CIVIL ACTION: Airport Plan Is Invalid, The F.A.A. settled with anti-expansion group
An official document showing potential improvement projects at the East Hampton Town Airport, submitted by the town to the Federal Aviation Administration in 2001, will no longer be considered valid, according to an agreement reached recently in a civil action by the East Hampton Committee to Stop Airport Expansion against the federal agency, and decided in Eastern District Court.
The Committee to Stop Airport Expansion asserted, in its challenge to the F.A.A., and in a lawsuit against the town that was dismissed by the Supreme Court last year, that the layout plan was not properly adopted.
An approved layout plan must be on file with the F.A.A. before federal grants for airport projects can be issued. The plan submitted in 2001 allowed the town to receive a $1.35 million F.A.A. grant to repave an aircraft parking area at the airport.
In 2001, the East Hampton Town Board, under Supervisor Jay Schneiderman, agreed to resubmit to the F.A.A. a layout plan from 1989, when the agency, responding to another action by the Committee to Stop Airport Expansion, nullified a 1994 layout plan that was in effect, saying it had not been officially adopted by a resolution of the town board.
The 1989 plan that the board submitted designated the Gulfstream II, which can have a gross weight of 62,500 pounds, as the airport's "critical design" aircraft. Airport improvements are supposed to accommodate aircraft at least as large as the "critical design" plane.
The Committee to Stop Airport Expansion, including Pat Trunzo III of Wainscott, who was a town councilman in 1989, and Edward Gorman of East Hampton, its chair, said that the layout plan actually approved in that year instead designated a smaller plane, the Havilland Twin Otter, as the "critical design" craft, and said that runways and other paved areas at the airport should be built to accommodate only 40,000 pounds.
Mr. Trunzo accused the town board and town attorney of submitting a falsified document to the F.A.A., repeating the allegations to the United States Attorney's office and in the lawsuit against the town. A federal investigation found no wrongdoing.
In the settlement agreement between the committee and the F.A.A., drafted in January and finalized in April, the F.A.A. agreed that it will not consider valid any layout plan other than the 1989 version showing the 40,000-pound plane as the critical design craft, unless a certified copy of a town board resolution adopting another plan is submitted.
It also says, however, that the 1989 layout plan will no longer be considered a "current" layout plan and cannot be used as a basis for federal grants.
The current town board, which has a consultant working to develop a new airport master plan and layout plan, has said that no airport projects would be pursued until that process has been completed.
The F.A.A. also agreed, in the settlement, that it will not enforce, after 2014, certain "grant assurances," or agreements binding the town, that are usually placed in effect for 20 years when federal grants for airport projects are accepted.
Those assurances include agreements to make the airport available for public use "without unjust discrimination to all types, kinds, and classes of aeronautical activities," to allow the F.A.A. to establish conditions at the airport necessary for its safe and efficient operation, and to keep up to date an airport layout plan, subject to F.A.A. approval, as well as an agreement allowing F.A.A. officials to require the elimination of changes that are not in compliance with the layout plan. The F.A.A. will, however, maintain the power to override or correct any town action that would adversely affect airport safety.
The settlement requires the Committee to Stop Airport Expansion to drop its lawsuit and sets the terms of how the F.A.A. will respond to the group's requests for information under the Freedom of Information Act.
The matter was "settled in terms favorable to my clients," said Sheila Jones of Akin, Gump, Strauss, Hauer, and Feld, a Washington, D.C., law firm that represented the Committee to Stop Airport Expansion. "Through this settlement, we negotiated an early expiration to those grant assurances," Ms. Jones said.
However, she added, when the agreements expire, the town will still not have "unfettered discretion" on airport matters, but "will have more flexibility to address those issues." Additional federal regulations will remain in place.
Laura Molinari, the East Hampton Town Attorney, declined to comment.