A slim majority of Westminster City Councilors Monday night voted – once again – to keep its membership on a local board tasked with dealing with noise complaints at Rocky Mountain Metropolitan Airport.
By a 4-3 vote during a work session, councilors opted to stay on the RMMA Community Noise Roundtable.
The vote came as a meeting is scheduled for the CNR on Thursday May 2, during which members may discuss Broomfield’s plan to depart the advisory group.
The CNR is composed of local government officials from Jefferson, Broomfield and Boulder counties and was formed to address noise concerns voiced by neighbors of the airport.
The roundtable has been criticized by residents for not doing enough to harness aircraft take-offs and landings from the RMMA. Westminster left the roundtable in 2022 but returned last year.
Residents and some councilors have continued to push Westminster to abandon the CNR, saying the airport has ignored noise grievances and continued to grow its air traffic even though the airport is causing too many environmental woes.
Piston-powered aircraft operating out of the airport have been targeted for their noise but also for using lead fuel, which advocates say contaminates local neighborhoods in the airport’s flight path.
Most citizens want the city to leave the roundtable, Councilor Kristen Ireland said.
“As far as going forward there is just too much traffic coming from that airport,” Ireland said.
Other councilors said the city should stay on the CNR to maybe induce some changes in its scope.
The CNR could produce smaller working groups and work more with neighbors and local governments, said Mayor Pro Tem Sarah Nurmela. “A lot of what the CNR does now seems to be on the narrow side,” Nurmela said.
Councilor David DeMott is the Westminster representative on the CNR and voted to stay as a member, as did Mayor Nancy McNally, Nurmela, and Claire Carmelia. DeMott said he hoped residents critical of the airport could tone down their comments to FAA officials who attend the CNR as well as airport and city staff members working on airport issues.
“People have been pretty nasty to staff members or the FAA who show up,” DeMott said. “We should try to keep some civility,” he said.
NO ONE cares if we are stressing out with all the noise. We moved here in 1985 next to the airport in the countryside subdivision.
Not so easy to move, just sell and pick up and move.
Come on!
Please, PLEASE stop flying over houses! This is not why we moved out here so long ago.
We cannot even sit outside anymore, let alone have the house opened up!
The stress is becoming unbearable.