PAST UPDATES

JANUARY 24, 2024

Great news! Torrance City Council passes Ordinance to ban so-called "touch and go" training flights at Torrance Airport. At its meeting last night, the Council took serious action to protect residents and neighborhoods from the negative impacts of recurring, noisy, low altitude flight school pattern training at TOA. The vote was 5-1 in favor, with only Mayor Chen voting no.

COTAR strongly favored passage of this ordinance and worked hard to build support for the measure in Council. We applaud Councilmember Mike Griffiths, whose leadership and persistence on the "T&G" issue made this victory achievable.

JANUARY 17, 2024

Late last year the City Council denied Sling's appeal of the City's decision not to renew their business license because they did not fit within the six schools allowed based on the 1977 Resolution (they

were #7 on a list of 10 schools). Sling filed a law suit against the City for this action. Sling first obtained a TRO (temporary restraining order) freezing the status quo until a court hearing. At the hearing on January 11 Sling won a temporary injunction that restrains the City from denying renewal of the business license. A pre-trial Conference with the judge is scheduled for March 11.

It was a very unfortunate outcome, given that the judge found in the City's favor on the three key substantive arguments at issue: (a) City local authority under its "police powers" and as Proprietor of TOA to regulate the number of flight schools at the airpot; (b) no federal law "preemption" of airspace control involved; and (c) no "vested right" in an annually renewable license.

However, the judge ruled that the 1977 Resolution did not have the force of law because an Ordinance was required under the City Charter. As the City Attorney had advised the Council that a Resolution was sufficient even while finally presenting an Ordinance in December, the delay in taking action since July 25, 2023 pushed the Ordinance's effective date into 2024. The judge ruled in favor of Sling due to the effective date not occurring before the end of 2023. The City's legal mishandling caused the City to lose the case, at least for now.

The ordinance to charge landing fees at TOA has become effective. Charges will begin on February 1. First billing on March 1.

COUNCIL MEETING ON JANUARY 23rd. The next meeting will be at 6:30pm on Tuesday, January 23. While we have not yet seen an Agenda, we understand that a very important airport issue strongly supported by COTAR may be put on the Agenda for consideration. If so, we want to see a large COTAR turnout to let the Council know that we are counting on them to: Take Back Torrance Airport! on behalf of the community. We'll keep you posted as we learn more.

COTAR MEETING ON THURSDAY JANUARY 25, 2024. Note that the meeting is on a Thursday rather than the usual Monday. We'll meet at the Alta Loma Park at 7:00pm in the Meeting Room where we always meet. We want to discuss plans for 2024 and have input from you on priorities. Please try to attend so we can ensure that we represent you well. Councilmember Mike Griffiths is invited to attend. Hope to see you there.

FEBRUARY 2, 2024

Next Tuesday, February 6, the Torrance City Council will consider a staff report bringing forward the Casper noise study, one of the measures called for (and supported by COTAR) by Council in July of last year. Without going into all the details (available at the City website under Government, Council Meetings, Agenda), I have pasted below the draft version of the letter COTAR will send to Council on the subject (Agenda Item 9B). We urge you to send emails to Councilmembers calling for approval of the study, but with the changes COTAR recommends to place two additional noise monitors in locations better designed to capture noise violations.

Take Back Torrance Airport! "A Fly-Friendly, Neighbor-Friendly TOA"