The Burlington City Council is asking Gov. Phil Scott and the state’s congressional delegation to attempt to stop the Vermont Air National Guard’s F-35 training flights during the coronavirus pandemic.
The resolution, passed in an 11-1 vote, asks the governor and congressional delegation “to do everything within their power to halt the F-35 aircrafts’ training flights and mobilize the Vermont Air National Guard to mitigate the impact of COVID-19.”
Councilor Ali Dieng, I-Ward 7, voted against the resolution. Dieng said that while he was against the basing of the F-35, he thought it important to rally around Scott because the governor is doing a good job responding to the coronavirus crisis.
Scott and the Guard do not support the push to stop the flights.
Col. David Shevchik, the commander of the 158th Fighter Wing of the Vermont National Guard, said in an interview Monday that the Guard is both committed to its state missions, including fighting the coronavirus, and its federal F-35 mission.
“I think it’s important for the public to know that these missions are not mutually exclusive,” Shevchik said. “We can do both, we are doing both, and we will probably continue to do both.”
Shevchik said it is important for the Guard to continue to meet its federal mission readiness and timeline requirements.
“Being a F-35 fighter wing, we play a pivotal role in the national defense strategy, in our national security,” he said. “So we’re here to serve both Vermonters and the nation, and that’s why fulfilling that mission to the best of our ability is so important. That’s why we take it so seriously.”
Rebecca Kelley, a spokesperson for Scott, said via email earlier Monday that the governor will not ask the Guard to stop the flights.
“The F-35 training flights are a federal mission important to our country’s national security so that is not something the Governor would ask to stop,” she said.
The basing of the F-35s at the airport faced significant opposition from residents concerned about the jets increased noise compared to the F-16s, which left the airport last spring after 33 years. The first F-35s arrived in September, and the Guard currently has 15 of the 20 jets that will be based at the airport.
Councilor Perri Freeman, P-Central District, said that more Burlingtonians are experiencing the F-35 noise during the pandemic.
“More people are working from home, being exposed to it, and being exposed to undue stress because of that,” she said.
Councilor Zoraya Hightower, P-Ward 1, said that she believed her constituents in the eastern part of the city were in favor of grounding the flights during the pandemic.
“We should move to not have this be a source of anxiety and stress during Covid-19,” Hightower said.
Councilor Sarah Carpenter, D-Ward 4, said the resolution was not a wider referendum on the F-35 program, but a response to constituent concerns about the impact of the noise during the pandemic.
“They are concerned about the noise right now,” she said. “This is not … intended to be a broad conversation about the future of the F-35 or the Air Guard base, it’s about what we need right now.”
The governor has made it clear that he supports the continued flying of the jets, Dieng said.
Dieng proposed an amendment that asked the Guard to reduce the flights to half the normal operations instead of halting them completely, but that amendment failed in a 3-9 vote. Councilors Chip Mason, D-Ward 5, and Joan Shannon, D-South District, voted for Dieng’s amendment.
The Vermont National Guard has a total membership of between 3,200 and 3,500, with around 1,000 being part of the Vermont Air National Guard. But Shevchik said that only a small percent of those are working on the F-35 mission each day.
“Of our 1,000 right now, based upon social distancing, shift work and ensuring that we protect our force and our families, we have only about 100 or less, typically, directly supporting the F-35 mission on a given day,” he said.
The Guard has built and is operating a 400-bed medical overflow facility at the Champlain Valley Exposition in Essex Junction, and also is working with the state on receiving, processing and distributing personal protective equipment from the Strategic National Stockpile.
Shevchik said that the Guard had around 200 people working on state missions related to the coronavirus as it has continued F-35 operations.
“It’s not one or the other,” he said. “We always step up and fulfill the mission that we’ve been tasked with. And that’s one thing the Vermont Guard has a proud history of doing.”
During the public forum, anti-F-35 activists spoke in favor of the stoppage of the F-35 flights, while three people spoke against stopping the flights.
Longtime F-35 opponent Jennifer Decker said it was uplifting to hear that the city aims to be “just” during last week’s council meeting.
“Justice must surely include cancellation of the F-35 basing,” she said. “It is a reasonable request to ground the planes during a pandemic as a prerequisite to removing them from a municipal civilian airport in a densely populated area.”
