Jane MusgravePalm Beach County, West Palm Beach and Palm Beach prepare to continue to fight ban on flights over president’s home at Mar-a-Lago.
West Palm Beach and the town of Palm Beach are expected to join Palm Beach County in pausing litigation with the Federal Aviation Administration over year-old flight paths that send jets rumbling over historic and pricey neighborhoods east of the newly christened President Donald J. Trump International Airport.
Since the federal agency in September announced that it plans to permanently ban aircraft from flying within a mile of President Donald Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, continuing the litigation doesn’t make sense, elected officials and lawyers said.
The petition filed in December in the U.S. Court of Appeals in Washington challenges what were billed as “temporary” flight restrictions. Many of those claims would have to be revised and some would become irrelevant if the FAA follows through with plans to make them permanent, said attorney Joanne O’Connor, who represents Palm Beach.
The halt in the litigation, which has already cost roughly $250,000, doesn’t mean the legal fight is over, she said. The pause gives county, city and town officials time to concentrate on fighting the proposal, which the FAA and the Secret Service say is needed to protect Trump whose private club is directly east of the main airport runway.
If the FAA ultimately decides to make the changes permanent, the legal fight can be resumed, O’Connor said.
“We could still block them in the future,” she said.
The proposal comes months before a yearlong runway reconstruction project will force a major change in the flight path.
Beginning next month, the main and crosswind runways will be closed at night as crews begin a $27 million resurfacing project. Beginning in February, the main east-west runway will be closed for about six months for a major overhaul, airport officials said.
During those six months, jets will use the shorter crosswind runway, which is angled from southeast to northwest. The change, while temporary, will impact an entirely different group of county residents — mainly those who live southeast of the airport.
Ultimately, airport officials plan to shorten the crosswind runway and build an 8,000-foot parallel runway just south of the 10,000-foot east-west runway.
Palm Beach residents unite
The new flight path, which was imposed without warning last October, drastically increased the impact of jets taking off from the airport.
The rules, which require eastbound jets to curve north on take-off, impact about 21,000 people who live in 11,000 homes in West Palm Beach and Palm Beach, airport officials said. Because the prevailing winds are from the east, most jets take off in that direction.
Under decades-old flight rules, which Trump fought vigorously before he was elected president in 2016, air traffic affected 2,200 homes where 5,000 people live, officials said. Further, before the restrictions, jets were allowed to fan north and south when Trump was at Mar-a-Lago, which meant no one area was blasted by the near-constant noise.
That ended when the new rules went into effect and will continue if the FAA follows through with its plans.
The refusal of the FAA to continue to allow planes to fan and for the restrictions to be in place when Trump isn’t at Mar-a-Lago are major sore spots for neighbors, many of whom bought homes after being assured they weren’t in the flight path.
A group of Palm Beach residents formed the Quiet Skies Coalition to fight the rules. They have hired experts and attorneys and are urging people to send comments, opposing the permanent prohibition on flying over Mar-a-Lago.
Like county, town and city officials, the group claims that the FAA violated its own rules when it didn’t do a study to determine the environmental impacts of the new flight paths. It also wants the FAA to restore fanning.
Further, it said in a letter to its members, a permanent restriction is absurd. “(It) should end when President Trump’s current term ends — not continue indefinitely,” the group wrote.
Nearly 500 people, both in Palm Beach and West Palm Beach, have written letters, federal records show. Comments are due on Oct. 2.
Three commissioners want to end lawsuit
County commissioners on Sept. 15 asked Airports Director Laura Beebe to write a letter on their behalf. The decision was unanimous.
The unanimity was in stark contrast to the preceding debate over whether to continue the court fight. The debate came two weeks after the commission held a closed-door session with their attorneys to discuss the lawsuit.
The commission’s three Republicans — Sara Baxter, Marci Woodward and Maria Marino — said the county should drop the legal action.
“I don’t see us becoming victors in this lawsuit so I would like us not to continue it,” Marino said.
Baxter agreed. “I feel that fighting them with no real hope of providing relief to residents is just wasting money,” she said.
County Attorney David Ottey, who is directing outside attorneys handling the litigation, acknowledged that lifting the restrictions would be difficult because the FAA is claiming they are needed for national security.
“The flyover over Mar-a-Lago, I think there’s a slim-to-none chance that won’t become permanent,” Ottey told commissioners. However, he said, rules that govern arrival and departures could be challenged on the grounds that the FAA failed to follow its own rules, which requires impact studies to be done before flight paths are changed.
Rather than antagonizing federal officials by hauling them into court, Woodward suggested trying to work with them to craft a solution that would protect Trump and provide relief to residents.
Commissioner Gregg Weiss, who represents communities that are most affected by the flight rules, said the county was forced to take legal action because FAA officials were unwilling to negotiate.
“Before we took them to court we tried to get them to do the right thing and they didn’t,” said Weiss, a Democrat whose home is under the new flight path. “The only way to get them to talk to you is to have a way to force them to talk to you.”
If the suit is dropped, residents will have no recourse, he said. “To decide not to do anything to help these homeowners is a dereliction of our duties,” said Weiss, who is running for West Palm Beach mayor. “They’re relying on us to be their voice.”
Ultimately, Commissioners Joel Flores, Bobby Powell and Maria Sachs, all Democrats, agreed and the decision to pause, not end, the lawsuit was approved by a 4-3 vote.
Palm Beach Mayor Danielle Moore and state Rep. Emily Gregory, a Jupiter Democrat who represents the town, are taking a slightly different tack. Both have written letters, asking that the comment period be extended for 60 days.
“Good cause exists for the requested extension because the proposed rule’s extreme complexity, breadth and permanent nature require substantial expert technical support to prepare a comment that offers a legal and fact-based modification of the proposed rule,” Moore wrote.
Further, she said, the impact of the revised flight path has been widespread and severe. It has robbed people of the “quiet enjoyment of homes, outdoor spaces, parks and beaches.”
The FAA shouldn’t rush to take action that will impact homeowners for years.
“These quality-of-life concerns deserve thoughtful consideration before a temporary security measure is placed into a permanent regulatory framework,” Moore wrote.
