Skydive Laconia?

[Steveo]

Originally Posted by TheNoonans

Your right Steveo,

To be honest, as I read through the letters, most everyone's concerns are based on either one of two things:

1) Self Entitlement
or
2) Lack of knowledge.

I can't help with the Self Entitled crowd, that's an incurable affliction it would seem.

Tom

What is also going on here is the "native" syndrome. Tom, you are just not a native of Laconia therefore you shall not be accepted. I was not born in Laconia but I lived there during high school and then lived many years in Portsmouth. I was in front of a crowd one day in Laconia when my wife overheard some folks asking about me, asking where I was from and if I was a native. The other person said no, he is from Portsmouth. I use to think "native" use to mean NH native but not in Laconia. If a "native" was opening a parachuting business there would be no problems at all.

[tis]

That may be true in Laconia, Steveo, but it sure isn't in Wolfeboro. They don't like business period. They give EVERYBODY a hard time.

[TheNoonans]

It's interesting you bring up the "native" thing Steveo, because it helps explain why my wife and I are referred to as "Floridians" in this thread and occasionally in the papers.

I didn't know the US added two more states to the Union while I was living in New Zealand......lol.....the State of Laconia and the State of Gilford must not be on the map yet.......lol

Alas, I am not a native of Laconia or Gilford.

I am a civitas orbis terrerum.

I am a citizen of the world.

And I thought "Locals Only" was a phrase derived from hot surf spots on the West Coast?

Oh well, we're still coming to the party, even if we we're invited by the hosts. When we get there, the A-listers ("A" for "affluent"), can join us and make the whole thing work for everyone.

Or they can continue to try and bring down the whole show for everyone involved, us, them and the community as a whole.

Blue skies to all and to all a good flight,

Tom

[AC2717]

I just want to hurry up and jump over the lake already!

[Seaplane Pilot]

Originally Posted by TheNoonans

It's interesting you bring up the "native" thing Steveo, because it helps explain why my wife and I are referred to as "Floridians" in this thread and occasionally in the papers.

I didn't know the US added two more states to the Union while I was living in New Zealand......lol.....the State of Laconia and the State of Gilford must not be on the map yet.......lol

Alas, I am not a native of Laconia or Gilford.

I am a civitas orbis terrerum.

I am a citizen of the world.

And I thought "Locals Only" was a phrase derived from hot surf spots on the West Coast?

Oh well, we're still coming to the party, even if we we're invited by the hosts. When we get there, the A-listers ("A" for "affluent"), can join us and make the whole thing work for everyone.

Or they can continue to try and bring down the whole show for everyone involved, us, them and the community as a whole.

Blue skies to all and to all a good flight,

Tom

Correction Tom, that would be the KINGDOM of GILFORD! Believe me, the Selectmen see themselves as kings and the taxpayers of Gilford as peasants. They need a wakeup call!

[Pineedles]

It's all about the power of the vote. Vote the bums out!

[fpartri497]

Originally Posted by Pineedles

It's all about the power of the vote. Vote the bums out!

It doesent matter, we will only vote more bums In.

\

[tis]

Originally Posted by Seaplane Pilot

Correction Tom, that would be the KINGDOM of GILFORD! Believe me, the Selectmen see themselves as kings and the taxpayers of Gilford as peasants. They need a wakeup call!

I guess that's true in every town and state and fed. gov. They forget the work for US! Maybe next election they will get a wakeup call.

Meantime, I am glad it is not me who has to go through the awful fight that the Noonans are going through.

[fatlazyless]

Originally Posted by Seaplane Pilot

Correction Tom, that would be the KINGDOM of GILFORD! Believe me, the Selectmen see themselves as kings and the taxpayers of Gilford as peasants. They need a wakeup call!

Yes, that's very true, and a big reason is because many of the local town selectmen get to receive the town's family health insurance coverage which has a cash value that can range all over in price, from maybe $12 to 24,000/year. By receiving such a major perk, it creates a non-adversarial relationship between the selectmen and the town's employees, and essentially all the selectmen and employees are all together in the same big boat. They's in the same boat; so they all sink, or they all stay afloat, together as one big happy group!

