Concerned Residents Against Airport Pollution (CRAAP) has announced their endorsements for the November, 2012 Santa Monica City Council election.

With four open seats on the seven-member City Council, Santa Monica voters have an opportunity to elect representation that will reflect the will of Santa Monica residents with regard to the future of Santa Monica Airport. ” From a field of 15 candidates that included two incumbents and with over two weeks of evaluation, we choose current Santa Monica Planning Commissioners Ted Winterer and Richard McKinnon, former Santa Monica Planning Commissioner Frank Gruber, and former Santa Monica Council Member Tony Vazquez as the four candidates who will be the most effective in addressing the community’s critical health and safety concerns stemming from SMO.” said CRAAP Director Martin Rubin, “In making our choice, we considered how candidates presented themselves at our September 13th SMO-Focused Candidates Forum and the opinions from our CRAAP group members, as well as other local neighborhood groups’ opinions; weighing all available information before deciding whom we support to be seated in the year 2015 when the Council will make very important decisions regarding the future of SMO. Rising to the top of the list were these four candidates experienced with Santa Monica government.”

Among the important criteria in making our choices were:

1) Support for the 1981 Santa Monica Council Resolution 6296; It states, that It is the policy of the City of Santa Monica to effect the closure of the Santa Monica Municipal Airport as soon as possible and to devote the property on which it is located to its highest and best use and for an environment consistent with the City’s generally residential character. Resolution 6296 remains in effect.

2) Support for maintaining open space in place of the airport and adding traffic arterials to help alleviate Westside traffic.

3) Support for adding Los Angeles representation to the Santa Monica Airport Commission in an advisory non-voting capacity.

The City has lost its way since the 1981 resolution. In 1984 the City contracted into a deal with the FAA allowing the airport to turn into a private and corporate jet port for the “1%”. In 1983, there were about 500 jet takeoffs; ten years later there were 2,000; another ten years later there were 8,000. Jet traffic peaked before the economic downturn at over 9,000 jet takeoffs in 2007. Since then the number has dropped to about 6,500. That reduction is not an all-clear signal to those forced to breathe toxic jet emissions. Many are deeply disappointed that the City of Santa Monica has made no real effort to use its rights as owner and operator of SMO to address environmental air pollution even after many scientific studies show serious cause for alarm.

Residents in the neighborhoods surrounding the airport are very aware of the negative impacts from the noise and the toxic air pollution jet traffic has brought to their daily lives, and they find the accompanying safety risks unacceptable.

Neighboring airport activists from both Santa Monica and Los Angeles are well aware that the direction Santa Monica City Manager Rod Gould is taking, and that the current Council fully supports, has been to examine the indirect positive economic aspects of the airport without addressing the negative economic aspects. A growing number of Santa Monica residents are unhappy with overdevelopment and the traffic it has brought to the Westside; much of which happened because corporations in the tech and entertainment industries were welcomed with direct transport via jet to SMO. We would be very interested in seeing a list of the businesses located in Santa Monica that use SMO.

CRAAP believes that the current council is not representing the best interests of Santa Monica; hence we did not endorse either incumbent. We also believe that Santa Monica voters have a unique opportunity to elect Santa Monica City Council representation that will reflect the will of Santa Monica residents.

Understand that it is standard for incumbents to receive many endorsements for no other reason than that they are incumbents. Change can be uncomfortable for leaders and it’s job security for elected officials to support each other. It is up to the voters to do their homework. With new leadership, Santa Monica could really reach unprecedented heights. It truly is in the hands of Santa Monica voters.

For further information contact: Martin Rubin, CRAAP Director at (310) 479 – 2529
E-mail: jetairpollution@earthlink.net , Website: jetairpollution.com