Nov. 07--This week's voter referendums on jet noise were the elephant in the room that officials did not address Friday during a meeting of the O'Hare Noise Compatibility Commission.
Commission members instead went through the motions of conducting their normal monthly business.
It angered Chicago and suburban residents in the audience at a Des Plaines restaurant who said they have lost any remaining confidence in the commission's ability to represent noise-weary residents at wit's end over new airplane noise patterns from flights serving O'Hare International Airport.
"I was surprised that none of the mayors sitting here brought it up," said Susan D'Alessandro, who lives in the Peterson Woods neighborhood in Chicago's 40th Ward.
"Don't just look at noise complaints. Look at the results of the referendum. Who has time to file complaints? And what's the point? If you drive over a pothole, do you have to call the city to report the same pothole every day?" D'Alessandro said.
O'Hare flight routes changed in October 2013, to mostly easterly and westerly takeoffs and landings, when another east-west parallel runway opened.
Tuesday's nonbinding referendum results from ballot proposals in Chicago and seven suburbs were overwhelmingly in favor of mandatory jet-noise limits and "fly quiet" hours and changes to rules that determine homeowners' eligibility for government-funded soundproofing.
Against that backdrop, noise complaints filed by the public reached another all-time high -- 32,532 -- in September, the Chicago Department of Aviation told the commission.
City officials said 52 percent of the complaints came from 10 addresses in Bensenville, Chicago, Elk Grove Village, Norridge and Wood Dale. Except for Elk Grove, referendums on O'Hare noise were held in each municipality.
Total noise complaints for the first nine months of the year are at 170,638, the department said. The total was 29,493 for all of 2013.
During the public comment part of Friday's commission meeting, Jefferson Park resident Colleen Mulcrone said she and her husband have spent more than $15,000 to soundproof one of their children's bedrooms in the home they bought in 2003 because since last year "we are disrupted (by jet noise) at all hours of the day."
She said 285 planes fly over her home on an average day. She asked the commission members what they consider a reasonable number of flights over a home each day. She did not receive an answer.
Mulcrone and others asked the commission to press the Federal Aviation Administration and the city of Chicago to spread out flights over more runways late at night. Chicago Aviation Commissioner Rosemarie Andolino has ruled it out as an option, saying doing so would only create new noise problems.
Raymond Kuper, the commission's vice chairman, promised only that "we will continue to see what can be done within the guidelines we have.
"I don't want anyone to think that we don't care and that this was a pre-election stunt. That's not the case. And we thank you for coming today. I'll take a motion to adjourn."
jhilkevitch@tribune.com
Twitter @jhilkevitch
