Blade Air Mobility and East End Hangars, which are among the plaintiffs that successfully sought a temporary restraining order preventing closure of East Hampton Airport on May 16, claim that the town is violating the terms of that order and have petitioned the New York State Supreme Court to hold it in contempt and impose daily fines to bring the town into compliance.
The plaintiffs, which also include a group called the Coalition to Keep East Hampton Airport Open, persuaded Justice Paul Baisley to grant the temporary restraining order one day before the town was to close the airport as a public facility and reopen it 33 hours later as a private one with new restrictions on aircraft operations in place. Town officials and the town’s outside counsel have repeatedly stated that the town is in full compliance with Justice Baisley’s order.
Last week, William O’Connor of the Cooley law firm, a consultant to the town, said that his firm had been asked to get a handle on the process and steps required to close the airport “given the overwhelming mountain of litigation” that resulted from the town’s announcement last winter that it would implement restrictions on aircraft operations.
Many proponents of keeping the airport open have expressed a willingness to compromise in order to maintain the airport that has existed for more than 80 years. But in a memorandum filed last Thursday, Blade and seven individual petitioners complained that while the temporary restraining order prohibits the town and its agents from “closing the airport,” “taking or continuing to take any steps to effectuate the closure,” and “implementing any of the new use restrictions,” the town “has been blatantly violating this court’s order, enforcing several of those ‘new use restrictions’ “ against Blade and others.
One restriction that was to be enacted would limit aircraft to one takeoff and one landing per day. Blade and its co-plaintiffs charge that since May 19, the day the new airport was to open, the town and its agent, Sound Aircraft Services, “require planes and helicopters to power down completely before loading and unloading passengers and cargo — resulting in ‘cooling down’ periods of up to 20 to 30 minutes before re-ignition can take place — effectively doubling the amount of time these aircraft must remain grounded between flights and thereby substantially limiting the total number of flights that can take place in a given period.”
This is in direct contrast to the terms of the temporary restraining order, the plaintiffs said. The new restrictions on loading and unloading effectively limit the number of flights to the airport and force air traffic to go to other parts of Long Island “on the eve of the summer high season,” they said.
Also since May 19, “the town has been compelling aircraft operators to meet new indemnification and insurance requirements covering the town in order to receive access to special flight instrument landing procedures, making it harder to afford to use this airport at all.”
The town, they said, also “suspended review of aircraft operators’ applications to access the special instrument landing procedures needed to use the airport in inclement weather, shutting down airport approvals entirely” before relenting. “Taken together, these new de facto limits on this airport’s use represent an all-out assault on the public’s right to access this public airport in the manner they had been at the time this Court issued its T.R.O.”
Further, Mr. O’Connor’s statement last week that the consultants were asked to begin looking at closure of the airport “as soon as legally possible” also demonstrates noncompliance with the temporary retraining order’s prohibition of the airport’s closure, the plaintiffs charge. “Thus, the town now effectively admits what its aim has been all along — the permanent cessation of this airport’s operations
— and that it intends to proceed in that direction, no matter what this court has directed. That is the definition of contempt.”
The situation “is a mess of the town’s own making,” the plaintiffs charged. The remedy, they say, is to hold the town in contempt and impose fines until it lifts the use restrictions imposed since the issuance of the temporary restraining order “and rectifies any efforts to permanently close the airport.”
East End Hangars’ memorandum, which also includes Hampton Hangars and five residents of Montauk, where an explosion of helicopter traffic to that hamlet’s small, private airport is feared should flights be restricted at East Hampton, raises the same objections. “The town and the town board have demonstrated that nothing short of a contempt citation and associated penalties will stop their contumacious conduct,” it states.
Neither Mr. O’Connor nor Jim Brundige, the airport manager, returned calls seeking comment on Tuesday.
Justice Baisley’s order to show cause, also dated last Thursday, scheduled a hearing next Thursday at State Supreme Court in Riverhead, at which the town board is to answer why it and the town should not be held in civil contempt for violating the temporary restraining order and why daily fines should not be imposed while the board is in contempt. It is unclear whether or not the board or its representatives must actually appear in court next Thursday.
