RE: Rivals Trade Jabs Regarding Economic Impact of Santa Monica Airport
 
October 3, 2014 -- It’s unfortunate – sad, really – that this story again lumps together aviation business and non-aviation businesses at SMO to calculate its economic impact.
 
The Washington lobbyists financing Measure D want you to think SMO’s economic impact comes strictly from aviation. The truth, however, is right there in the HR&A report:  the 178 aviation-related jobs comprise just 20 percent of the airport campus’s total jobs.

Aviation’s economic impact is actually even less, because the report’s formula for calculating supporting jobs is applicable only to large airports that bring in hundreds of passengers daily.
      
That is why City Manager Rod Gould rightfully said "the airport," i.e. flight operations, brings in far less than the pro-D people claim. For their own purposes, they use the figure for aviation plus all the non-aviation businesses that make up 80 percent of the total.
 
Measure D would block the city's control of its own city-owned land, potentially costing taxpayers millions by preventing Santa Monica from managing its leases or regulating sales of toxic leaded fuel.
 
Measure LC would guarantee your elected officials could continue managing SMO and that IF the aviation activity went away, the art studios, law offices, production offices, Barker Hangar, the Museum of Flying, et al, would remain.

The old aviation land could be used only for parks, playing fields and recreation. Only voters could change that – the City Council could not.
 
That is why the League of Women Voters, Santa Monica Next, the Santa Monica Democratic Club, SMRR, Residocracy, Santa Monica-Malibu Council of PTAs, neighborhood associations and every serious City Council candidate have endorsed Yes on LC, No on D.

-John Fairweather
Community Against Santa Monica Airport Traffic (CASMAT) Chair