Maybe start to create a more adversarial relationship between the selectmen and the town employees by raising and raising and raising the health insurance co-pays via a warrant article at the town ballot vote, because it will never get yessed at a town meeting vote?

Lottsa luck!

The town selectmen's position in NH is supposed to be a very low paying, per-diem, volunteer style position, but with the very expensive health coverage, this is simply not the situation.

Here in Meredith, there is a town selectman who drives a white Mercedes Benz suv with a three letter, handicap, vanity license plate that is sometimes parked at a dentist's office on Main St in Plymouth. One has to wonder if the Meredith property tax payers are paying for his dental care while he is driving a very nice Mercedes Benz? That selectman's car parked at the dentist's office sure sends a message.

[TheNoonans]

So I finally got through all of the FOIA public comment submissions last night.

I have to say, now that I have read them, I feel much much better about them.

For starters, as I said earlier, most all of them could be classified as either:
1) The self entitled, "this is my airport" crowd
or
2) The "lack of knowledge" submissions, ie, the "your going to do WHAT here? type emails."

As I said, I can't help the self entitled crowd that believe they have a greater right to the airport than anyone else. "Sorry" is the best I can do for those people complaining that I want to play in THEIR sandbox.

But the lack of knowledge letters are interesting. It's alot of private pilots that simply don't know any more about parachute operations than what Mr. Hemmel and the LAA want them to know, which is very very very little. And that's okay, I promise you all, all of you in the latter category of submissions, that I will work with every one of you directly and personally. You can tell me your thoughts, even yell at me if you like, , and then when the emotion is out and gone, we can sit down and work together to educate each other (yes I said "each other", you can educate me too) on what we both need to feel good about this situation.

Now, of course, I'll be the first to say, there were some good letters in there too, and not just "for us", but also a couple of good letters "against us", so to speak. I never said this was a black and white issue, a lot of it is very grey. And for the small group of negative comments based on knowledge and experience, they were very thought provoking letters. I really wish the LAA hadn't turned this process into a tug or war, because I would have really liked to sit down and talked with the people that brought good questions and concerns to the table. Whether we ended up agreeing in the end or not, I would have genuinely enjoyed the opportunity to see and hear knowledgable thoughts without the emotional charge of "NO WAY!, NOT HERE" that most of the letters amplified. And a few of those letters were genuinely sincere attempts to understand the process and how it would affect us all.

My favorite submission of all actually came from a pilot at the FBO down the end of the north taxiway. His letter was filled with both his personal experiences and what questions he had concerning the integration of our proposal onto the airport. It was most definitely an "against" letter, but it was fair, without emotion, and inquisitive. It was brilliant. I read it three times, and I hope some day that he and I get a chance to talk about the letter. I'd really like to offer him answers from my perspective and get his unbiased feedback.

So I give Mr. Hemmel and the LAA credit, the majority of the letters were just what they wanted. Emotional stand offs based on very little factual information.

What I find disappointing, and what those of you that sent those letters should find INFURIATING, is that most of you, the property owners and private pilots, and even some of the commercial pilots writing in, were used as PAWNS by the LAA in this process. And here is how:

When the airport manager sent you all that email asking for your submissions to the comment period, ending it with the underlined:
"Your opinions count", she never once referenced that she had a volume of information on the topic that we provided her back in 2008. And we didn't just provide her our facts, we provided her AOPA's facts and the FAA's facts.

It is by no coincidence that her last line failed to say "Your EDUCATED and INFORMED opinions matter."

The LAA didn't want you casting informed and educated opinions in that public comment, they wanted you to cast uninformed hysterical opinions. If I were you, I would be FURIOUS that you got that email from the airport manager without the inclusion of a request to view all of the data available to you and making it available to you.

