Editor:
On July 1, the Airport2Park people held a barbecueat Santa Monica Airport at the Airport Park adjacent to the soccer field and dog park. Many of these people believe that barbecuingreleases deadly carcinogens into their food and in the air, causing damage to themselves and their children. They’re also the same people that subscribe to the “Chicken Little” syndrome that the exhaust from aircraft will turn their little precious into a mutant from a “Mad Max” movie. This presents a “Do as I say, not as I do” dogma with them.
When one tries to hold an intelligent conversation on the benefits of keeping the airport open, one ismet with fascist rhetoric being berated by them while frothing at the mouth with a severe case of rabies as if one was the airport anti-Christ or acting as the crazed villagers wielding torches from Mary Shelly’s Frankenstein, pursuing the monster.
Joe Schmitz, who was selected by the Santa Monica City Council out of many other qualified candidates whocurrently have an aviation background or are active pilots that were never given the chance at the position on the Airport Commission, is anti-airport and a member of the Airport2Park group.
With this committee, nothing has changed since the other three airport commissioners are anti-airport. The basis of an airport commission is to keep the airport open, support aviation in general while keeping businesses open and jobs there. Here, they are totally against everything what they are supposed to stand for and want the airport closed. In these turbulent times, this does not make sense to eliminate commerce and jobs adding to the financial woes of our city, let alone our country.
That being said, the anti-airport people would deny our president and his Secret Service the use of the Santa Monica Airport, which he and Hillary recently visited, but more than likely voted for him and support Hillary. Why would you do this?
The Santa Monica City Council claims to be progressive, fair and democratic … in some ways. The ethical choice would have been to have two pro-airport and two anti-airport appointees on the commission, yet the councilhas decided to load the dice in itsfavor. This is collusion and corruption at its highest level, making the Bell fiasco look like a Sunday school picnic.
At the July 4th parade on Main Street, there was a noticeable absence of the salute to the men and women from the military, the true heroes of who, for the past 239 years sacrificed themselves protect our freedoms for this country. Instead, we have past and current mayors as well as council members showboating over the Grand Marshal and Special Olympics Global Messenger, Will Montgomery. Neitherthe mayors nor the City Council members have ever served in the military.
The icing on the cake, though, was the banner on Kevin McKeown’s electric car that read, “Flying to Washington D.C. to meet with the FAA.” How are you going to get there, Mr. McKeown — flap your arms? You’ll probably fly in a 737 out of LAX, which produces more engine power, noise and exhaust than a Learjet or Gulfstream out of Santa Monica Airport.
You’ll fly out of runway 2-5 West over some populated areas as well as the ocean; a similar route that is used by the aircraft at SMO.
On return, you’ll arrive on 2-5 East over several populated zones in the Los Angeles area, let alone the United States, with the same engine power, noise and exhaust from the jet engines.
The nihilist teachings of Thracymacus and the Hippocratic oath fit well at home here in Santa Monica.
Whitney Scott Bain
Santa Monica
The only hypocrisy is how this city owned land acts like a nearly private country club that serves the 1% and is allowed to pollute on the tens of thousands of residents whose needs should really come first.
Do airport supporters really want to compare using a barbecue at a community event celebrating the END of 31 years of FAA tyranny over our airport land, to the dangerous exhaust of 40 daily jets on entire neighborhoods, then go ahead and look foolish. Did any of you attend 4th of July barbecues? I thought so. Now who’s doing what they say, not what they do?
The only fascist rhetoric being spewed is by the few – very few – privileged to use the runway that ALL the residents own but can’t access. In fact, more people use the soccer field at Airport Park in one day than use the runway in a week. The residents like the NON-aviation uses: Barker Hangar, Spitfire Grill, Ruskin Theatre, Art Studios, Museum of Flying, swap meets, the play fields, the dog park, etc.
So if and when the airport closes, these non-aviation uses, along with much more park land, will remain and flourish. The airstrip would be a great open field, capturing 600-800,000 gallons of runoff now polluting our bay, and reversing the horrible and growing threat of increasing jet port pollution. Now that’s a comparison we can live with.
That you condemn Mr. Schmitz, an Air Force veteran who has flown the top brass and politicians of our great country, shows your ignorance and arrogance. Mr. Schmitz is a qualified resident, and a man who has established credentials, not just ‘dressed the part.’
The fact about this airport is that it still has a $13 million deficit to pay off (with interest). It is only in the black because the City charges equitable landing fees to all that use our runway – which the aviation community fought against tooth and nail. And aviation uses, when compared to the vast non-aviation uses at the airport only contribute the equivalent of a medium-sized strip mall to our economy. Nobody wants a medium-sized strip mall, but everybody loves parks!
And thank you for bringing up what President Obama would do if the airport closed? What the heck to you think he did when he landed in San Francisco? He landed on a former runway turned into a great park for ALL of the residents to enjoy. That’s exactly what we hope he and future presidents will do when visiting Santa Monica. Thanks for pointing that out.
And don’t be woeful at your perceived loss of our democracy. Let me remind you that democracy spoke LOUD and CLEAR last November when your aviation-lobby-funded Measure D got sent back to its hangar and the resident’s Measure LC soared to receive a 60% mandate to retain local control of the airport land we own (remember, end the tyranny of the FAA), to let our City Council continue to make decisions about our airport land, and to only allow parks, recreation and like-cultural uses to replace aviation uses not needed when the airport becomes, as the FAA has promised in the expired 1984 Agreement, “a local land use matter” sooner than later. Now that’s democracy in action!
very clever to get this LC fraud on the election year that wan’t a presidential one- many more would have come out and LC would have gone down – hopefully the FAA will see the need to keep SMO as is- just as many of us- are for SMO – we just aren’t as hysterical and emotional and twisting of the facts- little do many of the well meaning – and many are- know- is that the ‘facts’ LC claims about are anything but- to have the people on the commission know nothing and be totally unqualified is a sham- this is an important commission – we need people who know what they are doing- well said Whitney- the pollution and corruption is beyond Bell- and needs to come down – all of it
Only Santa Monica would have an “airport commission” without a single representative from the aviation field. One must wonder about the safety of their buildings if their building codes are set by commissions with no engineers or architects.
Santa Monica is the national center of hypocrisy, and unfortunately it’s costing its citizens millions upon millions of dollars every year. And it could well cost everyone much more than that, if this corrupt minority manages to get the airport closed for their personal profit. And make no mistake: That’s the sole reason for this disgraceful campaign.