Foes of Bigger Airport Consider Legal Action

A day after a divided Long Beach City Council took a step forward on a proposed expansion of Long Beach Airport, opponents of airport growth on Wednesday began to talk about legal challenges.

On Tuesday night, the council voted 5 to 2 to accept the environmental impact report on the project.

On Wednesday, Cyndy Day-Wilson, a lawyer for the Long Beach Unified School District, acknowledged that the district was contemplating suing the city, on grounds that the EIR was flawed and did not adequately take into account a larger airport’s potential effect on schoolchildren.

“I certainly believe that potential is there,” added outgoing school board President Suja Lowenthal, who last week urged the council to reject the EIR. She said it failed to address ways to ease the impact on tens of thousands of students in California’s third-largest school district.

“The board did authorize doing whatever it takes to ensure there is proper mitigation for the schools,” added Lowenthal, who next month will become one of three new City Council members.

About 200 people attended Tuesday’s often-tense council meeting, at which council members also denied the claims of 49 parties appealing the Planning Commission’s May 11 vote to certify the EIR as legally adequate. Appellants included individual residents as well as the school district and the Long Beach Parent Teacher Assn.

At a public hearing June 13, a majority of speakers opposed the EIR. Many said they were especially worried that a bigger airport terminal eventually would lead to more daily flights.

They also said they feared that the city’s airport noise ordinance -- which limits flights to 41 per day -- would end up being challenged and that the Federal Aviation Administration would push to increase commercial flights if the airport expanded its parking for planes and cars.

Opponents of expansion also cited air pollution and classrooms disrupted by noise.

But on Tuesday night, after dueling motions and substitute motions and friendly amendments to motions, City Council members Laura Richardson, Val Lerch, Jackie Kell, Bonnie Lowenthal and Tonia Reyes Uranga voted to deny the appeals and accept the EIR on the expansion with the number of plane parking spaces capped at 12 -- two more spots than the airport currently has.

City Atty. Bob Shannon said Wednesday that the approved motion also called for “sound attenuation” on certain homes and schools, but there were no specifics mentioned on how that would be determined.

Council members Rae Gabelich and Patrick O’Donnell voted against accepting the EIR. The council then voted 4 to 3 to move forward with a site plan for a terminal project of 97,545 square feet.

John Eastman, a Long Beach resident and Chapman University law professor who had previously told the council that people wanted the airport modernized -- “not supersized” -- said Wednesday there were several legal fronts that opponents would consider in the next few days.

For one thing, he said, the City Council did not allow residents to rebut the city’s presentation Tuesday. He said Shannon had promised them in writing that they could do so. Shannon disputed this and said that regardless, such a claim would not be a valid legal challenge.

“A court will weigh the legality of the EIR,” Shannon said. “It will not be based on Robert’s Rules of Order.”