Dear Editor,
As Venice residents of 22 years, we have noticed the increasing invasion, pollution and fear of SMO into our community. There are now six flight schools and the number of huge personal/corporate jets has increased dramatically! (They are supposed to fly over Rose, but rarely seem to be on course. We can see them from our living room).
Meanwhile, the quality of life for all of us living around this enlarged prostate has diminished. And Santa Monica isn’t even aware of the problem.
Why? The airport is on the SE edge of Santa Monica. The bottom edge. The winds blow from NW to SE. The flight patterns are set up so that the majority of planes fly over Venice, Mar Vista and West LA, so then Santa Monica is not directly affected with the problem, yet they are the ones voting on it!
We affected by it can’t vote on it. Where’s the democracy? All of the pollution (air and noise) travels into LA, not SM. Santa Monica, we need some compassion here!
It’s all about the rich people having their convenience at our expense. Small planes and big jets. With the fear of crashes (three in the last 1.5 years…) it becomes something like terrorism.
Every take-off is like, will this one make it? Other residential communities in America have successfully closed down airports for all of these reasons.
We don’t live close to SMO. It’s very peaceful where we live, except for the small planes curving left directly over our house and creating a constant, interrupting buzz that ruins our life. We are at the pilots’ whim, 6 am-midnight… and they don’t necessarily go by even those rules: Prove it.
Besides our own quality of life, we also care about our neighbors closer to the airport who are affected even more directly than us.
In addition to all of this, the small planes are also still allowed for some reason to use leaded fuel… wasn’t this outlawed around the globe? So their exhaust is spreading lead over our precious children on top of it all. There have been many studies done by UCLA, etc. that show how toxic an environment SMO is creating in our community.
The pilots and their Washington lobbyists are very self-righteous with their romantic notion of aviation, but not in their own everyday lives. There is a museum at SMO to remind us all of the wonderful history of the airport in our community. That’s enough.
Let’s make a park there. Helicopters can land for emergencies and our kids can breathe cleaner air.
With love for our community,
Lies Kraal and Judi Russell
