Championing their constituents’ gripes about airplane noise over their homes, elected officials from Northeast Queens headed down to Washington, DC last Wednesday to convince the Federal Aviation Administration that its environmental review process was insufficient when it changed the procedures for planes departing from LaGuardia Airport last year.

State Sen. Tony Avella (D-Bayside), Assemblyman Ed Braunstein (D-Bayside), and Reps. Grace Meng (D-Bayside) and Steve Israel (D-Melville) agreed with federal and regional FAA representatives to meet again with lawyers and technical experts to discuss the legal arguments over implementing new flight paths without a cumulative environmental impact study. The first meeting is not scheduled yet.

A group that began seven months ago with a few people venting their complaints while eating at the Terrace Diner has evolved into a neighborhood movement, a force dedicated to making the Federal Aviation Administration and the Port Authority work for the residents of Northeast Queens to alleviate the noise and pollution from planes flying out of LaGuardia airport.

Approximately 200 people with similar frustrations attended the first Queens Quiet Skies community education meting on May 2 in the Bayside High School auditorium. While planes rumbled overhead, leaders and experts presented residents with legal and technical information and encouraged them to get more involved.

Dear Editor:

More than seven million people will visit the Adirondacks this year, but sadly, without needed federal support these mountains may not be prepared for such crowds, visitors may see a park which isn’t as pristine as in the past, and development may continue along its borders. The current Congress could bring renewed hope to these majestic mountains — with their beloved lakes, pristine trails and popular ski resorts — by acting to protect our parks for generations to come.

Decades ago, Congress set up the Land and Water Conservation Fund to protect our parks against overdevelopment and pollution. Unfortunately, this program has been routinely underfunded for years. This has put the Adirondacks — and the memories and experiences millions will have by visiting them — at risk.

That’s bad news for the Adirondacks, as well as other parks like Harriman State Park in the Hudson River Valley and Watkins Glen in the Finger Lakes region, where New Yorkers spend time hiking, fishing, boating, camping or simply enjoying the scenery. We should protect these special places so

that future generations can experience seeing a moose up close, or catching trout from the crystalline waters of a mountain lake, just as generations of New Yorkers have done before us.

We owe it to our children to protect the Adirondack Mountains, and other places that make New York special, with full funding for the Land and Water Conservation Fund. I applaud Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand for supporting our parks, open spaces and wilderness areas,and we hope New York’s legislators will give our parks the protections they deserve.

Dear Editor:

(An open letter to U.S. Sens. Charles Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand, and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries)

Howard Beach took a substantial beating owing to Superstorm Sandy! Charles Park is the only green space in the entire area frequented by not only Queens residents, but by Brooklynites as well. It is part of Gateway National Recreation Area and under the domain of the National Parks Service.

Charles Park was substantially damaged by the storm, such that trees have been destroyed and numerous amounts of previously waterborne debrisstilllitter the area, including at least a derelict boat or two.

We implore you to make sure that sufficient moneyfrom the storm relief package be designated towards restoring Charles Park to a decent level of usage so that we, your constituents ( and others) can enjoy this unique urban space!

Tributes poured in last Friday for Ed Koch, the three-term mayor who personified New York City from 1978 through 1989, and who died early that morning at age 88.

They came unsolicited from elected officials across the city, and were echoed on the street by the people of Queens.

Politics dominated much of the news in South Queens in 2012. With local and national elections looming, the communities were the epicenter of a hard-fought state legislative race with statewide implications.

But much like T.S. Eliot’s explanation of the apocalypse in “The Hollow Men,” the campaign ended not with a bang, but with a whimper, shoved from the top of people’s minds by the most devastating natural disaster to strike South Queens in a lifetime.

Queens politics in 2012 brought new districts, a historic election in the 6th Congressional District and enough cloak-and-dagger intrigue to fill a Robert Ludlum novel.

But when Hurricane Sandy struck in October, killing 12 people in Queens and more than 40 in the city, devastating the Rockaways, Howard Beach, lower Manhattan and Staten Island, the people of central Queens, who were largely spared the storm’s wrath, rallied to the cause of those worst hit.

New York’s two U.S. senators announced that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is reimbursing the Department of Sanitation more than $26 million in cleanup costs related to Hurricane Sandy.

Sens. Chuck Schumer and Kirsten Gillibrand said Thursday the $26,335,600.27 in FEMA funds will go to cover overtime costs for uniformed workers between Oct. 30 and Nov. 16. In the month after the storm, Sanitation crews worked around the clock to clean up debris left behind by Hurricane Sandy’s winds and storm surge and personal items tossed out of flooded homes during cleanup efforts.

New York’s two U.S. senators announced  that the Federal Emergency Management Agency is reimbursing the Department of Sanitation more than $26 million in cleanup costs related to Hurricane Sandy.

Bills introduced last week by U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) and Congressman Joe Crowley (D-Queens, Bronx) would ensure a greater supply of kosher food for needy families under the federal Emergency Food Assistance Program.

The bills would require the U.S. Department of Agriculture to increase the amount of kosher food provided and establish a system to better label, direct and track the food to make sure it gets to people who can only eat kosher diets because of religious beliefs.

Democrats appeared to retake control of the state Senate Tuesday, as Republicans failed to win a Queens race they had poured resources into and may have lost several other tight contests around New York.

