ARSAC Special Report on LAX Expansion

LAWA is pushing Alternative 1 which moves the north-most LAX runway north and adds a center line taxiway between the runways. This will facilitate more aircraft landings. The Board of Airport Commission (BOAC) and LA City Planning approved this northern runway move to achieve phantom “safety improvements” which needlessly hurts local communities. Their action will raise LA area ticket prices substantially for all users and tie up billions of dollars that could be used to improve safety far more.

LAWA spent several million dollars for a safety study by the foremost experts and NASA which states that LAX Northside runways are safe, but expansion proponents are fixated on a center taxiway between the runways regardless of cost or practical impact. Demand assessment of runway of move impacts NOW, not after they approve another unworkable plan. Locals bear the risk of an air crash destroying homes and businesses as more flights fly over for the LAX approach path. It also increases vehicle traffic by millions of cars exacerbating gridlock traffic woes.

Airport Report 2/18/2013

LAX expansion has moved two steps closer to reality. The LA Board of Airport Commission and LA Planning Department approved Specific Plan Amendment Study Alternative 1 which moves the runway 260’ north. Seems innocuous, but the actions to accomplish this can have a devastating cost.

ARSAC Responds to Proposed Planning Department Document Changes in advance of LAWA Approving a Preferred Alternative

LAWA prepared a defective Master Plan EIR prompting several thousand questions.  Now they are starting the approval process without even answering them!  We presume that the purpose of this hearing is to solicit public input on incomplete draft documents so that when finalized the public may be precluded from speaking at the approval hearing when the changes become known.

ARSAC supports a safe, secure and convenient LAX.  Fixing LAX does not require adjacent communities to be wantonly sacrificed.  LAX officials promised future airport expansion in Palmdale and Ontario; they purchased those airports for that purpose yet haven’t even prepared a Master Plan for them.

ARSAC Responds to MistakenPublicity for Wrong LAX Hearing Date in Media

THE CORRECT HEARING DATE IS TUESDAY, JAN 8, AT THE PROUD BIRD JUST EAST OF LAX, not Thursday evening as reported in the news media today. Virtually no one surrounding LAX has received the formal meeting notice —not the Westchester-Playa Neighborhood Council, nor Westchester Neighbors Association, or even ARSAC which was a formal plaintif and now petitioner in the 2006 settlement against a “stupid” airport expansion.

“We are unaware of the source of this collosal blunder, but never shocked by LAWA actions. They are like a good magician, they practice misdirection. The’ve publicized the wrong date and then muse why there is so little public interest about impacts from the largest public works project in the history of the region!”

Only this week did we, the public, discover LAWA has been funding dedicated members of the LA Planning Department to do their bidding. The timing of this push to change City Planning documents even before the official LAWA relase of their expansion program or respond any of the hundreds, if not thousands of questions raised of the draft environmental review document is a new low.”

“Last time around, in 2004, the Planning Department, LAWA and our City Government changed the LA General Plan precedence to make it incombant upon local residents to monitor LAWA and to change their Community Plan accordingly. Now they want to make even more changes!”

We presume that the purpose of this hearing is to solicit public input on an incomplete draft document so that when the final draft is completed and brought forward for final approval the public will be precluded from speaking. They are allowed to say that this hearing constitutes their public input—even if it’s based on major sections being left blank to be filled in later.