To: Mayor Bloom and Honorable City Council members

From: Board of Directors, Friends of Sunset Park

Re: July 10, 2012 Agenda Item 8-C — Flight Training Reduction Incentive Test Program

http://www.smgov.net/departments/council/agendas/2012/20120710/s201207108-C.pdf

Friends of Sunset Park (FOSP) acknowledges the negative impacts of pattern flying generated by the Santa Monica Airport (SMO) on the surrounding neighborhoods. Phase II of the Airport Visioning process and two community surveys have confirmed that approximately 80% of the respondents want SMO’s operations reduced or eliminated. Although we encourage proposals for programs that would accomplish this end, we have the following concerns regarding the proposed “Flight Training Reduction Incentive Test Program”:

Whereas the Santa Monica Airport currently runs at a deficit and operations are already subsidized by the City of Santa Monica,

Whereas there is support from the community to raise fees on airport users rather than create additional subsidized programs,

Whereas the Airport Commission was not given the opportunity to discuss the proposal, gather public input, and make a recommendation to City Council,

Whereas the chronology of events appears as though the above was intentional in spite of the Airport Visioning staff report on May 8, 2012, stating the intent of the City to cultivate more transparency in the process and cultivate direct Airport Commission participation in the process, 1

Whereas there is a lack of approval by the surrounding airports potentially impacted by the proposed flight diversions,

Whereas findings by CASMAT using SMO Vector Solutions (VS) tail number systems show that 54% of pattern flying loops would not qualify under the proposed program, 2

Whereas the staff report projected diversion of 600 qualifying occurrences over a 6 month period (100 per month) historical data reveals an average of only 18.3 qualifying occurrences per month, 2

Whereas the FOSP Board does not support any surplus income (actual costs of the diverted flight is less than the subsidy amount) from the subsidy being used to discount flight training, which would in the long run potentially increase the number of students practicing pattern flying,

Whereas public notification that discounted flight training prices would be implemented to reflect the surplus is equal to advertisement, and the flight schools were forbidden to use the subsidy program in advertisement,3

Therefore, the Board of Directors of Friends of Sunset Park opposes the “Flight Training Reduction Incentive Test Program” in its current proposed form.

1. May 8, 2012 City Council agenda: “Community trust must be restored through increased transparency, better communications, more sharing of information, and unbiased analysis.
• The economic impacts of various alternatives should be analyzed, and the analysis must be unbiased.
• Statistical information about the Airport operations and noise should be accurate, unbiased and readily available to the public.
• Communications between the City and residents about the Airport must be improved.”

“Address concerns about transparency, communications and trust by:
(a) Continuing the community dialogue as expressed in Phase II, by continuing periodic updates to the Airport Commission and having two workshops during Phase III that could potentially be held at Airport Commission meetings;
(b) Expanding the effort between staff and the Airport Commission to provide more information requested by the community, including more information about flight operations including a means of counting repetitive operations, about what has been done at other airports, about what data the FAA provides that would be updated on the Airport website monthly; and
(c) Continuing other ongoing efforts to make information about Airport operations more trustworthy and available such as updating the website and hosting seminars.

2. CASMAT Report:

https://docs.google.com/file/d/0B_xmzTNXnK13ejNJbEFUaDlHbUU/edit?pli=1

pg. 6
“From the results summarized in, we can see that over the 3 month period studied, there were a total of 55 qualifying pattern flying sequences involving 232 pattern loops out of a total 499 pattern loops occurring during the period. To qualify as pattern flights in this analysis, successive takeoffs must occur within around 20 minutes or less (see Appendix B).

In other words, if history is any guide, and if flight school behavior remains unchanged, the city could anticipate spending: 110 x $150 = $16,500 of the $90,000 budgeted (i.e., 1/4) over a 6 month period. Part of this is because only 46% of current pattern flying loops would qualify for the subsidy.

There are two main reasons for the 46% qualification figure, the first is that many of the pattern loops executed at SMO are performed by individuals engaged in training (the green cells in Appendix B) or by organizations that are not qualified flight schools as defined in the plan. The second reason is that repeated sequences of 4 or more loops do not match many of the current lesson plans executed by the flight schools.”

3. Santa Monica Mirror, June 29-July 5, 2012, “SMO Landing/Takeoff Relocation Plan Nose Dives,” Vol. IV, Issue 4, pg. 1

“Justice said the flight schools would not make any extra profit from the program.

“He said the $150 reimbursement would reduce the cost for the student if they choose to make use of the program and conduct landings and takeoffs at other nearby airports such as Van Nuys, Burbank, and Hawthorne.

“ ‘The amount of money for us is pretty much the same because we were going to give the profit to the student as a reduction in their cost,’ he said.”