Flying Right
By Frank Gruber
The usual subject matter of any city council's deliberations are local
issues that appear mundane to the uninvolved or uninitiated, but that
wasn't the case last week when the Santa Monica City Council debated
the future of jet aircraft at the Santa Monica Municipal Airport.
Notwithstanding a detailed presentation from the Federal Aviation Administration
proposing installation of safety systems, and threats of litigation,
the council passed an ordinance banning large corporate jets ("City
Restricts Jets," March 27, 2008).
The issues were as big as the planes and involved the whole nature
of how government is organized in America.
I have written about the jets issue recently enough ("WHAT
I SAY: In the Flight Path," December 3, 2007) that I'll
try not to repeat myself, but I'll say it again that it's nuts for the
FAA to fault the past policies of the cites of Santa Monica and Los
Angeles in allowing development around the airport.
As Council Member Pam O'Connor pointed out at the meeting, residential
development around the airport in large part provided housing for workers
at what was for several decades the airport's primary use, the Douglas
Aircraft plant. The development around the airport occurred long before
the airport was turned into a major facility for business jets, which
can be heavier, and are much faster, than the biggest airplanes of the
World War II era.
I was discussing this with a cousin of mine who is an Air Force vet,
and he pointed out that the B-17 bomber, one of the bigger planes of
World War II, landed at a speed of only 90 mph, and needed 3,400 feet
to take off and 2,900 feet to land. The runway at the airport is nearly
5,000 feet.
The B-17 had a normal loaded weight of about 50,000 pounds and a maximum
take-off weight of 65,500 lbs. -- a little less that of a Gulfstream-IV
corporate jet, one of the models the council is trying to ban, which
can have a maximum weight of more than 70,000 pounds.
The number of Category C and D jet operations at the airport has skyrocketed
(no pun intended) over the past twenty years to more than 8,500 per
year, yet the airport does not meet the FAA's standards for these aircraft.
It is not the neighborhoods, but these jets that are the incongruous
change that has occurred at the airport.
As well as the substance of the arguments between the City and the
FAA about safety systems, the probability of accidents, and similar
matters, what interested me at the council meeting was what the dispute
says about the many layers of government we have, and how hard it is
to balance interests and objectives that cross categories.
The job of the FAA, set by statute, is to promote civil aviation, and
their people -- such as the courtly Kirk Shaffer who represented the
FAA at the meeting (and whose beautiful accent makes him sound like
John Edwards' brother) -- do that job well without regard to whether
it still makes sense, in an era when we're concerned about energy independence
and global warming, to continue to encourage private aviation.
Meanwhile, the Santa Monica and Los Angeles governments are interested
in promoting the quality of life of their residents who live in the
nearby neighborhoods, but there is no place in the FAA's charter to
take that into account. The agency's view is that when an airport outgrows
its surroundings, it is the surroundings that need to change. According
to Mr. Shaffer, the agency would be willing to spend a lot of money
to buy up the nearby houses, to create a safety no man's land, but there's
no thought that, for example, that money might be spent on more efficient
forms of transportation.
This is essentially a political issue, because it involves the allocations
of public benefits and costs, but in our multi-modal government, there
is no one authority -- no sovereign -- that adjusts these interests.
In the long run I suppose that's good -- we all like checks and balances
-- but as happens so often, the political issue of what should take
precedence, the interests of aviation or the interests of the neighborhood,
will now go to court, where the merits will get mixed up into a spaghetti
bowl of laws that were not extruded over time from the legislative process
with the idea that they would ever be part of the same dish.
Last Wednesday, one day after the council passed the ordinance, the
FAA filed an Order to Show Cause against the City, demanding that it
explain why it thinks it has the authority to change airport operations,
which the FAA claims are solely within its domain. That filing was the
first step in what promises to be an epic court battle.("FAA
Files Order Challenging Airport Law," March 31, 2008)
But then when that's over, probably regardless of the result in court,
the issue will become political again. If the courts back the FAA, Santa
Monica and L.A. will enlist the support of the two powerful local U.S.
representatives who represent the area, Henry Waxman and Jane Harman,
to pressure the FAA to change its policies. If Santa Monica wins, you
can bet that the influential people who fly in the big corporate jets,
and the aviation industry, will use their influence to try to overturn
the ruling.
