Neighbors worry as FAA decision on Tweed airport plan nears
NEW HAVEN — Tania Giacomini says she can smell jet fuel from her home on Townsend Avenue, depending on which way the wind is blowing.
Plus, Giacomini said, in addition to “a lot of concerns about the fumes,” and “chemicals that are being released by the jets,” neighbors continue to have “many concerns” about noise coming from Tweed New Haven Regional Airport.
Giacomini and other area residents and officials offered opinions during a presentation on the soon-to-be final version of the airport’s 20-year master plan update — with proposals to move the airport’s main entrance and terminal to the East Haven side and extend the main runway from 5,600 feet to 6,635 feet. The master plan is anticipated to gain final FAA approvals by early summer
The airport is owned by New Haven but straddles the New Haven-East Haven border, with much of its private aviation side — plus the proposed new terminal and entrance locations — located in the town.
The master plan’s proposal to lengthen the runway by paving portions of the unpaved runway safety areas on either end follows a federal court decision in Tweed’s favor that opened the way to runway extension. The U.S. Supreme Court last year declined to hear the state’s appeal of the decision.
The public
East Haven resident Patrick Rowland, for instance has lots of questions about access to the airport, which Airport Executive Director Sean Scanlon had said would likely be off Hemingway Avenue and Proto Drive. Rowland said, “I don’t see why anyone in East Haven would support this at all.”
“How do you plan on getting (to Tweed) from the west?” Rowland asked. “It isn’t any easier and just as complex and contributes to the extensive traffic — eastbound on I-95 is already heavy. Adding additional traffic is simply moving it from one state road (Townsend Avenue is a state road) down past the gas stations, traffic of the stores and all that.. all the way up to turning right on Coe and Hemingway.
“Has anyone who looked at this proposal ever driven on these roads?” he asked. “It would make matters worse.”
“We get all the bad stuff and Morris Cove vis a vis Townsend Avenue and all that in Martin Looney’s back yard is saved from traffic,” Rowland said.
Scanlon said that “this master plan is what would be our ideal scenario to happen ... and there’s a lot of ground that we have to cover ... If it’s a traffic study for Exit 52,” that can happen, he said. “Maybe we need to have a conversation with East Haven about what they’re getting.”
Since Tweed first opened in 1931, the main entrance has been on Burr Street, accessible by traveling on narrow residential streets off Townsend Avenue on New Haven’s East Shore.
Even with FAA approval, “It won’t happen without significant buy-in from East Haven,” Scanlon said.
Kevin Rocco, meanwhile, was one of several people who offered support for the idea of an expanded Tweed.
“It seems like I am likely in the minority here, but I really hope to see an expanded Tweed within the next 10 years,” Rocco said. “Real cities need real airports within reasonable distance. An expanded Tweed could do this for the Greater New Haven area. Bradley is way too far, and all the travelers going to Bradley or NYC airports are actually much worse for our traffic and pollution.”
City and airport officials have said they need to extend the main runway to at least 6,000 feet in order to attract additional commercial airlines.
Steve Haddon, an East Haven resident and member of the town’s Economic Development Commission, said he questions the airport’s assumption of how fast the airline industry will bounce back from the coronavirus pandemic and said, “I have serious doubts about the forecast of numbers that you’re putting up now.”
Scanlon responded, there’s no question that “we are all sort of figuring this out on the fly.”
Jeff Wood of McFarland Johnson, the consultant the Tweed New Haven Airport Authority hired for the master plan update process, said that in drafting the plan, the consult revised the forecast for 2020 enplanements, originally estimated to be 65,659, down to about 13,000.
The mother of a Norwalk man facing gun-related charges after police say he showed an interest in mass shootings voiced her support of lawmakers’ efforts to expand the state’s “red flag” firearms law that keeps guns away from those deemed a danger.
Joanne Kirson, the mother of Brandon Wagshol, said in testimony last week that her son was among the rare examples in 2019 that a risk warrant under the current law was used on someone “who posed a credible threat of a mass shooting.”
Kirson’s testimony was given as the legislature’s judiciary committee attempts to expand those who can request such an order to include family or household members, as well as medical professionals. The law now only allows prosecutors and police officers to make the request.
Wagshol, 23, was charged in 2019 after a police investigation revealed he had tried to buy several high-capacity ammunition magazines for a rifle he was building, authorities said.
Wagshol has pleaded not guilty to four counts of illegal possession of large capacity magazines. He remains held on $500,000 bond for a separate case in which police say he assaulted his father with a pipe.
He is scheduled to face a Stamford judge next week.
Kirson said following an incident in her home in 2018, she sought to ensure her son could not get his hands on any guns, but was unsuccessful.
“I called the police and he was arrested. I made a victim statement in which I said I wanted to ensure that he’d never have access to firearms. The case was dismissed, and by this time, my ex-husband had guns,” Kirson testified.
In 2019, the FBI received a tip from a family member that Wagshol was trying to buy high-capacity magazines to hold ammunition.
Authorities raided Wagshol’s home, where investigators found a .40 caliber handgun, a .22 caliber rifle, a rifle scope with a laser, four firearm optic sites, a firearm flashlight, body armor with a titanium plate, a full camouflage outfit, a ballistic helmet, tactical gloves, a camouflage bag, and numerous .40 caliber, .22 caliber and .300 blackout rounds of ammunition, according to court records.
Wagshol was living in his father’s Norwalk apartment, police said.
In a search warrant application, investigators wrote that Wagshol had shown an interest in mass shootings dating back to 2008, when he was in the sixth grade.
In November of that year, investigators said Wagshol threatened to shoot a fellow classmate with his father’s gun, the warrant showed.
“I’ll make Virginia Tech look like nothing,” he muttered under his breath, the warrant said, in a reference to the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech in which 33 people died.
Investigators subsequently found a social media post written by Wagshol that “showed his interest in committing a mass shooting,” according to authorities.
Wagshol told police he went to New Hampshire to “acquire 30round magazines and ammunition to circumvent what I viewed as an unconstitutional restriction on the Second Amendment,” but said he had no intentions “whatsoever” to commit a mass shooting.
The bill to expand the “red flag” law was met with some resistance from gun-rights supporters who feared it could lead to false claims and abuses, the Associated Press reported. The bill remains before the legislature’s judiciary committee.
Kirson, in supporting the legislation, testified: “The case of Brandon Wagshol shows that the law works.”