That public comment period that received over 80, "mostly negative" responses was an orchestration of fact omission responses. As I said before, the LAA wants your hysteria on this one, not your well thought, educated, unbiased opinions. And that is what they set out to collect, and thanks to that email from the manager of the airport going out without suggesting you educate yourself, that is exactly what the LAA got.

For those of you that sent in letters against us, if you did not read the AOPA article that we submitted to the LAA for instance, then you played right into the hands of the LAA. It's really that simple. It's unfortunate, but it's reality.

But in the end, the comments have all been thrown out, the good ones and the bad ones. That's the FAA's fault for even asking for them in the first place. The local FAA wasted everyone's time and energy by even asking for them. That's your local ADO. That's your local government.

As I depart now for Boston in a few hours, I want to leave you all with a thought.

While I believe it to be educated and without bias, I am only offering my opinions on this public comment process. I challenge everyone of you that either believes me or especially if you don't believe me. Make your own FOIA request. It's cheap, it's quick and simple. Get your own copy of the 80+ comments, get your own copy of the airport manager's email to 40+ locals telling them their "opinions matter" without providing them knowledge she has materials they can review.

Get it for yourself, read it all, and then make an informed decision about this minority public hysteria against Skydive Laconia. The facts are out there. The more you get the more you will shake your head at this entire process and the lengths to which the LAA have gone to oppose us.

This is America, it's still the land of the free, you have a right and an obligation to demand transparency and accountability within your government, a government of the people, by the people and FOR the people.

What is your government doing for YOU in this process.

Your "educated and knowledgable" opinion matters. Go ahead, give it to them.

Blue skies to all and to all a good flight,

Tom

[trfour]

Best of luck to The Noonans!!!!
Terry
________________________________

[TheNoonans]

Hi Terry

Thank you for your continued support. I have been offline the last month or so, for my yearly trek into the Himalaya (www.everest-skydive.com) where my team and I take clients skydiving beside Mount Everest. I just got back from Kathmandu a few days ago.

While I am on here, I thought I would share with you an email that I sent to your elected officials in Laconia and Gilford on Sept 19th, 2011. Would you believe that I never got a single response back from anyone on either government council in Laconia or Gilford? Ironic, huh?

I am surprised that any civic leader in a process like this would consider themselves just in ignoring such a request from a proposed business owner. Oh well, lesson learned. Ignoring us worked really well for the local FAA....now we are working with the FAA in Washington, D.C.......I wonder where we go with this next in NH government......hmm.

Blue skies to all and to all a good flight,
Tom

Good afternoon to all,

My name is Tom Noonan and my wife and I have spent the last three and half years requesting to operate a commercial skydiving operation at the Laconia Municipal Airport. To date, our proposal still remains unsupported by the Laconia Airport Authority, and I just wanted to check in with you all to give you a perspective of what will be occurring within the FAA in the near future and the impact it will have our proposal process.

As a background, there have been two "FAA" reports issued by regional FAA agent Michel Hovan of Airports Division, Massachusetts. As I have stated publicly, those reports were erroneous, and created without any guidance or oversight from the FAA in Washington, D.C. Since those reports were issued, I have been in contact with virtually every level of the FAA, including it's chief administrator, Randy Babbitt. I was able to provide Mr. Babbitt's department heads, the director level of the FAA, with verifiable facts and evidence to support that:

1) The LAA discriminated against Skydive Laconia on many occasions in direct violation of their federal funding grant assurances.
2) The NHDOT Department of Aeronautics failed to act to bring the LAA back into compliance.
and
3) Both of the reports issued by the local FAA are completely erroneous.

To validate the seriousness of position and facts, I would like you to consider the fact that at that high a level of the FAA, only factual, verifiable information can pass judgement from the FAA directors, and the fact that I am still in direct communication with them should suggest to you all the validity of the information that I have provided them.

For anyone involved in this process, it is easy to see that we were never given a fair chance by the LAA, and that it is the LAA that forced our position to bring this unjust process a national stage with both the FAA and the media.

