3-year campaign comes to a head this Monday The improbable campaign against the basing of the F-35 in Burlington began as early as 2010. That year, a local official described himself to a Seven Days reporter as “100 percent receptive” to having F-35s at Burlington International. He infamously said, “I hear the noise the F-16 makes, I […]
Tuesday June 4th, 2013 Burlington, VT Journalist, John Briggs reports that the Burlington Free Press has sent numerous detailed and specific questions to Senators Patrick Leahy, Bernard Sanders, Congressman Peter Welch, Vermont Governor Peter Shumlin, and Burlington Vermont Mayor Miro Weinberger emanating from a meeting with aviation designer Pierre Sprey, USAF Col. Rosanne Greco (ret.) […]
Monday, June 3rd, 2013 Burlington VT Burlington Free Press Reports: A joint statement from the congressional delegation and the governor reiterated the group’s support for the plane: “We continue to believe basing the plane in South Burlington will be good for the future of the Vermont Air Guard and for the state’s economy,” the statement said. […]
Sunday, June 2nd, 2013 Burlington Vermont This morning the largest paper circulated in Vermont, The Burlington FREE Press and their Editorial Editor issued a major article confirming that there are serious implications concerning the F-35’s coming to Vermont and too many unanswered questions. The BFP and Mr. Soga wrote that the time is now for a […]
By Bryan Bender Boston Globe […] A Globe examination of records, and interviews with Pentagon officials directly involved with the review, show the Air Force — in selecting Vermont over competing locations — relied on inaccurate, excessively low estimates of the impact of the jet blast on the local population. One of the Pentagon officials […]
These are the Burlington scoresheets for the potential basing of the F-35. This scoresheet is compared against others scoresheets (which have been kept secret by the Air Force) to help determine which locations are the best ones for the F-35 to be located at. The scoresheets are a bit complicted and we’ve tried to clarify them in our comments. We point out the clear and serious errors in the scoresheet below.
Regarding “encroachment” on the scoring sheet, the first two questions (see page 5 for the questions) are:
Boston Globe, WPTZ, WCAX, Burlington Free Press, Seven Days, VPR Meeting at 7pm today at Winooski High School (north wing) to plan action. “As jets seem bound for Vt., questions of political influence arise,” By Bryan Bender and Globe Staff April 14, 2013 http://bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2013/04/13/selection-vermont-guard-base-for-jets-was-based-flawed-data-raising-questions-political-influence/pmhiPtI1BPWxwC3yK1adAL/story.html “F-35 basing data ‘fudged’,” by David Charns WPTZ April 14, 2013 […]
F-35 opponents turned out to the Bernie Sanders Labor Day Picnic in Burlington. The Coalition distributed informational leaflets to over 200 people. Picnic attendees were overwhelmingly eager to learn more about the issue.
After reading the scoring sheet and the accompanying background paper, and speaking with the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the AF (Installations), I’ve come away with new reservations—this time about the process.