Raising Funds On Kickstarter For The Effort

ANN April 1 Special Edition (Parody)

The Santa Monica Airport Association (SMAA) has launched a bid to buy the entire city of Santa Monica in an effort to save the airport.

The airport advocacy group has established a presence on Kickstarter to raise funds to buy the city. Other fundraising efforts are planned, but it is believed that the FAA under the new Trump administration will partially fund the effort through an AIP grant. It is estimated that it would take about $10 billion to close the deal.

But taking a page from the Santa Monica City Council’s playbook, the SMAA is not waiting to actually buy the city to start issuing eviction notices to residents, starting with those who have encroached on the airport’s safety zones. An SMAA member who spoke on the condition of anonymity said the notices remind those residents that the airport was there first, and they should never have purchased property in such close proximity to the field. “It’s classic NIMBY, but what they conveniently forget is that they built or purchased homes that already had an airport in their backyards. It’s not like it was concealed by some Romulan cloaking device. All those airplanes should have been pretty obvious … but you never know.”

Once the city has been purchased, the SMAA plans to extend the runway to 10,000 feet. “Nearly two miles of runway … it gives me goosebumps just thinking about it,” the source said.

City officials scoffed at the idea. “They’ll never get it done, and we’ll fight them tooth and nail every step of the way,” said Santa Monica Mayor Tony Vazquez. But our source said that was part of the plan. “We can probably tie this thing up in the courts for decades, and in the process keep our airport open and operating. And who knows, we just might succeed.”

FMI: http://www.santamonicaairport.info