I offer the following information for your consideration as it is my sincere belief that justice and accountability within the FAA is just around the corner:

The FAA will very shortly be finalizing a process that will clearly label the Laconia Municipal Airport as viable for a commercial skydiving operation, and equally as important, the FAA will also be enforcing the compliance of it directly and swiftly. If the LAA chooses to remain non-compliant when this process is through, they will forfeit any future federal funding and be required to refund the last ten years of funding they received, that I am finally sure of now.

The FAA has taken the discriminatory practices of the LAA and other airport sponsors across the country that have ignored airport access assurances, very seriously. In this day and age of fiscal accountability, the FAA is about to lead a charge across the nation and put an end to airport sponsors abuse of their funding privileges.

It is also important to understand that the actions of the LAA have now jeopardized the "block grant state" status of the NHDOT. The NHDOT requested to be actively involved in the dissemination of federal funding and the FAA has allowed a handful of states to pursue this role in a test program. I have been able to clearly demonstrate to the FAA in Washington, D.C., that not only did the LAA discriminate against us multiple times during this process, but that when we then informed the NHDOT about the discriminations, they ignored the facts and allowed to airport to continue to receive federal funding. It is with those facts and statements as the foundation for my request, that I asked the FAA to revoke the "block grant' status of the NHDOT and that request is currently under consideration in Washington, D.C.

It is our expectation that by the end of the year, this process will have finally reached it's just conclusion and the FAA will return a verdict that states that Skydive Laconia may be granted access to land our parachutes on the property of the airport, as we contended could be done in July of 2008. We also expect the LAA and the NHDOT to honor that verdict and work with us, not against us, in living up to the federal funding grant assurances that they agreed to.

I am writing to both the City Council of Laconia and the Gilford Selectmen today to renew an offer to meet with you all to help you better understand what impact our business will have on the area, both operationally and financially. My last request to meet with you all and to explain our proposal fell on deaf ears. I can only hope that your willingness to view our proposal with an open mind has increased since my last email and that you consider allowing my wife and I to educate you all on the process that we have been forced to endure, the just outcome that is soon to arrive, and what that means to both communities in terms of new jobs and economic stimulus into the area.

This is your chance to show the community your renewed commitment to economic growth and a just conclusion to the unjust process created by the LAA three and a half years ago.

If you would like to arrange a meeting, please let me know.

Best regards,

Tom Noonan
Skydive Laconia

[Pineedles]

Tom. Even though your most recent posts give us hope that you and your comapny may be up and going by the 2012 season, I sense a setback by the non-response from the locals. Do you need those of us that support you, to do something more?

[trfour]

Hi Tom.

You are the one that deserves a huge Thank You from most of us for opening our eyes to some of the closed room, back door politics that go on every day.
No one should have to go through what you have had to endure over these several years now!

However, I suppose we will eventually find out whether the LAA's lack of knowledge, ( in this case ), has any relevance. To date so far, they have shown ( Shenanigans, and more local concerns ).


Keep up you're great work and stay with us, Tom! We all need you!!
Terry
_____________________________________________

[riverat]

"While I am on here, I thought I would share with you an email that I sent to your elected officials in Laconia and Gilford on Sept 19th, 2011. Would you believe that I never got a single response back from anyone on either government council in Laconia or Gilford? Ironic, huh?"


These "Officials" being "Elected" by some of the readers of this Forum, you would think they would atleast acknowledge the reciept of this email. It is bad for their track record, that we review before casting our vote. Do you want to elect someone that will not answer your emails sent, I for one would not. And feel Tom should have atleast an acknowledgment of "Email recieved and read" response from these "Elected" officials.

[TheNoonans]

Hi Pineedles,

I sense a setback by the non-response from the locals. Do you need those of us that support you, to do something more?

