"Everyone's Trying to Sue Us," in Wake of
Naples Stage 2 Ban
"Everybody's been trying to sue us," says Ted Soliday,
director of the Naples Municipal Airport, which has banned Stage
2 aircraft. "But every time we get in a court of law we've
won. And won by summary judgment no less."
"It tickles us when the NBAA says it's against the law,"
Soliday says of APF's prohibition against Stage 2 aircraft.
The APF boss cites ANCA, the Airport Noise & Capacity Act
of 1990, as giving Naples the authority to do what it will with-or
without-noisy Stage 2 airplanes. But the FAA ruled in August that
the Stage 2 ban at APF contravenes its language on grants authority.
In what Soliday describes as "punishment," FAA took
about a year and a half to rule that the APF ban contravenes the
rules governing agency grants. The airport has lost about $1.5
million in entitlement funding, he says, and will lose more in
2004. That's in addition to discretionary grants the airport has
no chance of getting. And, "We've had to spend three-and-half
million in legal fees," Soliday says, "and climbing."
"Less than 1% of the activity at this airport was affected,"
Soliday says, while statistics on repeat complaints show that
the ban has satisfied better than 90% of the airport's neighbors
who previously complained about noise.
"The FAA decision," says the airport, "reverses more than a
generation of careful balancing between federal and local interests
and places the FAA in the position as the judge of every local noise
rule."
APF is appealing the agency ruling.
