The Airport Commission advises the City Council on matters concerning the Torrance Airport in the areas of development of airport facilities, aeronautical leases of airport land, airport special events and airport noise. To do so, the Commission must have usable, transparent data on the subject. The Community Development Department prepares quarterly reports on airport complaints and noise ordinance violations. Over the years, the Commission has made many requests for improvements over the current, obscure reports from Noise Abatement. So far, those requests have been ignored.
The Commission needs to know:
The information to answer these questions is available from the Casper Monitoring System. I requested copies of the Casper System complaint logs for the 4th quarter of 2024 via the California Public Records Act. The results are summarized in the following table.
This clearly answers Questions #1 and #3. It also reveals new information that:
I recommended that this table be included in the Noise Abatement Quarterly Report.
Finding an answer to Question #2 is more problematic. The Casper System provides a limited choice of "reason for complaint." When one compares these "reason" choices to the comments on the Complaint Log, it is clear that they do not accurately reflect those comments. Furthermore, these evaluations of aircraft operations are entirely subjective.
In spite of that, this table shows the breakdown of the Casper System on-line reporting of the complaint reasons. The "causes" list is problematic. For example, 59% of the complaints were about "loud" aircraft, but the Casper System shows that only 20 (0.2%) of the recorded events exceeded the 82db limit. The current report states there were only 14 violations.
I did not recommend that this meaningless information be included in the quarterly report.
The only way to answer Question #2 would be to review the Complaint Logs themselves and evaluate the comments made. Some examples are included in the Appendix at the end of this report.
To provide an answer to Question #4, I plotted the historical complaint rate (complaints per 1000 airport operations). This was compared to the historical Average Complaint Rate (average for 1989-2022 = 5.09 per thousand operations) plus the monthly figures for the immediate prior year, 2023.
This reveals some very interesting information:
| DATE | TIME | ZIP | ZONE | DESCRIPTION |
| 10/27/2024 | 22:37 | 90504 | 9 | House number 3527 keeps playing loud music/playing drums on his speaker past 10 PM several nights a week. Sometimes as late as 11 or 12 AM. Cannot confront him in person as he can be aggressive at times, he already paid damage fees to our house for destruction of property. |
| 10829/2024 | 11:50 | 90505 | 8 | A dog has been left outside by the owner of (REDACTED) every Tuesday through Thursday from 10 AM- 5 PM. The dog would bark constantly throughout such period of time. I am not the only who had voiced my concerns. You can also conduct a survey for the houses across the street as well as houses near there. Quite a few of us are working from home and cannot be dealing with this dog's constant barking throughout the day. I know my neighbors and I had talked to the owner before and he was dismissive and rude regarding our direct complaint to him. Please give me a call at(REDACTED) so I can provide more details. Thank you. |
| 10/26/2024 | 7:22 | 90501 | 4 | I am writing to file a noise complaint for early morning lawn work on Saturday Morning. The location is Wendys Parking Lot located at 2404 Sepulveda Blvd., Torrance, CA90501. They hired a gardener that starts working at 6:00am before the ordinance regulated time frame. He has been out here for the last 1 hour and a half doing yard work. |
| 11/28/2024 | 9:16 | 90503 | 9 | I want to make a noise complain on the city workers that started trimming trees @5:45 this morning 11/28//2024 The company name is called stay green inc. one of my neighbors called the police and they made them stop. |
| 11/23/2024 | 9:14 | 90501 | 4 | Wendys on 2404 Sepulveda Blvd, Torrance CA 90501 contracts a gardener that cuts and mows the grass starting at 6:20 a.m. every other Saturday. They continue to disregard noise ordinances. It is very disturbing and frustrating to be woken up by a weed whacker and a leaf blower on the weekends. |
| 12/1/2024 | 15:06 | 90503 | 3 | When did the rules change that the planes can fly over my home? I'm nowhere near the airport. Why won't you answer me? I have submitted requests for many weeks now. I have always checked the box, "Response Requested." Please reply with your explanation of when the flight path changed, and why the entire city of Torrance is now burdened by the constant roar of airplanes. I certainly never saw this on a ballot - how did this happen without a vote by the homeowners and residents??? |
| 12/1/2024 | 14:34 | 90503 | 3 | Roaring plane overhead- why??? |
| 12/8/2024 | 12:35 | 90505 | 3 | N796WW |