Thank you for support. All I would ask of any of you that are reading this that disagree with the way your local elected officials have handled this situation, is to simply vote your conscience at the next election. As I have said before the real scary part of this process is that we are but one business, one proposal, and if your local government is capable of throwing due process out the window with us, it kind of makes you wonder what other programs and proposals are receiving the same treatment. The local government is making a statement to you, their electoral community, this is how they do business. If you agree with it, re-elect them. If you disagree, vote them out.

Blue skies to all and to all a good flight,

Tom

[trfour]

To The Noonans, from most of us!

Terry
________________________________

[RLW]

Originally Posted by trfour

To The Noonans, from most of us!

Terry
________________________________

Happy Thansgiving
I second those words

[fatlazyless]

...say hey....there's still the Plymouth Municipal Airport.....you know....that little airport 17-air miles from Laconia, up at Rt 93-Exit 26, which is actually easier to drive to from Boston than the Laconia Airport because the airport is only about three or four miles from Rt 93-Exit 26.

PLYMOUTH - PLYMOUTH - PLYMOUTH .......Plymouth rocks!

Considering that the Plymouth Airport is home to a parachute www.chutesup.com/aboutus.htm flying school, maybe it would be welcome to a sky diving biz? A couple new local videos have been added to this link and suggest you take a peek at "Flying over Stinson Mountain" to get a birdy view of the Plymouth Airport and area. Could this be a good spot for a skydiver biz to start up?

www.longviewfarmnh.com is immediately to the west of the airport, and gives you a look-see at the neighborhood.

[trfour]

Originally Posted by fatlazyless

...say hey....there's still the Plymouth Municipal Airport.....you know....that little airport 17-air miles from Laconia, up at Rt 93-Exit 26, which is actually easier to drive to from Boston than the Laconia Airport because the airport is only about three or four miles from Rt 93-Exit 26.

PLYMOUTH - PLYMOUTH - PLYMOUTH .......Plymouth rocks!

Considering that the Plymouth Airport is home to a parachute www.chutesup.com/aboutus.htm flying school, maybe it would be welcome to a sky diving biz? A couple new local videos have been added to this link and suggest you take a peek at "Flying over Stinson Mountain" to get a birdy view of the Plymouth Airport and area. Could this be a good spot for a skydiver biz to start up?

www.longviewfarmnh.com is immediately to the west of the airport, and gives you a look-see at the neighborhood.

We have sure been getting our heaping helping of fat-for-less out here lately!

Terry
___________________________

[TheNoonans]

Wow, we just went over 50,000 views of this thread. So much for no one caring about a "small dirt road business", eh?

We just wanted to take a moment and say thank you to all of you that sent us holiday well wishes both publicly and privately. As always, your support is greatly appreciated.

Just a quick update:

I've just been in contact with the Director of Airports in Washington DC and the national airport evaluation matrix is just about done. This is the matrix that will take the decision of whether or not an aeronautical activity can be accommodated on a municipal airport entirely out of the hands of potentially corrupted local airport boards that want to receive federal funding but don't want to follow the rules.

The "rogue" nature of the local FAA is also being corralled as we speak, so that's a good thing too.

And lastly, we are still driving forward with our request to have the Block Grant status of the NHDOT rescinded by the FAA and to have the federal funding process returned to Washington and the FAA. We have reached the top of that division as well and are working with the right people in Washington on that one.

As the holiday season rolls on, we remain confident this whole corrupted process that we were forced to endure is about to come to a favorable conclusion.

Blue skies to all and to all a good flight,

Tom

[AC2717]

Sounds good Tom,
I, for one, look to be jumping out over the lake this July 4th weekend!!

[Pontoon Goon]

Tom,
Merry Christmas to you and yours. Although I very much look forward to this whole debacle coming to a positive conclusion for you I am concerned about the other shoe dropping. Could you please explain what impact the region may be facing if the block grant is rescinded? I assume a good portion of that money finds it's way into the community through repair and upkeep and lack of said funds must also be a concern for you going forward as you will now be running your business out of this facility.
Pontoon Goon