Supreme Court Declines To Hear East Hampton Airport Appeal

The U.S. Supreme Court this week declined to hear arguments from attorneys for East Hampton Town about the town’s claim of authority to impose restrictions on flights into and out of East Hampton Airport.

The high court’s announcement on Monday, in a perfunctory one-sentence order, means the town’s legal defense of the curfews it imposed in 2015 is exhausted, and town officials are left with only the years-long process of applying to the Federal Aviation Administration as an avenue to relieving noise disturbance by helicopters and airplanes using the airport.

“Our approach to the airport issue has always been about trying to get local control of the airport, and so we’re disappointed with this latest decision,” East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell said on Monday. “We will continue to promote local control and oppose the federal government’s stranglehold on our airport.”

In 2015, the town adopted three local laws limiting traffic at East Hampton Airport. Two were curfews, one on all aircraft and another, more restrictive one on especially noisy aircraft. The third was to limit each plane or helicopter to one takeoff and one landing at the airport per week.

A group of aviation organizations, mostly operators of charter helicopter companies that run hundreds of weekly shuttle flights between Manhattan and East Hampton, sued in federal court, claiming that the town had overstepped its authority. A judge immediately blocked the limit on the number of flights an aircraft could make but allowed the two curfews to take effect.

Over two summers, 2015 and 2016, consultants for the town said the curfews had the intended effect, essentially eliminating flights into the airport early in the morning and late at night, when they are most disruptive to residents, and reducing the number of very noisy helicopters that used the airport.

Last fall, the U.S. Court of Appeals, Second Circuit, ruled that the town did not, in fact, have the authority to impose either the curfews or the limit on aircraft without permission from the FAA.

The town had asked the justices of the U.S. Supreme Court to review the constitutionality of the federal grip on regulating airports, which is intended to prevent myriad local regulations from inhibiting aviation travel nationwide. The lower courts had said that if the town feels restrictions at East Hampton Airport are warranted, it must go to the FAA for permission to impose them, a process known as a Part 161 application.

The lead plaintiffs in the lawsuit, the Friends of East Hampton Airport, have offered no statements or communications regarding any of the recent court proceedings. Contact numbers on the group’s website are for a public relations firm that has not represented the group for more than a year.

The appeal to the Supreme Court, town officials have admitted, was always seen as something of a long shot, and last month the Town Board voted to hire a new law firm to begin preparing the Part 161 application.

Mr. Cantwell said on Monday that with the Supreme Court declining to hear the town’s appeal, that effort will now begin in full.

“We’re ahead of the game in that we’ve chosen a firm to start preparing [an FAA] application,” he said. “We have held back on their work so far, pending this decision, but now we’ll be full-steam ahead.”

The so-called Part 161 process is an avenue within FAA bylaws through which municipalities may request the right to impose new controls on flights at airports specifically to address noise impacts on residents in the surrounding communities.

“The federal government, and in particular the FAA, is incapable of managing the airport in the best interests of our community,” said Councilwoman Kathee Burke-Gonzalez, who has spearheaded the town’s management of the airport since 2014. “We need local control in order to bring the much needed relief from aircraft noise.”

The application will require the town to decide what restrictions it wishes to place on the airport and then present the FAA with data and evidence proving that there are negative impacts from airport-related noise on the surrounding community and that the proposed restrictions will address those impacts without undue imposition on aviation.

The decision to hire Morris Foerster, a gargantuan international law firm, drew howls from some aviation supporters because the firm was touted, in the legislation approving the firm’s hiring, for having won the city of Santa Monica, California, the right to close down its municipally-owned airport entirely as a means of addressing noise impacts. Following the blocking of the curfews by the Court of Appeals, a group of residents from the neighborhoods surrounding the airport began calling for the complete closure of the facility. Town Board members have said they do not think closing the airport is the proper course of action, but said that a future Town Board may see things differently.

As part of its effort to shed the strings of federal control, the current Town Board has refused to apply for or accept any federal grants for upkeep at the airport, because such grants come with 10- to 20-year assurances of adherence to a variety of FAA guidelines. Instead the board has raised or instituted new fees for services and expanded leasing of valuable light-industrial land around the fringes of the airport. Along with funding the legal battle over the curfews, to the tune of some $2 million so far, the board has used the increased revenues to push forward a number of capital improvements at the airport—including the $1 million ongoing replacement of the airport’s aircraft fueling equipment and planning and analysis for extending the main taxiway—in an effort to show that the facility can be self-sustaining without federal funding.

The State Legislature this week approved a bill requested by the town that would allow town residents to force a townwide referendum vote should any future Town Board choose to seek FAA grants for airport maintenance.

A permissive referendum requires that 5 percent of town residents who voted in the most recent gubernatorial election sign a petition within 30 days calling for a townwide referendum on the measure.

“Town Board members, who negotiate financing for the town airport, have terms that last only two years,” State Assemblyman Fred W. Thiele Jr. noted. “Therefore, it’s important that voters also have a say on these abiding agreements that will impact them for years to come.”

The bill must still be signed by Governor Andrew Cuomo for it to take effect.