Now is the time to Rebel
By Jimmy Leas
March 5, 2017
South Burlington is being roughed up every day by a bully to the north. We must stop collaborating. Now is the time to rebel.
Burlington is the bully. Burlington hosts an otherwise well-regarded tenant at its airport that operates screamingly loud F-16 fighter jets that cause serious health and safety misery, and property losses to families in South Burlington.
The misery is visible: 200 affordable homes near the airport bulldozed since the arrival of the F-16.
The misery is also invisible: The noise is so awful it causes cognitive impairment of half the children living in the remaining 961 South Burlington homes in the F-16 extreme noise zone.
Burlington gets millions of dollars in grants, primarily from the FAA but also from the state of Vermont, to do its vicious deed on South Burlington neighborhoods.