it is causing. The FAA turns a blind nose into the air.
Recently the new airport czar went on a jaunt with the man posing as mayor of Reno (flying 1st Class again?). This "mayor" just happens to be in the trucking and import business... and 2 years ago received a lucrative kickback contract from his cronies at the airport to oversee 2,000 acres of Foreign Trade Zone land at the Reno airport. Immediately after returning from this excursion, the new czar unilaterally overturned a long-planned movement of the Nevada Air Guard. And instead announced that the airport was going "Cargo". Her vision: Reno's new destiny was to become a cargo distribution center for the west coast... starting with a plan to go "Postal" with USPS. Incredible!
An attack against the citizens of Reno of this magnitude must by law be analyzed to determine just how devastating it will be to the community. And it also requires a change to the beloved Master Plan. Honest adherence to these studies would put a quick stop to this perversion.
The czar is ignoring this law and doing things backwards... telling the privately run United States Postal Service to... get it on. According to the scheme, the airport would provide a temporary (taxpayer funded) hangar and ramp facility for 3 years. And in the meantime the airport would continue its policy of ethnically cleansing the innocent citizens in the Rewana Farms concentration camp area of Reno. First the scheme is put into action - then a the study to determine if the scheme is legal. Backwards boneheaded bureaucracy run amok!
Consider some perversions they are trying to get away with:
The new czar refused to buy a home in the area that is being devastated... even after being advised to do so on several occasions. And most of the other top brass that "runs" the airport does not live in the areas being destroyed. Why?
A project of this Draconian magnitude must go to public referendum vote. The Reno Airport should not be allowed to be a dictatorship... run by a carpetbagger who came to town just a few months ago.
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RENO AIRPORT GOES "POSTAL" - CITY HALL JOINS IN
Sam Dehné (4/16/99)
Czar Bart, the Reno Airport's brand new rookie executive director, has taken the ethnic cleansing of Rewana Farms to a new level. After setting the Nevada Air Guard up as dupes in its plot to take land away from these innocent Rewanians, the airport has changed direction. This sudden direction change came after a recent jaunt to Texas with the man currently posing as Reno mayor... who is also one of her bosses.
Now the fat cat mouthpieces at the airport want the Rewana concentration camp to be converted into postal operations... with any land left over being dedicated to cargo... a special "deal" for the "mayor"... and some of his rich buddies in the warehouse business. This will result in the "bombardment" of dozens of 1,000s of innocent Reno citizens by noise pollution and "regular" pollution from dozens of cargo flights - all night long... and into the mornings. Thus the term "going postal" is taken to a whole new nasty level.
Let's not forget that the Nevada Ethics Commission, as noodleheaded as most of its bogus decisions are, has warned this "mayor" that he is not to interface with the airport. Why? Because of his kickback contracts.
Using the well-honed ability to prevaricate and deceive (perpetrated by its $$$million dollar publicly funded propaganda machine), the airport has apparently now duped the U. S. post office into canceling its plans to move its Oakland operations to Phoenix. Instead the post office will funnel (more) huge sums of corporate welfare dollars into the Reno Airport's already bloated coffers and help build a cargo ramp and hangars... on land the airport does not (yet) own... and may never own.
The post office had originally chosen Phoenix Airport for this operation. But it doesn't seem to care that Phoenix already has the land and the infrastructure to make a move there a turn-key operation. When it is "free" federal tax dollars in the greasy hands of shameless bureaucrats, the sky is the limit. For those of us who resented paying taxes yesterday, now we know why.
Czar-Bart, who refuses to live amidst the blight she is creating, has taken it upon herself to join in the frenzy to turn Reno into a dismal mess.
One public official who continues to benefit enormously from participation in this mendaciousness is the "mayor". You see, he owns a trucking/distribution/customs business. Do you think he is having a hard time sleeping... counting the money he will bilk with the Airport Foreign Trade Zone customs monopoly his subservient airport cronies have bribed him with?
Why object to this inane pork barrel project? There are a myriad of reasons; here are just a few:
1. It is outright wrong and diabolical to steal land from innocent citizens for this Special Interest boondoggle.
2. The Reno Master Plan says the Moana Lane extension road is going through the land next to the airport... so the post office won't fit there.
3. The noise, danger, and blight engendered by this stupidity make an even bigger mockery of a government going further and further out of control. The scary noise of cargo planes literally flying through bedrooms all night long is just what Reno citizens don't need.
4. It is wrong to waste federal dollars on civilian pork barrel projects. Duh!
5. The negative impact to the community in and around the area will drive property values down and denigrate livability.
6. Several members of the Airport Board have deep rooted conflicts of interest.
7. The man posing as "mayor" is in violation of a plethora of Nevada Laws pertaining to nest-feathering by Public Officials.
This is second grade stuff:
Don't steal.
Don't lie.
Don't tromp on other people's lives.
Be nice.
Stay tuned there is more to come from this iceberg tip...
MEMO - SAM DEHNE
(775) 825-1398
Postmaster General, William Henderson
475 Lenfant Plaza SW
Washington, DC 20260-0010
23 April, 1999
Subject: A Postal Hub in Reno Is a Bad Deal for the USPS
Dear Sir,
This week the citizens of Reno were told without warning that the United States Postal Service (USPS) is joining forces with the Reno Airport brass to try to start the process of building a large W-NET postal operation in the middle of our town. This is a cataclysmic event that demands that the will of all adversely affected citizens be sounded... and honored. Citizens have rights.
Reno is not a good place for a USPS hub... for dozens of reasons... including the following:
1. The Reno Airport does not own (and may never own) the land it proposes to place your permanent operations on. This fact alone is enough for this deal to be canceled.
2. Reno is one of the very nastiest locations for an airport relative to noise pollution and environmental pollution and danger. And to premeditatedly go out of the way to exacerbate an already intolerable situation will make the dozens of thousands of citizens around the airport even angrier. And believe me, all one has to do is attend a Noise Panel meeting to see that there is anger... that is getting more heated all the time.
3. The Airport probably has not told you; but right now there are official plans to have the extension of one of Reno's major streets go right through the middle of where the airport wants your operations to be. Thus there won't even be room to get the planes in there.
4. In speaking with Phoenix Airport personnel, it has been determined that they have almost a "turnkey" operation. This would provide for a much less expensive and much more citizen-friendly operation.
5. Due to its location in a "bowl", Reno is a lousy place for any type of cargo and trucking operations.
6. Latest reports portray that the air traffic control system at this airport is antiquated and thus potentially dangerous and inefficient.
7. In order to follow through with this plot, the airport is attempting to condemn land away from innocent citizens. And everybody knows it is un-American to force citizens out of their homes for private greed... such as that being perpetrated by this airport. The citizens are fighting this diabolical scheme in court.
These are just a few of a myriad of examples why this incredulous action should be canceled.
In other words, there are many negatives to this fraud that is being perpetrated against you by Reno Airport brass, and that the smell test is once again being severely tested. A win-win decision would have the USPS placing this operation somewhere else.
We trust that you will begin to understand the folly of the post office's participation in this repulsive plan. And we are willing and anxious to discuss the matter with you as soon as possible; so that you will be aware of the other side of this fabrication. The truth!
Sincerely,
Sam Dehne, a concerned Reno citizen
297 Smithridge
Reno, Nevada 89502
cc Senators Reid and Bryan
Congressman Gibbons
Governor Ken Guinn
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Washoe County re-appoints aviation amateur despite conflict of interests
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