The City of Santa Monica and FAA violated numerous laws and illegally/improperly entered into an agreement to resolve a lawsuit brought by the City over over operation of Santa Monica Airport. The lawsuit seeks to reverse this illegal agreement as it has serious implications for future dealings by the FAA related to other Public Airports and the future of aviation in the entire country. 

After WWII, in a attempt to foster general aviation, the US government gave many communities around the country, former airbase assets used in support of the war effort pursuant to the War Surplus Act of 1944. As part of the conditions of those transfers, congress intended that the airports were to be operated in perpetuity.  Like many public airports around the country, Santa Monica Airport was given to the City and was subject to a War Surplus Act transfer done in 1948.

For years, the City of Santa Monica has tried to strangle the airport in an attempt to close it. In 2013, the City illegally and improperly sued the FAA in an attempt to permanently close the airport. The case was initially (and properly) dismissed by the judge, but the City appealed the judges decision to the 9th circuit and the case was revived. Then in January 2017, the City and FAA announced to the surprise of everyone that they had entered into an agreement to settle the lawsuit. In so doing, the City and FAA engaged in illegal backroom dealings that lacked the public transparency required by law and thereby violated numerous laws in the process. Furthermore, the FAA improperly granted the City the ability to close the airport in 2028, in direct violation of its federal obligations and the original wishes of congress under the War Surplus Act to keep the airport operating in perpetuity Because of those illegal dealings between the City and FAA, other similarly situated airport around the country may now be threatened with similar fates. 

Because of the Illegal and improper backroom dealings by the City of Santa Monica and FAA, I brought the lawsuit to now reverse the settlement due to the numerous violations of law by both the City and FAA in doing the settlement.

Aviation was born in the US and is part of our national heritage. Moreover general aviation is a national asset. The buck must now stop here or our national heritage in danger of disappearing. Given the current and expanding pilot shortage, we cannot allow this to happen.