The focus now turns to the City's strategy to fight the FAA. There
were actually three major proposals on the table last week: (1) the
City's proposed ban, (2) the FAA's proposal, which the City considered
inadequate, to install an "engineered materials arresting system"
(EMAS) to stop planes that overshoot the runway at one end of the airport,
and (3) the City's alternative plan that would install two EMASs, one
at each end of the airport, which would add safety but reduce the length
of the runway.
The FAA has rejected the City's alternate plan because a shorter runway
would inhibit, although not proscribe, operations by the larger jets.
(The biggest would have to fly with less fuel, meaning they could not
fly as far without refueling.)
Although at Council member Bob Holbrook's suggestion the council asked
staff to research what it would take for the City to install the two
systems, I suspect that most members of the council and residents would
rather not to do. For one thing, installing the EMASs would not be cheap,
and the City would be loathe to accept FAA money for the job, since
that would postpone the date, now 2015, when the City could first try
to close the airport down entirely.
Also, the alternative plan would not significantly reduce the number
of big jets, which is what the residents want.
But the City's alternative could play a significant role in the litigation,
as it might help persuade the judge that the City has not been completely
unhelpful or negative. The City offered the FAA an alternative that
would cause minimal inconvenience to jet-users. The FAA said no, and
the parties are headed to court.
The next chapter will be the City's reply to the FAA's Order to Show
Cause, which is due this week. That will be the first look at the City's
litigation strategy.
* * *
I have an old college friend, Mike, who comes from a politically involved
family from Indiana; his brothers have been in the state assembly, things
like that. Mike moved to L.A. to become a screenwriter, but he remains
political to the bone. We get together to watch presidential debates
and the returns on election night.
Mike has never lived in Santa Monica and I was surprised maybe ten
years ago when he told me he enjoyed listening to the Santa Monica City
Council on KCRW. "Huh," I can imagine myself saying, "are
you kidding?"
Mike told me that in his opinion, the level of discussion at the council
was remarkably high; high for any governmental body, but especially
one that dealt with local issues. He didn't just mean the discussion
among the members on the dais, but also the discourse that came from
the public. I remember his last bit of praise for the meetings: "even
the cranks make sense occasionally."
By repeating that, I don't mean to suggest that anyone who speaks regularly
at council meetings is a crank. Specifically I want to say that Joe
Natoli, who died two weeks ago ("Outspoken
Critic of Local Government Dies," March 14, 2008), and
who was memorialized before last week's City Council meeting, was certainly
not a crank. A regular he was, and he had an opinion about everything,
but his manner was always the opposite of "crankiness," however
you define that word.
I had no personal relationship with Mr. Natoli -- we once shared a
bus ride up Main Street, and that was about it. When I started writing
this column (talk about crankiness!) I stopped speaking at council meetings,
and since then I have found it easier to watch the meetings on TV or
on the computer. That's my loss, because I miss interactions with the
human beings like Mr. Natoli who attend the meetings.
But I often watched Mr. Natoli on the video of council meetings, or
saw him at other meetings, and I admired his levelheaded demeanor, even
when, as could occur, I disagreed with the point he was making.
In that way, Mr. Natoli was typical of his fellow regulars, most of
whom are remarkably congenial for people obsessed with government. Let
me honor Mr. Natoli's memory by saying not only good things about him,
but also good things about all of the council's regulars. At times they
may drive those regulars on the dais a little crazy, but generally they
are not obstreperous, and whether they are cranks or not, they "make
sense" about as frequently as anyone else.
Many meetings coming up this week:
First, as reported in the Lookout ( "Expo
Line at Crossroads," March 28), Tuesday evening at 6:30
there's a public workshop on the Expo Line at Crossroads School, 1714
21st Street. For more details, go to this link: http://www.buildexpo.org/phase2_overview.php
Then Wednesday night is the next big workshop for the LUCE process.
That's at Lincoln Middle School, at 6:30. For more details, go to this
link: http://www.shapethefuture2025.net/
Then Thursday evening the Santa Monica-Malibu school board will take
up both the report of the independent consultants who have evaluated
the District's special education programs and more analysis of plans
to spend the Measure BB funds. I don't how the board will deal with
both issues in one night. The meeting will take place at the District's
offices, 1651 16th Street, and starts at 5:30. |
