January 14, 2016: FAA denies City Request for Part 16 hearing.
Following the FAA determination that was published on December 4th., stating that grant assurances stemming from the construction of the runway 21 blast fence in 2003 must remain in effect until 2023 the City of Santa Monica requested a hearing with the FAA so that they might explain why the FAA was wrong and they were right. The FAA declined to grant that hearing today. We expect the city to appeal the original Part 16 decision to the FAA Administrator. We fully expect him to uphold the original determination. The city's last desperate move would then be to appeal the decision in the Federal Courts. We expect that they will in fact do that, and we are confident that they will again fail to make their case. One thing, though, is for certain–the citizens of Santa Monica will have seen hundreds of thousands of dollars of their taxes squandered yet again.