If you are concerned about the harmful impact Santa Monica Airport has on your neighborhood, your time to act is now.

For several years, Santa Monica Airport has operated in a manner that has placed undue burdens on neighborhoods in the City of Los Angeles - particularly West LA, Mar Vista, and Venice. Under the cynically named "Fly Neighborly" program, the airport actually directs air traffic and noise over Venice, and projects dangerous jet exhaust and pollution toward West LA. The FAA is now reviewing these procedures as part of its "Metroplex" program, and the changes they make will impact your neighborhood. I need your help today to fight back and urge the FAA not to place the burdens of Santa Monica's airport on our communities. 

Will you please sign this petition to urge the FAA to stop the practice of diverting air traffic to Venice and air pollution to West LA? 

SMO is an airport that is out of its time period, and completely incompatible with the residential neighborhoods that have grown around its borders. Its runway operates well outside of current FAA safety standards, with homes existing within 250 feet of the end of the runway. In the last five years alone, there have been four accidents at SMO, with three airplanes crashing into the surrounding neighborhood of Venice. And SMO’s current flight path, inexplicably, intersects offshore with the flight path of Los Angeles International Airport (LAX), the world’s fourth busiest airport by total aircraft movements.

The fact that SMO’s flight path converges with that of LAX has serious environmental impacts on two communities: West Los Angeles, which bears the brunt of the air pollution; and Venice, which bears the brunt of the noise. When SMO’s jets are ordered to hold and idle on the runway, awaiting an opening in the flight path at LAX, the resulting blast of fumes engulfs the West Los Angeles neighborhood that sits directly in the path of the exhaust. On a bad day, it is hard to breathe, and residents are forced to seek shelter in their homes. It is not right to force disproportionate environmental impacts on one community in order to relieve another, and yet that seems to be the only purpose of directing air traffic and noise from SMO away from Santa Monica and over Venice, on a course that conflicts with LAX.Recently, the Los Angeles City Council unanimously passed a resolution I authored, urging the federal government to stop the practice of diverting air traffic over Venice and air pollution to West L.A. I have, and will continue to advocate for SMO to be shut down. Until that can happen, however, we need to do everything we can to protect the Los Angeles neighborhoods who suffer increased dangers because of Santa Monica's airport. Will you please help me protect our neighborhoods by signing this petition to the FAA today?

Thank you for you help putting the health and safety of our neighborhoods first.

- Mike Bonin
LA City Councilmember, 11th District