Santa Monica Suspends Fast Jet Fight

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The city council and Mayor Richard Bloom have announced they will not appeal a January ruling that prevents them from banning Category C and D jets at Santa Monica Municipal Airport, but 2015 may still bring a showdown. The city has argued that those larger, faster business jets at the airport present a safety hazard to nearby houses, some of which sit within 300 feet of the airport’s one runway. But the airport had agreed when it previously accepted federal funds that it would operate without discrimination. That agreement expires in a few years, and there may be bigger battles ahead.

Councilman Kevin McKeown on Friday told local paper, The Mar Vista Patch, that the city council has not given up the fight. “We also are engaging the entire community in planning for 2015, when our current obligations at the airport expire,” McKeown said. He added that “we continue to value residents’ safety over the somewhat different interests of the federal bureaucracy.” The FAA has offered to help fund the installation of an emergency physical arresting system to act as a safeguard in the event of a runway overrun. The city has rejected those offers.

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