Tuesday evening the Santa Monica City Council gave direction to City Attorney Marsha Moutrie to prepare a measure for the November ballot. The measure would be an alternative to the initiative that the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association (AOPA) has put forward to (in Ms. Moutrie’s words) “protect vested interests at the Santa Monica Airport” and “lock in the status quo at the Airport.”

Before the council hearing Tuesday the AOPA, through its local front organization, “Santa Monicans for Open and Honest Development Decisions” (SMOHDD), issued a press release. I’ve decided to reprint the release here in its entirety, into which I’ll insert my comments. Here it is.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

June 24, 2014

CONTACT: John Jerabek
(310) xxx-xxxx

Santa Monica City Council Plans Competing Airport Ballot Initiative to Confuse Voters

Last April, Santa Monica voters launched* one of the largest petition drives in the City’s history in an effort to end 40 years of political and legal wrangling over Santa Monica Airport and place the final authority for redeveloping** this valuable land where it should be — in the hands of the voters. This effort culminated with an unprecedented 15,734 signatures*** being submitted to the City Clerk in early June to pass the “Voters Decide” Charter Amendment on the November ballot.

* “Santa Monica voters launched . . .” Well, no. According to the Fair Political Practices Commission (FPPC) filings for SMOHDD, the petition drive was entirely organized and paid for by the AOPA, a Washington, D.C.-based lobbying organization. The AOPA hired Arno Political Consultants and other political operatives to import into Santa Monica an army of signature gatherers — you probably met some of them if you bought groceries during May and early June. (To access the SMOHDD FPPC filings, go to the City’s Clerk’s webpage for Disclosure Statements, click on “Public Access Portal,” and then “search by name” for “Santa Monicans for Open and Honest Development Decisions.”)

** “the final authority for redeveloping . . . ” Also false. The AOPA initiative is silent about the redevelopment of the airport land — I hope this doesn’t shock anyone, but the AOPA is only interested in whether the airport stays in operation as an airport, and the right to vote in its measure is limited to the decision to close the airport. Should voters vote to do so, then, so far as the AOPA is concerned, see you later — the City can do whatever it wants with the land without any vote.

*** “15,734 signatures” is not a victory for the AOPA, but an admission that they expect a huge number of their signatures to be rejected as not valid, since they only need somewhat more than 9,000 good ones. If their signature quality had been better, they would surely have submitted their signatures a week earlier when they would have been assured that the County Registrar of Voters would have enough time to review them. (I’ve previously written about the signatures in detail here and here.)

Alarmed at the prospects of requiring voter approval of any effort to redevelop 227 acres of Santa Monica Airport land, the City Council this evening directed staff to draft the City’s own “voter initiative” to compete with the Voters Decide plan.

Anyone who watched the City Council hearing knows that the council was not “alarmed” about giving voters approval of redevelopment at the airport, since the council members repeatedly instructed the City Attorney to come back with a measure that would give voters the right to vote on future development. What is driving the council to consider a competing measure is the fact that Section 2(b) of the AOPA initiative seeks to prevent the City Council from managing the airport and the buildings and other property the City owns there in any way different from the status quo.

“This latest scheme is designed to mislead voters into thinking that they will be consulted before* politicians and developers achieve their goals of forcing out 175 businesses** and redeveloping airport land, at a loss of up to 1,500 jobs and $247 million in business activity,” said John Jerabek, a board member of Santa Monicans for Open and Honest Development Decisions, the sponsor of the real “Voters Decide” initiative. “This new tactic is a charade, just the latest attempt by City politicians to achieve their development plans*** while keeping voters out of it,” Jerabek continued.

* “consulted before . . . ” False. As discussed already, the council members told the City Attorney to include a right to vote on future development of the airport land, a right the AOPA initiative doesn’t have.

** “175 businesses . . . ” Of all the garbage the AOPA has dumped on Santa Monica in this campaign, one false claim they can’t let go of is that by closing the airport the City would be putting 1,500 people out of work and causing a big hit to the city’s economy. This claim goes back to a study the City commissioned in 2011 from the HR&A consulting firm about the airport’s economic impact. Indeed, as HR&A found, the airport is the site of economic activity, but the amount of that activity turned out to be trivial in context of the whole of the city’s economy — the equivalent, the study said, of a 300,000 square foot office building, which if you follow development in Santa Monica you know isn’t much.

But beyond that, most of the airport’s economic impact is from non-aviation businesses. Yes, there are more than 1,500 jobs at the airport, but according to the study, only 178 of them are in aviation. For instance, Volkswagen has its West Coast design center in offices it subleases from an aviation business that has a master lease from the City — a lease that terminates July 1, 2015, at which point, if the AOPA initiative doesn’t interfere, the City will be able to take over the building and collect rents from Volkswagen — rents that we at Airport2Park hope one day will pay for the operating expenses of a big park. These non-aviation jobs aren’t going anywhere if the airport closes and, given the demands for office space in Santa Monica, the City will have no trouble leasing space now occupied by aviation businesses to new businesses.

*** “their development plans.” Another big lie. There are no development plans for the airport. This is fear-mongering pure and simple.

The Voters Decide initiative is simple:
– There can be no change in land use at Santa Monica Airport without voter approval.
– Unless change is approved by voters, the land will remain in low-density airport use.
– The City’s land-use authority is not constrained; the City can do what they think best, but not on behalf of special interests or self-interested activists and only following a citywide approval vote.

Again, if you read the AOPA initiative you’ll see that it only requires a vote on closing the airport. Once voters vote to close the airport, that’s it.

“Our message for City politicians is clear,” Jerabek continued. “If the City has a plan for 227 acres of the most valuable land on the Westside, let them get it approved by Santa Monica voters. It’s that simple!“

The message is clear, all right: we are nervous that the FAA can’t keep the airport open and we’re pulling out all the stops to get this deceptive measure passed so that we can continue to use all that publicly-owned land for ourselves.

About Santa Monicans for Open and Honest Development Decisions
The Santa Monica Voters Decide Initiative is being led by Santa Monicans for Open and Honest Development Decisions. The committee believes the City and airport opponents have not been forthcoming with voters and taxpayers about redevelopment and land-use plans for the valuable airport property. The committee is supported by local residents, businesses and the Aircraft Owners and Pilots Association.

Now this is amusing. This “committee” was formed by the AOPA using the political law firm of Reed and Davidson; which even supplied one of its partners, Flora Yin, as one of the three Santa Monica residents who filed the initiative. According to its most recent FPPC statement, through June 4, the SMOHDD has spent $144,577 and taken in $59,977 in contributions. (The organization has outstanding debts of $90,993 — most of it to Arno and to Reed & Davidson.)

Of the $59,977 in contributions, $56,000 had come from the AOPA (in cash; the AOPA contributed another $1,000 in services). About $3,000 had come in through 18 individual contributions of at least $100, but of those 18 contributors, only three have Santa Monica addresses, and their contributions total only $300. (A small amount, $670, has also been contributed in contributions less than $100, and granted, these contributors could include some Santa Monicans, too.)

But get that — just three contributors who have given at least $100 to SMOHDD are Santa Monicans. Of about $60,000 so far contributed, only $300 have come from them — half of one percent.

So — who has not been forthcoming? Is there any evidence that the SMOHDD is a genuine local organization that is supported by any residents and local businesses who don’t have an personal or financial interest in the airport?

Thanks for reading.

A page from the most recent FPPC fiing for SMOHDD