On Tuesday, Sept. 28 a town meeting was held at the Farmingdale Public Library to focus on issues surrounding future expansion plans for Republic Airport.

Over 100 local and neighboring community members gathered at the meeting, which was called to order by Legislator David Mejias, who opened by stating, "this is a forum for residents to voice their concerns to elected officials."

"This is a big issue and we want to make sure that people know exactly what is happening in their community," said Mejias, who insisted that this will not be the last meeting held by the town on the issue.

The overall tone expressed from the community throughout the night was against any expansion on the airport itself or on its grounds and some people asked questions of how to prevent further growth.

"Unfortunately without a master plan drawn up from Republic Airport, the public has no say directly in what happens," said Town of Babylon Supervisor Steve Bellone. "The most powerful weapon we have against expansion of the airport is the voice of residents. The master plan is a vehicle which allows the public to be involved in what happens.

According to Bellone, without this plan in effect, airport management can negatively declare any environmental impact that construction and expansion of the property will have on the surrounding environment.

Bellone has passed a resolution requiring the airport to complete a master plan and so have several other towns. However, prior attempts that local governments have made to get Republic Airport, which is run by the State, to comply with the creation of a master plan has been unsuccessful.

"It is important to understand that the master planning process, although it has not been approved, is not required to be approved," said Assistant Manager of Republic Airport Shelly LaRose. "What the airport is currently operating under is a plan that is called an Airport Layout Plan (ALP) that is approved by the FAA and it does include developmental ideas."

Residents attending the meeting expressed discontent over their level of involvement allowed in the ALP planning. Some comments were also made from the audience toward the environmental involvement of development which is an issue that gets covered in the master plan. Other residents voiced concerns about keeping large aircraft traffic out of the airport and keeping noise pollution down but no pleasing answer seemed to be given from airport officials during the meeting.

One question sparked a heated issue over understated numbers from the airport on the proposed size of planes and the weight limit that they can be, with some commenting on the airport attempting to be granted a higher weight limit than the one agreed upon with local governments of 60,000 pounds.

One fact that both Mejias and Bellone stressed was that Republic Airport is a State run entity and to make a difference, large amounts of letters from area residents sent to State leaders such as Governor Pataki and to Steven Lewis, the division director from the department of transportation. Lewis is in charge of road traffic in and out of the airport.

They also told residents to write to their House of Representative members to let these State officials know how people feel about what is happening.