The likely changeover from GOP control would be one more victory for the party that saw President Obama re-elected and solidified its control of the U.S. Senate even as it lost a few more seats in the House of Representatives.

Politics as usual indeed.

Tuesday’s elections confirmed what everyone already knew: people cheat. Even when they don’t need to.

Congressional legislators have banded together to save from automatic budget cuts set for January funds designated to compensate and cover health expenses for 9/11 first responders and victims.

Reps. Carolyn Maloney (D-Queens, Manhattan), Jerrold Nadler (D-Manhattan) and Peter King (R-Nassau), along with U.S. Sens. Kirsten Gillibrand and Charles Schumer, on Tuesday demanded the Office of Management and Budget spare the 9/11 Victim Compensation Fund and World Trade Center Health Fund from $38 million in cuts through sequestration.

Dr. Jacqueline Moline, director of the Queens World Trade Center Clinical Center of Excellence in Flushing, is applauding the federal government’s plan announced Monday to cover up to 50 types of cancer under the Zadroga 9/11 Health and Compensation Act.

For years, first responders, their families and many health experts have been pushing the government to include cancers for coverage under the Zadroga Act. Federal guidelines previously prohibited the use of funds for cancer patients because it was believed there was not enough documentation to prove the connection with 9/11.

State Sen. Toby Stavisky (D-Whitestone) is proud of her accomplishments and hopes voters will return her to Albany to continue those efforts.

Stavisky, 74, faces Democratic Primary challenger, John Messer, 41, of Oakland Gardens, on Sept. 13. Two years ago, she beat him in a three-way race, with Messer, an attorney, coming in third.

Dear Editor:

If U.S. Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand is serious about helping small businesses (“Small business bill pushed,” Aug. 23, multiple editions) she could hit a home run, and help herself in her re-election bid, by:

• opposing the destruction of hundreds of small businesses in Willets Point for the benefit of fat cat real estate moguls;

• opposing the use of eminent domain to take private property for the benefit of private for profit real estate developments; and

• not only supporting but pushing the U.S. Senate to enact HR1433, The Private Property Rights Protection Act of 2012, passed twice by the U.S. House of Representatives, which would make a serious preventive inroad in government’s attempts to use eminent domain for private commercial development.

Failure to pursue the above would suggest the good senator does not really consider the poor, middle class and small businesses her true constituents. I hope I am wrong, since the senator does have time to make clear where she stands on this important issue.

Opponents of a trash transfer station under construction near LaGuardia Airport are seizing on a recent report issued by the U.S. Department of Transportation to support their claim that the facility was subjected to inadequate local and federal review before it was approved.

In a 30-page report issued on Aug. 22, the inspector general for the U.S. DOT states that the Federal Aviation Administration has not effectively implemented its wildlife hazard mitigation program at a number of airports nationwide.

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) and Democratic congressional candidate Grace Meng met at a woman-owned business in Flushing on Tuesday to push for passage of the SUCCESS Act of 2012 designed to help small businesses.

Meng, who now serves as an assemblywoman, will face Councilman Dan Halloran (R-Whitestone) in the November election for the 6th Congressional District.

On Monday morning, there were more than 1,500 Canada geese living around Jamaica Bay. By the end of the next day, that number had been cut by about half.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture moved forward with a plan to eliminate the population of Canada geese at the Jamaica Bay Wildlife Refuge, which many fear are a threat to airplanes flying into and out of nearby JFK Airport.

Assemblywoman Grace Meng of Flushing handily defeated three Democratic opponents Tuesday in the 6th Congressional District primary.

The unofficial count was 51 percent for Meng, 28 percent for Assemblyman Rory Lancman of Fresh Meadows, 16 percent for City Councilwoman Liz Crowley of Middle Village and 5 percent for Dr. Robert Mittman of Bayside.

It’s official — Rep. Bob Turner (R-Queens, Brooklyn) will have to find another line of work in January, or go back to retirement.

Turner, who won the 9th District congressional seat in a special election after former Rep. Anthony Weiner resigned, lost his bid to be the Republican nominee for U.S. Senate on Tuesday. He wanted to challenge Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY) in November, but was easily defeated by Wendy Long, an attorney in Manhattan.

Candidates seen as the front runners in congressional primaries across Queens — whether incumbent lawmakers or party establishment choices — all won their nominations by wide margins Tuesday, according to preliminary results.

With the June 26 primary breathing down their necks, Democratic candidates running for the congressional district that covers Howard Beach and Ozone Park are making last-ditch efforts to lure voters to the polls, crisscrossing neighborhoods and touting endorsements —including those of Queens Democratic heavyweights for Assemblyman Hakeem Jeffries (D-Brooklyn) and that of U.S. Rep. Ed Towns (D-Brooklyn) for Councilman Charles Barron (D-Brooklyn).

Jeffries and Barron are vying to replace Towns, who announced a couple months ago that he would not run for the 8th Congressional District after representing the area for about three decades.

Democrats in much of Queens — and Republicans across the entire borough — will go to the polls June 26 to vote in primaries for their party’s nominees for Congress.

On the Republican side, the race pits U.S. Rep. Bob Turner (R-Queens, Brooklyn) against Manhattan attorney Wendy Long and Nassau County Comptroller George Maragos, who each are seeking the nomination to run against Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-New York) for a full six-year term. Republicans across the state will be voting in the primary.