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John Hollenhorst ReportingSome residents in the Heber Valley are fired up about noise and fumes from the wealthy en route to posh hangouts in the Park City area. It's the means of transportation that's causing the fuss -- private jets.
The Heber City airport used to be a small-town kind of place, but it's also the closest airport to the fancy digs at Deer Valley and Park City. Airport neighbor Kelly Jarvis has been taking surveillance videos from his own balcony.
Kelly Jarvis: “The smell is nauseatingly strong.”
Corporate jets and private jets have become commonplace in little old Heber.
Kelly Jarvis: "There's a lot. I have seen eleven jets lined up in a row on a Sunday afternoon to take off."
Neighbors want the city to ban the jets and halt an airport improvement study. The big issue is noise, bad enough to wake up the cows and make babies cry, one neighbor says. Another says he bought his property ten years ago.
Daniel Bray: "Bought it because it was so quiet, pristine. And you watch gradually over the years and see it get noisier and noisier and noisier."
The human noise level was pretty high Monday night when 300 people turned out for a public meeting. The mayor even asked a Heber policeman to intervene.
Mayor Lynn Adams: "Some of the people were quite rude and there came a point where I had to take a couple of them out."
The mayor says the jet traffic is good for taxpayers and the local economy. But he admits most Heber Valley residents don't see it that way.
The opponents already have lawyers working on the issue, and they say going to court is definitely an option. They've called a sort of town meeting of their own on Wednesday night. That meeting of opponents will be at 7:00 in the Charleston City Town Hall.
