Northside News collaborates on audio documentary and written series about local organizing to oppose F-35s
Press release from the Northside News,
May 8, 2020
Flight Path: When resistance takes off is an audio documentary and four-part written companion piece about organizing in Northside and east side neighborhoods to oppose the placement of F-35 fighter jets at Truax Air Base in Madison. Flight Path is a partnership project from the Northside News, Tone Madison and Communication.
Since the Northside News was founded 25 years ago this August, it has been a way for neighbors to share information and to organize. Although organizing looks a little different these days, at its core, it is still about neighbors connecting with each other about issues they care about.
Sometimes organizing looks like protests that hit the headlines. But often it takes place behind-the-scenes: during shared meals, conversations on the sidewalk, and now, Zoom calls.
Flight Path is a look at that behind-the-scenes of opposition to the F-35 fighter jets led by groups like Safe Skies Clean Water Wisconsin and Eken Park Resistance.
Below is an excerpt from Part I of the written series.
Flight Path Part 1: How F-35s galvanized neighbors in Eken Park
This is an excerpt from Part 1 of Flight Path.
Written by Oona Mackesey-Green and edited by Scott Gordon
On April 15, the Air Force announced its decision to base a squadron of F-35s at Truax, the official culmination of a long and contentious process. Military officials expect that the first of the squadron will arrive here in 2023. Immediately after that announcement, people organizing against the F-35s announced that they were continuing to oppose the jets and considering legal options.
Regardless of how familiar you are with this issue, if you live in Madison, you’ve probably seen the yard signs popping up around the city since last summer. The signs opposing the F-35s were printed by Safe Skies Clean Water Wisconsin. Safe Skies formed when the Air Force announced Truax Field as its preferred site to base new F-35 fighter jets. The F-35s would replace the F-16 fighter jets currently flown by the 115th Fighter Wing of the Wisconsin Air National Guard. Many of the people who lead Safe Skies live in neighborhoods under the flight path of the F-16s.
In addition to the signs from Safe Skies, you may have seen royal blue yard signs that say “We support the 115th Fighter Wing and the F-35 Mission.” There’s one across the street from me in my neighbors’ yard. The sound of the jets is loud here, but there are neighborhoods much closer to the Air Base that will be more impacted on a daily basis than we are. Eken Park, Carpenter Ridgeway and Truax Apartments are a few.
Walking through those neighborhoods on Madison’s north and east sides, you can tell from the yard signs that there are people firmly opposing the F-35s and others who support them. There are plenty of homes without signs, too. I joined a group canvassing in Eken Park the week after the February protest. The majority of people we talked to said they weren’t very excited about the F-35s, but that they thought it was a done deal. They also had questions. What would it mean for our neighborhood, and what, realistically, can we do about it? Canvassing was one of the rare moments when I saw people actually having a conversation about the issue.
If you read an article or post about the F-35s online, the comment section looks like you would expect it to for any divisive topic these days. Not much dialogue. Even the facts of the issue are obscured. Are the F-35s louder than the F-16s? Will there be more flights if the F-35s are placed here? Will the Wisconsin Air National Guard base close if Madison ultimately doesn’t receive the F-35s?
There are answers to these questions both in statements and in the final Environmental Impact Statement from the Air Force. I’ll include some of those answers here. But this is not a story about the numbers.
F-35s coming to Madison isn’t just another divisive issue — for a lot of people it’s the issue. It’s personal and emotional. They worry about the noise, but also about their health, and their kids. There are concerns about pollution. About the economy — jobs, property values, having to move.
When something happens that affects you, your family, your neighborhood, and your city, trying to make a difference can feel overwhelming. Even if you know where to go and who to talk to, it can feel like you’re shouting at an empty street. This is a story about what pushes us, in the words of one protestor, to get our backs up off the wall, and what can happen when we do.
The Northside News is a publication of the nonprofit Northside Planning Council. The Northside Planning Council issued a statement opposing the F-35s in September of 2019.