Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin, The Examiner
2007-05-09 07:00:00.0
Current rank: Not ranked

WASHINGTON -

Jeff Dufour and Patrick Gavin cover people, power and politics in the beltway each weekday. Email them at yan@dcexaminer.com .

After vanquishing planes, McLean residents turn to ‘copters

Oh, the burdens of living in McLean: high property taxes, even higher landscaping bills — and overhead aircraft noise.

Yes, the rich residents of the uber-affluent, 65,000-person hamlet just across the river from D.C. — among them senators, Supreme Court justices and rock-star lobbyists — haven’t eliminated all of their headaches. Yet. They plan on using their collective weight to fight the noise and return things back to Pleasantville.

Only a couple months after winning a preliminary victory on noise from commercial jets, the McLean Citizens Association is seeking an action to remedy what it calls a helicopter noise problem.

“Noise is one of the things we treat as an environmental problem,” said Frank Crandall, a member of MCA’s environmental committee. “The helicopter thing has grown exponentially. At some point, it’s shaking the windows. … You can sometimes look up without binoculars and read the numbers on the bottom of the aircraft.”

He chiefly blamed military reserve activity and news helicopters, especially those that deviate from the typical flight path over the Potomac.

The congressman representing McLean, Rep. Frank Wolf, just happens to sit on the Appropriations transportation subcommittee and has agreed to arrange, as part of the group’s annual membership meeting on May 24, a forum with officials from the Federal Aviation Administration and the Department of Defense.

Wolf’s chief of staff, Dan Scandling, said: “We have to get a feel of what the problem is and the extent of the problem and go from there.”

MCA President Tom Brock said the group has made “no specific decisions,” but he said the meeting is a “good follow-up to Wolf’s excellent work on aircraft noise.”

That effort involved Wolf arranging meetings in his office between the MCA and top officials from the FAA and the Metro Washington Airports Authority, and a tour for MCA leadership of Potomac traffic control headquarters and the tower at National Airport.

In addition, said Crandall, “Wolf looked the FAA folks right in the eye and said, ‘These folks have a problem and I want to see what you can do to get it solved.’ ” Talk about responsive government. ...

The FAA has agreed to insist on refresher training for control-tower staff and pilots, a move that Crandall is optimistic will have some impact. He hopes the chopper problem will be easier to remedy, in that it’s mainly government aircraft involved.

In a bit of irony this time around, it seems that one prominent McLean citizen contributed to the chopper noise. In a piece last year, the New Republic reported that GOP superlobbyist Ed Rogers “once hired a helicopter to take aerial photos of [his and his wife’s] property, which they converted into postcards — a project requiring a paranoid, post-Sept. 11 CIA’s grudging approval.”

Milano a ready backup plan for state dinner

If you were a VIP but didn’t get invited to Monday evening’s big state dinner at the White House, you might have headed to Café Milano, where such notables as “Meet the Press” Executive Producer Betsy Fischer, MSNBC Vice President Tammy Haddad, State Department Deputy Assistant Secretary for Public Affairs Pam Stevens, ABC Washington Bureau Chief Robin Sproul, “This Week with George Stephanopoulos” Executive Producer Katherine O’Hearn, Time magazine’s Elaine Shannon, Mitt Romney campaign adviser Barbara Comstock and Milano owner Franco Nuschese wined and dined as the group celebrated U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Dina Habib Powell’s new position at Goldman Sachs (she’ll be its director of corporate engagement).

But the VIPs didn’t stop there: Out on Milano’s patio was “Meet the Press” host Tim Russert with his wife, Maureen Orth. At one point, both Haddad and Orth were overheard discussing that they both bought their hats for the queen’s White House visit at Lord & Taylor and wore them to the White House arrival ceremony.

Unlucky movie

Guess what movie was shown on Air Force Two during Vice President Dick Cheney’s flight from Andrews Air Force Base to England? “We Are Marshall,” which is based upon a true story in 1970 when 75 members of a college football team were killed in a plane crash. That’ll give you the in-flight shivers. ...

Success through misbehavior for Mandel

Comedian Howie Mandel took a break from his “Deal or No Deal” duties Tuesday to speak on the Hill about children’s mental health.

Mandel talked about his own mental conditions, which include obsessive-compulsive disorder and “germophobia.”

Answering a question about art therapy for patients with mental problems, he said, “I think that art got me through whatever I got through, [although] you may not call it art. Everything I got punished for, hit for, expelled for, is what I get paid for today.”

The Banker could not be reached for comment.

Seconds for Sanjaya

If you weren’t lucky enough to get your photo snapped with former “American Idol” contestant (and hair-challenged) Sanjaya Malakar during his recent swing through Washington for the White House Correspondents’ Association, fear not: He’ll be back this summer.

The “American Idols Live Concert Tour” comes through Washington on Sept. 9 and Sanjaya (along with Chris Richardson, Haley Scarnato, Gina Glocksen, Chris Sligh, Phil Stacey and the show’s final four contestants) will do his best to damage our eardrums at the Verizon Center.

Speakeasy

“I’ll be a shrub. It’s a bad year for bushes.”

– Rep. Spencer Bachus, R-Ala., after learning he’d play a bush in Monday’s “Will on the Hill” benefit at the Shakespeare Theatre