Bird Rock residents urged the La Jolla Town Council on Jan. 13 to support their efforts to stop helicopters and airplanes from flying low over their community. The citizen group, led by Ed Quinn and his wife, Nancy, created a petition signed by more than 130 residents with the purpose of requesting a “memorandum of understanding” with the Navy, Marines, Coast Guard and Department of Homeland Security (DHS). The memorandum seeks to establish course rules that would require that aircraft fly at an altitude of 1,500 feet and at least one mile offshore. Quinn began his campaign last March by trying to contact his local representatives, including City Councilwoman Sherri Lightner and Congresswoman Susan Davis as well as the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA), but says he received no response from any of the offices he contacted. “We’re not just a group of rich people trying to be obnoxious,” Quinn said at Thursday’s meeting. “But when the FAA and Homeland Security won’t even respond to us, what does that say about us as a community?” The Town Council voted to select board member Earl Van Inwegen to act as a liaison between the resident group and the council and to act on behalf of the concerned citizens. Van Inwegen is a retired Air Force Brigadier General who lives in Bird Rock. Quinn said he is convinced that many of the helicopters that fly over the community at altitudes lower than 500 feet belong to the DHS and the military. He could not prove, however, that all of the instances he had reported to the FAA were the work of those groups. Because the FAA could not account for numerous flyovers he reported over the last several months, Quinn concluded the “FAA is missing key information about the ownership of many of the aircraft that are flying over our coast.” In all likelihood, one group can be eliminated as culprits. Though they do fly over every part of the city regularly, the San Diego Police Department’s helicopter unit rarely flies lower than 1,500 feet, according to Sgt. Robert Gassmann. Quinn said that, in his correspondence with the Navy, he was told he needed an entity like the La Jolla Town Council to act on his behalf, adding “the Navy and the Marines really do want to be good neighbors.”