The airport can save us from aliens
Editor:
Recently Santa Monica has become a battlefield of political opinions regarding the Santa Monica Airport (SMO). Supporters of the airport claim that it is key to our cities safety in the event of an emergency, while proponents of the airport's closure argue that flying supplies into the airport isn't even the best way to save the city in the event of a disaster. People who want to close SMO have clearly not considered the benefits of having an airport in the event of an alien invasion! In the movie Battle Los Angeles SMO is a key part of the military's response to aliens who happen to start their invasion in downtown Santa Monica. In the film the armed forces setup a fully functional Forward Operating Base at the Santa Monica airport as the extraterrestrial beings appear out of the Pacific Ocean and start to attack downtown Santa Monica. Although after about an hour through the film we find out the Forward Operating Base at SMO has been abandoned, the base provided the soldier fighting on the ground with some backup. Battle LA was released several years ago, but the airport would be more helpful today because the Military could land bigger jets on the runway. In addition to the benefits of the airport in the alien invasion by closing the airport we would completely ruin the chances of Santa Monica being featured in the unlikely second installment of Battle LA. Anyone who is not an alien can clearly see the logic in all this.
Peter C Smith
Santa Monica
David and Goliath
To the Editor:
The real story here is David and Goliath. When it comes to Measure D versus Measure LC, we here in Santa Monica are David. All of us living here, pro and con the airport issues, are the pipsqueaks entangled with an exceedingly powerful Washington flying lobby funded by people with little concern for Santa Monica or her neighbors.
If you do the math, voting for Measure D is tantamount to handing the keys to the chicken house over to the fox. If D passes, control of the airport, present and future is ceded to Washington. While D falsely trumpets itself as a champion of local democracy, the terms of the deal are so onerous - a majority vote of all eligible voters, a phenomenon that has occurred only once in Santa Monica's history - as to make Santa Monica irrelevant in its own future.
LC is not perfect, but it's real representational democracy. Every two years we get a chance to throw the bums out, or re-elect them. Our choice. Every two years. That's a lot of local control. It is precisely what D denies us.
Morrie Ruvinsky
Santa Monica
