The Santa Monica City Council has approved a $3.5 million contract to shorten the sole runway at the municipal airport by more than a third, a move meant to drastically cut the jet traffic neighbors have long sought to stop, according to a story in the Santa Monica Lookout.
Reducing the length of the runway will reduce jet traffic by 44% and bring “immediate relief to neighboring residents through reduced noise and pollution,” the story quotes city officials.
Construction is set to begin this fall and be completed by the end of 2017, officials said. SMO will also be closed often from October through November from 9 p.m. to 7 a.m., Monday through Friday, the story says, noting the airport is now open 24 hours a day for landings.
When a city enters into a binding contract with the FAA it has nothing to do with the FAA coming in and telling them what to do. They agreed in 1948 that in exchange for the federal government’s huge investment in the airport for the war years prior, including the purchase of land to accomodate a 1,000 foot runway extension, the airport would remain in perpetuity or until the federal government determined it was no longer needed.
.
Unfortunately the FAA recently negotiated in secret, without public hearings required by policy, to allow the city to close SMO in 2028. NBAA, AOPA, and the Santa Monica airport Association are suing FAA claiming that the agreement was illegal and should be voided, and that the airport should remain.
.
Many federal-state-local arrangements are by mutual consent so please get your facts straight before thinking all of them are federal overreach.
Should the Federal government control all aspects of our life or should a bit (any) of it be retained by the States and local governments?
We don’t want the feds controlling our health care. The feds are lousy at what they do.
We do want the feds controlling our ATC system. Only the feds can do a good job.
Depending upon one’s viewpoint, the feds can do nothing wrong or they can do nothing right.
The federal government has a few specific duties outlined in the preamble of the consitution. The rest is crud brought to us over the years by do-gooders and constitution ignorers.
“form a more perfect union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity.”
If you can find airports nside that sentence then Santa Monica is wrong. If not, then not. Same is true for ATC.
Generally, if you take FAA money to manage your airport, they want you to maintain it to specific level.
Like so many things, people love the federal government when it’s paying for things for you, but then hate it when it demands those things be built a specific way.
It is a sad day for aviation in America – we should all hang our heads low. The very entity who has no problem “breaking your chops” for any infraction you may do (or are perceived to have done), turned a blind eye to this one. What message does this send? Until local municipalities understand what “aviation” truly does for their community, the survival stories will be few and far between. When the dominoes begin to fall, grab a cold one, sit back, and enjoy the end of the show….