I read with interest and amusement the article about the Earth Day protest over aircraft use at Santa Monica Airport (“Grounding pollution,” April 23). I’ve never been able to understand why the neighbors complain about the airport. The airport was there when these folks moved here, so they had to have known exactly what they were doing when they made the decision to live in close proximity to an airport — the noise, the exhaust and the potential danger. Now all of a sudden, they want everything to change to their liking. It’s something they needed to consider before making their move, not afterward.
I find West Los Angeles Councilman Bill Rosendahl terribly disingenuous, even for a politician. His cries that noise and exhaust and potential danger have no place in his constituents’ neighborhood — but it’s all right with him if all this noise, exhaust and danger is shifted to someone else’s neighborhood where he doesn’t have to pander for votes, like Van Nuys, Westchester and El Segundo. Saul Cohen Santa Monica
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on April 27, 2007. Read the original PDF.