Comments on: Fire at SMO and what just what is a contract anyway?

By: D Rant

D Rant — Sun, 20 May 2012 18:32:57 +0000

The People of the People’s Republic of Santa Monica are ignorant fools, operating under a delusion that the airport is toxic. As a resident of Los Angeles I find their arguments highly entertaining.

Does your local airport really offer a greater hazard than the pollution from Los Angeles International just a few miles away, and the millions of vehicles traveling through the area daily? Of course not.

You people are the definition of ponce. As one commenter said here, be careful what you wish for. Your airport, if it ever did close, would be developed into another rat trap for more arrogant hippies with illogical solutions to imaginary problems. Santa Monica isn’t special, it’s a dump. The airport is just a scapegoat. You only have yourselves to blame for your deteriorating lifestyles.

By: David Birney

David Birney — Sat, 19 May 2012 16:17:47 +0000

SMO is a health–noise and pollution– and safety hazard. It should be closed.
David Birney

By: John Murdock

John Murdock — Sat, 19 May 2012 06:24:24 +0000

Bruce Landsberg, I read your bio (courtesy of the link you provided) and found it most interesting that you have a degree in psychology and your primary area of emphasis in the AOPA is safety and education regarding aviation matters. Why is that so interesting? Because when I read your article about SMO, your entire emphasis is on contract and educating the residents to live with the city’s contract and the status quo, not on safety. Your bio does not include a law degree, yet you state with supreme confidence that the city’s contract with FAA is “binding” and the residents should stop complaining and learn to live with it. We will let the courts decide what is “binding”, but we do not accept the notion that a binding contract allows the parties to the contract to spew life-threatening pollutants into the air. Curiously, for someone in a position of responsibility, you utterly fail to address the serious health&safety issues raised by independent academic studies, of which I am certain you must be aware. Is your interest in aviation safety only in the safety of the pilots who are members of the AOPA? Does your interest extend to the safety of children exposed to leaded fuels and ultrafine particulate matters that are known health hazards? In your work for the aviation industry, have you learned of the safety problems associated with breathing jet-fuel exhaust and leaded fuels? If you believe the residents are overstating the health hazards, perhaps you could use this forum to educate them with some scientific data on the extent of their overstatement and exaggerated fears, and explain to the Nan Waldman, the woman from West L.A. who writes above, that she and her niece and the twin children must have all been mistaken or imagining things when they all suffered the same effects from exposure to exhaust fumes at Clover Park. Or explain to Mike and his neighbors they are merely being “over-protective” parents by having a jet-fume curfew for their children because there is really no health issue caused by the fumes. Please, Bruce, we would love to see you raise the level of discourse above the yahoo-cowboy belligerent pilots who write to bully and belittle the residents, telling them to just get lost, improve the neighborhood by moving away if they don’t like airplanes. Your effort at amelioration falls far sadly short of the mark.

By: JPCII

JPCII — Sat, 19 May 2012 05:41:17 +0000

When SMO is closed those who are disappointed shouldn’t blame the parties that sought closer but should instead look to 1) the flight schools and 2) the jet owners, operators and clients, both of whom took advantage of the small airport and ruined it for everyone else.

By: RobN

RobN — Sat, 19 May 2012 03:15:56 +0000

I have lived in Ocean Park since 1995 and we NEVER had low altitude, pattern flying student planes until mid 2009. SMO wanted to expand jet operations and in order to do so they pushed the slow loud obnoxious piston driven planes over our homes. So for all the jerks that say the airport was there first you’re just plain wrong, the airport expanded and the flight schools are now crapping all over our homes with horrible noise. My neighborhood sounds like swarming Kamikazes at Pearl Harbor. Planes circle every 2-3 minutes on weekends for an average of 40 seconds per plane because they are so bloody slow. The sad thing is the flight schools know they should fly higher and eliminate steep turns over our homes, but do they care…. obviously not at all. Close SMO it’s horrible.

By: Jan-Peter Flack

Jan-Peter Flack — Fri, 18 May 2012 23:45:08 +0000

The airport has to go since the Health and Safety concerns cannot be eliminated. Our right to a safe, clean city supercedes the frivolous aspirationes of a few hundred flyers. Most of which don’t even live in our neighborhood.
The path is clear:
An clean, transparent survey would quickly reveal that the majority of local residents are opposed to the airport. The City of Santa Monica in conjunción with our neighboring Cities should put a legal strategy and team together and take on the FAA for breach of it’s own safety standards.
We all celebrate the morning the bulldozers dig into the tarmac!

By: Chuck Mason

Chuck Mason — Fri, 18 May 2012 23:27:26 +0000

Prop planes: Civilians spreading their wings. A prop plane gliding overhead is dreamlike.
Jets: Corporations and the 1%. Noise, pollution, and high tension when they take off or land.
Lose the jets and the kleptocracy of Santa Monica will close SMO to make more money on a shopping center.
So …………… jets or The Grove?

By: John Porter

John Porter — Fri, 18 May 2012 23:14:11 +0000

The airport is an environmental issue. I live on the eastern edge of the airport, which means I reside in Los Angeles, not Santa Monica. I could care less what Santa Monica does within its’ city limits, but when the pollutants and particulate matter cross into my city, that’s another matter altogether. Since the airport has no way of controlling these airborne pollutants, there in the fundamental problem lies.

I’m quiet sure any Santa Monica residents who support the airport, would not like me to drive my weekly garbage and dump it on their streets. That is basically what the airport does to me on a daily basis.

By: Nan Waldman

Nan Waldman — Fri, 18 May 2012 22:49:40 +0000

My niece and I were teaching twin cousins to ride their new two wheeler bicycles in Cloverfield Park, immediately adjacent to the airport. There was no signage or notice. There was no indication while in the park, which is open to the public, that fumes would engulf us, that we would be literally flooded in eyes, ears, mouth, nose, skin — with a wet fog of exhaust while running/pedaling and panting from the exertion of sport.

It literally took our breath away. Our chests began to hurt. The children cried. Our eyes stung. It was hard to breathe for days afterward. I had to go to an allergist and to a doctor. We had to leave the park immediately and go home to take showers. We live in WLA and went to the park for fresh air and recreation!

How ironic is it that a public park is a toxic place to be??!!!

I pity the residents who live so close.

The pilots and airport stakeholders do not seem to understand that the increase in toxic pollutants — nevermind the noise! — takes away liberty interests which cannot be compensated with liquid damages of money in court. The liberty interest is health and safety, the right to breathe without being harmed by known dangers and toxins.

The UCLA studies on the health hazards of this airport’s toxicity provide ample evidence that it is a hazard and is inconsistent with health and safety for people, pets, children and families.

Have a sense of civic responsibility and find a bit of compassion for your fellow human beings. If some of us are reasonably and rationally stating we are suffering because of X — well, have the human decency to consider the needs of those who are suffering, and forget about your toys, and your petty little superpowers of entitlement and flight. I don’t understand how anyone can give to charity and then fly in a private plane and harm their neighbors with such benign and happy neglect of the status quo.

By: Thorens

Thorens — Fri, 18 May 2012 20:44:32 +0000

The most serious problem is the huge output of poisonous exhaust from idling, big jets. I live over a mile away and must go inside when they spew their filthy, toxic fumes. It’s unbearable.