The Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association is reporting that California’s Santa Monica City Council unanimously voted to reduce the length of its municipal runway from nearly 5,000 feet to 3,500 feet, as permitted under a settlement agreement with the FAA that also allows the city to close the airport in 2028.
According to AOPA, the effort will cost the city about $4 million, an amount on top of its ongoing expenditures for legal battles with those opposed to the proposed closing of the historic airport.
The project will place the remaining 3,500 feet roughly centered on the existing runway with equal amounts of unusable runway (736 feet) at each end. It is not yet known if the excess runway will be marked off or removed.
City officials believe shortening the runway to 3,500 feet could cut jet traffic by 45%. The city hopes to complete the shortening by the end of the year.
AOPA General Counsel Ken Mead stressed that AOPA will continue to fight any efforts to close the airport and will work with elected officials and pilots to keep it open: “In the more than 11 years remaining before the airport is scheduled to close, AOPA will continue to work to reverse the closure decision through education and persuasion, building recognition in the community of the benefits the airport provides.”
Instead of playing partisan politics, lets focus on the issue at hand Santa Monica and the mayor/ city council. One has nothing to do with the other. This is a problem cropping up in cities and towns big and small all across the country.
My reply to Santa Monica is as above, “you want it, fine, pay for it”.
What the FAA should have done is to require mitigation as is done in many other cases of development. Require the city to pay the costs involved in building another airport in another location with the same amenities. Single runway 5,000′, hangers, FBO, fuel farm then give the old airport to the city. Since the old airport will be in the city and the land and facilities should be more valuable, then the city should make out.
To drag this on like this is just stupid. We all scream about too much big brother, more power to local authorities and this is what sometimes happens. Sometimes not having local oversight is actually good. But set a precedence now on mitigation and it will head off other Santa Monica’s.
Nancy Pelosi, Barbara Boxer, Jerry Brown, etc…Cali deserves whatever befalls them for electing such nutjobs.
To hell with them.
By now the land is worth about $1m per square inch. Everyone see now?
If I’ve said it once I’ve said it a hundred times: If they want it closed, close it and turn it into a MAXIMUM SECURITY PRISON. Then, (the Loons), will really have something to whine about. You know, Charlie Manson and animals of that ilk. 30 Foot barbed -wire fences with concertina wire wrapped around the top. What a great view from your living room to look out on. How about, for their added enjoyment, a gas chamber and crematorium. There are all kinds of things at least as constructive as having “all these pesky little airplanes buzzing around flown by rich people” bugging us smug Kalifornians . We know what’s best for you.
Nowadays if anyone used common sense he would get charged.
Jerry Brown thinks he is the president now doing a ‘deal’ with China directly over the climate accords the greenie goons desperately want…. Any surprise CA will try to kill every airport in the state?
Troutdale, Oregon, is planning the same thing. Shortening the runway, which will eliminate the Tanker Base for fire fighting aircraft and its use as an alternate for larger aircraft going to PDX. Ultimately the City wants to close the airport so the land is available for other development.
The fruits and nuts of the PRC or People’s Republic of California are determined to ruin this airport same as was done in Chicago by corrupt Mayor Daley who ordered bulldozers to tear up the runway at Meigs Field overnight in 2003. Santa Monica airport, like LAX that once sat in the middle of onion fields, has been encroached upon over decades by “civilization” which now demands its closure because the whiners don’t like the noise or the close proximity to potential fire bomb crashes Then along comes the FAA, the government agency tasked with overseeing flight safety, which makes a deal in darkness (without public knowledge) to allow the fruits and nuts to shorten the runway thus eliminating jet use. What’s the difference between Mayor Daley and the FAA insofar as their actions related to airport closures? None!
Why does it seem like that in California something in the water that makes logical smart decision making not a possibility?
You know what? Screw ’em. Let them spend their money and shorten the damn thing. Heck, they could do it tonite with a little paint. It’s their loss. And don’t spend any more of my dues trying to change their minds either. It’s a lost cause.
This whole thing really makes me feel sick to my stomach. It’s unfortunate that the citizens of Santa Monica view their airport as an eyesore and not an asset!