THE EXTRALEGAL AIRPORT NOISE HEARING BOARD

City Council 1/28/2025--targeting flight schools and aircraft rental businesses

The vote on the Community Development Department’s proposed changes to the Airport Noise Hearing Board process has been rescheduled for 1/28. This gives us another chance to e-mail Torrance City Council members and convince them not to approve this further encroachment on airport customers’ legal rights. The recommendation from staff includes:

• Replacing the three-member Hearing Board with a "fair and impartial Hearing Officer" (not a city employee)--appointed by the City Manager. This Hearing Officer will be the sole arbiter of “guilt.” [No other qualifications, such as aviation or legal experience are identified for that officer.]
• The Hearing Officer shall only consider evidence that is relevant to whether the violation(s)occurred and whether the Person accused has caused or maintained the violation(s). [No ability to consider whether or not the TMC defining the "violation" is even legal.]
• Admission of evidence and the conduct of the hearing shall be controlled by the Hearing Officer in accordance with the fundamentals of due process.
• Formal rules of evidence shall NOT apply.
• Hearsay evidence may be admitted even if the author is not present at the meeting.
• Any aircraft involved in three or more “violations” in three years will be excluded from the airport, regardless of who was the pilot in command of that aircraft when those “violations” occurred. This is clearly targeting flight schools and aircraft rental businesses.
• Implementation will commence 30 days after approval.

During 2022 and 2023, the Airport Noise Hearing Board held 10 hearings—none of which were about noise violations. Six involved “violations” of the touch & go ban; three involved “low approaches” (which the City has no authority to regulate), and one concerned “training” and taxiing back for takeoff after landing. All of these restrictions are currently the subject of litigation in Federal Court to determine if the City has any authority to regulate these activities.

Why has COTAR been so successful in their war against Torrance Airport customers? Even though they have only “20-25 members” (as they revealed at Airport Commission on 1/9/2025), those few members flood the City Council with letters and e-mails to support their call for landing fees, bans on touch & goes and restrictions on other normal airport operations.

We need to do the same!!

The City recently provided a list of all documents it received related to the lawsuits on the implementation of landing fees (TAA lawsuit) and the ban on touch & go ops (ZAPS lawsuit). It listed 540 emails related to these topics.

Your voice matters! Letters and e-mails matter!