While the Los Angeles City Council has no legal authority over the Santa Monica Airport (SMO), it voted unanimously last Wednesday to close six operational flight schools at the airport and alter departure procedures. The vote will have no effect on current operations, although the moves have angered pilots, who wonder why a city council governing nearly four million people has no more important issues to discuss than subject matter over which it has no governing power. The airport is located in and operated by the city of Santa Monica.
But the symbolic vote was part of a continued effort to close the airport in 2015, headed, among others, by LA city councilman and local Santa Monica resident Bill Rosendahl, who said to the LA Times: “An airport makes no sense in that urban environment with all the noise, air pollution and flights over neighborhoods.” But he never discusses how much noise, traffic congestion and air pollution would be produced by any alternative use of the large area of real estate, pilot groups have noted.
