Tuesday 10/27/2020 Hillsboro Airport Community Advisors Meeting

Miki Barnes
October 26, 2020

"We should never forget, everything Adolph Hitler did in Germany was 'legal'..." Martin Luther King

The next Hillsboro Airport Community Advisors meeting is October 27, 2020 from 3 to 5 pm PDT. Here is the zoom link -

https://us02web.zoom.us/webinar/register/WN_Z_XH4qQaRw6apfZNPKXBcA.

For additional information, click on the following link: Hillsboro Airport Community Advisors.

Background on Hillsboro Airport

The Hillsboro Airport (HIO) is a general aviation flight training facility that primarily serves out-of-state corporations. One of the primary tenants, Hillsboro Aero Academy, is owned by two East Coast investment firms - Graycliff based in New York and Renovus headquartered in Pennsylvania.

Another HIO based flight training company is Hagele Aviation. Its owner, Chuck Hagele, is the Director of Maintenance for Hillsboro Aero Academy. His wife, Leah Perkins-Hagele, represents Washington County on the HIO Advisory Committee, a glaring conflict of interest that Port and county officials are all too willing to ignore.

There are also numerous HIO training flights registered to various owners, including ATP, Flight Trainer, DHS Operations, and C-172 Aircraft, all registered to the corporate address of ATP in Wilmington, Delaware, at 251 Little Falls Drive.

Due in large part to the presence of these schools, Washington County residents are subject to aircraft repetitively circling our skies for hours on end to generate profits on behalf of East Coast companies that in their colonial, imperialist zeal have essentially invaded our community. The student pilots and flight instructors these businesses attract contribute to global warming and heedlessly spew relentless noise, lead emissions, PM2.5 and other toxic pollutants into our air while ignoring the health and well-being of local residents.

HIO – Major Lead Polluter Compromises Health of the Community

Hillsboro Airport (HIO), which ranks 8th in the nation out of 21,000 U.S. airports in lead pollution, is the number one source of airborne lead in Oregon. HIO releases 1.5 tons of lead, likely more, into the environment every year. This toxic pollutant is released by piston-engine aircraft during the landing and take-off cycle, when ground run-up engine checks are performed, and during over-flights.

The negative health impacts of this pernicious toxin disproportionately affect children and people of color. According to the EPA, "Because of its persistence in the environment, lead deposited from the air may contribute to human and ecological exposures for years into the future."

The profits generated by aviation activity at HIO accrue primarily to the Port of Portland (Port) and out-of-state corporations as well as Hillsboro Aviation, which makes money from the sale of both jet fuel and leaded avgas. Other airport tenants that sell fuel at HIO include Global Aviation and Aero Air. The Port profits from the fuel flowage fee affixed to every gallon of gas sold at HIO, an arrangement that has contributed to their heartless efforts to systematically pummel this community with aviation noise, lead, PM2.5, and a host of other deadly toxins, while displaying no discernible pangs of conscience whatsoever.

Port Commissioners Compromise Health and Livability of Washington County Residents

How did this situation develop? It is largely the handiwork of the members of the Port of Portland Board of Commissioners, who from their lofty perch in Portland, feel entitled to quite literally sell out the livability of Washington County residents, treating them like mere fodder for exploitation.

The municipality status granted to the unelected board of Port commissioners described in ORS 778 makes an absolute mockery of democracy. This statute reflects a system of institutionalized corporate fascism. The state legislature could easily address this situation by passing a law ensuring that all municipalities in Oregon are required to have elected, rather than governor-appointed, board members, but to date it has opted to perpetuate the current system of aviation authoritarianism.

The complete failure of local jurisdictions, including members of the Washington County Board of Commissioners along with the Hillsboro Mayor and City Council, to protect the health and well-being of current and future residents and to safeguard the environment from these cruel and brutal aviation assaults is a negligent and indefensible betrayal of the very people they were elected to serve.

Hillsboro Airport Community Advisors

The Hillsboro Airport Community Advisors were chosen by the Port, Washington County, and the City of Hillsboro to serve as handmaidens to the East Coast profiteers described above as well as to the Port and HIO tenants. It is worth noting that less than 1/4 of one percent of Oregon’s population are certified pilots. Of that number, 92% are men. These foregoing statistics include the large number of students recruited from overseas.

The Hillsboro Airport sprawls over 900 acres of prime real estate located within the urban growth boundary on land that could be far more responsibly and sustainably dedicated to affordable housing, schools, health care, parks, community gardens, day care centers, homeless shelters, social services and other facilities that serve the vast majority of people who live in this jurisdiction. But instead of engaging in this far more just and equitable approach to land use, the Port, FAA and local governments continue to worship and genuflect at the feet of their revered white privilege, aviation power structure.

In any case, the HIO Community Advisory Committee, like the HIO Master Planning Committee that preceded it, was established to perpetuate the abusive patriarchal, authoritarian values that have long been a defining feature of the Port of Portland, Hillsboro Airport, and Oregon’s aviation community.