NYC Council regulates tourist helicopters following fatal crash and noise concerns
On Thursday, the City Council passed legislation designed to make them quieter and safer — while conceding they would ideally like to do more.
More Local News
If signed into law, the city would ban non-essential tourist and commercial helicopter flights that don't meet the strictest of FAA noise standards.
'The most outdated, loudest and dirtiest helicopters will no longer be allowed to fly out of our downtown Manhattan heliport or East 34th Street heliport,' said New York City Council member Amanda Farías.
The hope is that regulating helicopters in this way not only would improve noise concerns particularly for Manhattanites, but also improve safety because only more modern, clean, safe helicopters can meet these noise standards.
More: Latest News from Around the Tri-State
However, the new law, which would go into effect in 2029, would not regulate the many tourism flights that originate from the Garden State.
So the City Council is engaging with legislative partners across the river and formally calling on the New York State Legislature to completely block non-essential flights from launching in Manhattan and to impose a so-called noise tax on choppers buzzing over Manhattan.
Moreover, the City Council would ideally like the FAA to ban tourist flights over New York City altogether but concede that's unlikely to happen anytime soon.
'We do need our federal colleagues to take action, but if we don't take action in the City Council, they won't have the incentive or pressure to take that next step,' said New York City Council member Christopher Marte.
Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
2 hours ago
- Yahoo
Q&A with candidates in Fort Payne Mayoral Race
(WHNT) — Municipal elections will be held across Alabama on Aug. 26. Voters in North Alabama will be asked to decide on mayoral races, city council races and, in some communities, school board races. ⭐ News 19 is Your Local Election Headquarters! Click here for more election coverage ⭐ In order to provide voters with detailed information about the candidates running for mayor in 12 North Alabama cities, News 19 sent out a number of candidate questionnaires starting in mid-July. We are going to post the answers we received over the next 10 days. Not every candidate responded, and that will be noted. Some answers will also be edited for length, grammar or spelling reasons, but otherwise the content will be published as submitted. Viewer feedback is always welcome. In Fort Payne, incumbent Brian Baine is facing challenger Pete Davis in the race for Mayor. Baine provided answers to the questions below: Despite multiple attempts to contact, we did not receive a set of answers from Davis. 1. Please provide a short biography Baine: I am Brian Baine, and I grew up in Fort Payne. I was the second born to Ralph and Carolyn Baine. I have two brothers and one sister. I went all through school at Fort Payne and graduated in 1987 from Fort Payne High School. I attended Northeast Community College and Gadsden State Community College. Worked for 37 years for Bruce's Foodland, held various roles through the company, from cashier to stocker to store manager and Accounts Payable/Receivable. When I left there to become Mayor, I was the HR Director for about 400 employees. I am married to Jackie Murray from Rainsville. I have two step-daughters, a grandson and a granddaughter. 2. What led you to run for Mayor? Baine: I was serving as the President of the City Council and our Mayor did not run for reelection, so I decided to put my name in and got it, I have served this last term as Mayor and I want to continue to lead Fort Payne and finish somethings we have gotten started. 3. What will be your top priority if you are elected? Baine: To continue to be transparent and keep the public informed of what's going on in Fort Payne. And continue looking for ways to make Fort Payne keep improving. 4. What are the main challenges currently facing the city? How do you plan to address those issues? Baine: The main challenges that face Fort Payne is having things for our youth to do and be involved in, I plan to keep reaching out to folks and investors to make sure that we secure some of the entertainment venues to keep our youth around town. Also, we need retail recruitment, we have done some of that but there is more to be done, I will continue to work with our county EDA office to continue those efforts. 5. Do you have a personal hero? Who is it and why? Baine: My dad would have to be my personal hero. He fought in the Army in Vietnam, and he always worked several jobs to help provide for our family and make sure we always had what we needed to survive. 6. Tell us something about you that might surprise people. Baine: That I never wanted anything to do with politics when I was growing up. 7. Why should people vote for you? What makes you stand out from the other candidates in the race? Baine: People should vote for me because I am qualified for the job, and because I have a deep love for the City of Fort Payne. What makes me stand out from other candidates is that I have been involved in community service for more than 20 years by volunteering for various organizations and serving on many different boards throughout the city and the county. News 19 will be posting more candidate Q&As for mayoral races across the Tennessee Valley in the coming days. You can visit to see Q&As with candidates in mayoral races in other cities. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed. Solve the daily Crossword
