Clouds Over the Airpark

When Justine and Doug Turner moved to Agua Dulce 14 years ago, they thought they had found paradise. They could keep their horses on their hilltop property and enjoy panoramic views of the green Sierra Pelona Valley from their backyard patio.

Closer in, the Turners enjoyed an unfettered view of Agua Dulce Airpark, a long-abandoned landing strip with a giant red “X” painted on the ground, indicating it was no longer open for business.

Life was good in Agua Dulce for the Turners and other residents who traded the hustle and bustle of city dwelling for a quieter, more peaceful existence in the bucolic valley wedged between Santa Clarita and Palmdale.

But five years ago, a new owner assumed control of the small airport, opening up the 102 1/2 -acre property to community events, filming and aerobatic stunt flying.

Now, the field has been sold to Sylmar businessman Wayne Spears, a recreational pilot who says he wants to expand operations.

This has ignited a bitter debate over the airpark’s future, pitting neighbor against neighbor, prompting allegations of tampering and fraud in local elections, sparking a lawsuit by some residents against the Agua Dulce Town Council and prompting several council members to resign.

“It’s been so divisive that we literally have people walking through downtown Agua Dulce who will cross the street when they see someone coming who’s against their position,” said Councilman Andy Fried, who has lived in Agua Dulce for nine years. “There are people who have known each other for years, who have kids who have grown up together and spent holidays together, who all of a sudden aren’t talking to each other. It’s really sad. It’s tearing apart our community.”

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Homesteaded by hardy pioneers more than a century ago, Agua Dulce rests at the foot of historic Vasquez Rocks, tilted layers of sandstone jutting into the sky that have lured filmmakers since the early days of Hollywood. The Pacific Crest Trail winds through the gentle, green slopes, a natural haven between the booming Santa Clarita and Antelope valleys.

With a 4,600-foot runway, 10 hangars, a swimming pool and an aircraft parking area, the airpark is not much to look at.

Built by now-deceased resident Jim Annin and two partners in 1958, when there was scarcely a home in sight, the airpark now is surrounded by estates and ranchettes.

Agua Dulce became a mecca in the 1980s and ‘90s for middle- and upper-middle class professionals seeking escape from the crowds and congestion of Los Angeles but who shunned the cookie-cutter tract homes found in most of suburbia.

Situated 45 miles north of downtown L.A., the town of 4,000 is made up of ranches and ranchettes scattered among rolling hills. Horses graze in backyard corrals of custom estate homes, and the town’s two-block-long main street is home to a market, a hardware store and a handful of mom-and-pop shops. A small vineyard operates along Sierra Highway.

Residents successfully fought Los Angeles County’s attempt in the 1990s to buy the airpark and convert it to a regional airport. Afterward, the airpark sat dormant, just as solitude-seeking exurbanites discovered the sleepy town.

Residents like to describe the airport debate as a David-versus-Goliath struggle pitting a small town against a powerful businessman. Airport supporters say Wayne Spears is attempting to operate the airport responsibly, but that critics don’t want to compromise.

Spears, 71, owns Sylmar-based Spears Manufacturing, which makes plastic pipes and valves. He owns a racing truck that competes on the NASCAR circuit and a helicopter that he keeps at his mountaintop estate in Agua Dulce.

“We don’t have the money to fight Mr. Big Bucks,” said 35-year resident Jim Jennings, president of the anti-airport group, the Agua Dulce Civic Assn. “He can hire attorneys and stuff. With us, even if you hire an attorney, you have to rely on the county, and I don’t think the county has seen a development it didn’t like.”

Opponents say they are particularly upset by several activities that have occurred at the airport over the last two years: Noise from increased air traffic, including helicopters; all-night film shoots; aerobatic stunt flying and other unsafe maneuvers; flight school training; and large events, such as a 2004 Fourth of July celebration with fireworks.

Spears said through a spokesman that those activities occurred under the previous owner, Barry Kirshner, who sold the airpark to Spears in October and who was cited by the county for numerous permit violations.

Spears “wants to maintain the airpark as a local-serving airport for the community,” said his attorney, Mark Armbruster. “He has no plans to have activities, events and services that would be there strictly to attract outsiders to fly into the airport. He’s not going to do that.”

Three residents complained about “terrorism from the sky” since Spears took over. Anti-airport activist Nan Martin said in an email to Supervisor Mike Antonovich and others that she and her husband had spent the weekend of Jan. 7-8 fencing their property and “literally a hundred or more times, planes flew at extremely low altitude over our home.... It was obvious that we were being targeted because every time we changed our work area, the planes targeted us and flew directly over us.”

In 2004, Antonovich sought to have the permit reviewed or revoked. The county’s regional planning commission decided last year not to revoke the license, and the panel recently agreed to modify it, allowing for a 20-room airport hotel; 250,000 square feet of tie-down area for aircraft parking, up from 116,000 now; 55 personal aircraft storage hangars; five community storage hangars; a public maintenance hangar and a helicopter landing area.

Opponents say that will nearly triple the number of planes housed there, from about 35 to at least 100. Armbruster says it will allow Spears to better serve local pilots.

“He knows and loves the community,” Armbruster said. “He cares about the airport being operated properly and keeping it open.”

Under the modified permit, Spears agreed to ban jets and aerobatics and to open the airpark to emergency medical flight services, such as Medivac and Flight for Life, among other concessions.

The Board of Supervisors has set a June 27 hearing to review the final plan.

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Meanwhile, the debate over the airport has roiled the town.

Spears’ wife Connie was among more than a dozen residents who filed a lawsuit against the Agua Dulce Town Council last year for allegedly violating the state’s open meeting law.

In the lawsuit, she and other plaintiffs said the council -- an advisory group to the Board of Supervisors -- barred them from videotaping the panel’s monthly meetings. A Los Angeles Superior Court judge ruled for the plaintiffs, causing four town council members to resign because of legal costs and threats of further litigation. At least one council member called airpark proponents’ behavior “persecution.”

“This is a drain of personal and community resources and an all too heavy burden on the Town Council volunteers,” Councilwoman Virginia Applen wrote last year in her letter of resignation. “And I see no end in sight. The acrimony and intimidation is as strong as ever.... “

Then, in the special election held to replace the four who resigned, two anti-airport candidates were criticized in newspaper ads paid for by Connie Spears.

Controversy also dogged the Town Council election the previous year with candidates on both sides of the airport issue. There were allegations of ballot box stuffing and fraud, a situation that was resolved only after Antonovich appointed an impartial panel to verify and count the ballots.

Two of the defeated candidates in that election later signed on as plaintiffs in the open meetings lawsuit against the Town Council.

The most recent fallout came last March when Town Council President Mark Flath resigned because his colleagues refused to support a meeting he was trying to arrange between residents and pilots to air their differences.

That lack of cooperation, combined with a council member’s threat to sue the panel because its agenda was posted 71 hours before a meeting instead of the required 72, drove him over the edge, he said.

“No one seems willing to serve the community in the best interest of the community,” said Flath, a U.S. Secret Service employee who has lived in Agua Dulce for three years. “All they want to do is fight. It’s a waste of time.”

The Turners are not ready to throw in the towel. They moved to Agua Dulce because it was the closest rural area to Los Angeles without being in the city itself, and they vow to keep on fighting until their sense of peace is restored.

“When we moved here, we thought it was a quaint little airport,” said Justine Turner, an editor at Disney Studios in Burbank an one of the airpark’s most vocal opponents. “If we knew it was going to turn into this, we never would have come here.”