San Francisco Chronicle
2 hours ago
- San Francisco Chronicle
‘We're not going to back down': Leaders condemn Trump's attacks on Oakland
A group of Oakland elected officials and community leaders rallied Thursday to condemn recent remarks made by President Donald Trump portraying the city as poorly run and crime-ridden, and to pledge a steadfast response to any effort to deploy federal troops there. In a series of speeches at Oakland City Hall, Mayor Barbara Lee, City Council members and others said Trump's characterization of the city was a fear-mongering tactic to target U.S. cities with majority-Black populations or those led by Black mayors. On Monday, President Trump sent National Guard troops to Washington, D.C., a Black-led city, and named Oakland as one of several cities where he might do the same. In June, Trump deployed more than 4,000 National Guard troops to Los Angeles in response to protests against immigration raids in Southern California. Critics said Trump's rhetoric evoked a historic pattern in which politicians have painted predominantly or historically Black cities as crime-plagued. Crime nationwide is down in the first half of the year, according to a report by the Council on Criminal Justice. 'We have other cities also that are bad. Very bad,' Trump said during a White House news conference Monday, singling out Chicago, Los Angeles, New York, Baltimore and Oakland. Oakland leaders pointed to the city's notable drop in violent crime during the first half of the year, and the work they said officials were doing to revitalize the city. 'President Trump's characterization of Oakland is down-right wrong,' Lee said. 'We're not going to back down.' At Thursday's press conference, faith and community leaders joined city officials in denouncing Trump's attacks, saying Oakland's residents are resilient. 'We believe that Oakland is not on the decline, but on the rise,' said Pastor LJ Jennings of the Kingdom Builders Christian Fellowship in East Oakland. Council Member Carol Fife, who represents District Three, criticized Trump for being a convicted felon attempting to tarnish the city. Fife said the city has made progress on bringing down crime while acknowledging there was more work to do. 'If you care about law and order, you would know that the safest cities have the most resources, and those resources come in the tune of affordable housing,' Fife said. 'It comes from protecting our seniors, it comes from investing in education.' Danielle Motley-Lewis, president of the Oakland and Berkeley chapter of the Black Women Organized for Political Action group, encouraged people to share stories of the city's progress, unity and transformation.
New York Times
2 hours ago
- New York Times
Adams, Embracing Veto Power, Says No to Raises for Instacart Workers
In his nearly four years as mayor of New York City, Eric Adams has rarely vetoed bills passed by the City Council. But as he ramps up his re-election campaign, he has vetoed four bills in quick succession, arguing that the measures would hurt the economy and public safety. Mr. Adams, a Democrat who is running as an independent and is trailing in polls, has received a wave of criticism from members of his party over the vetoes, especially for his opposition to bills that would help grocery delivery workers and unlicensed street vendors. The Council is expected to override his vetoes on those two issues next month. But Mr. Adams appears eager for a fight and has claimed that the delivery worker legislation would raise the price of groceries and that the vendor bill would allow unlicensed street vending to proliferate. Randy Mastro, Mr. Adams's first deputy mayor, said in an interview that he hoped the Council, which voted convincingly to pass the measures, would let the vetoes stand. Mr. Mastro argued that it was important to 'do the right thing and stand up for common sense,' even if the mayor ultimately loses the debate. Each bill touches on a hot-button issue in the city, and the vetoes are part of a longstanding war between the mayor and the Council. The mayor's last vetoes came in January 2024, when he lost a showdown with the Council over bills that sought to end solitary confinement in city jails and expanded documentation of police stops. The latest series of vetoes began on July 30, when Mr. Adams rejected a bill related to a casino license in the Bronx, in a move that could end up helping President Trump. Mr. Adams has faced criticism over his efforts to ally himself with the president as part of his ultimately successful effort to get Mr. Trump's Justice Department to abandon a federal corruption indictment against him. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
