Name: Sarah S
Comment - 06/12/2025 08:28 PM: ( Against )
Mayor Chen and Honorable Councilmembers:
I am writing to express my deep outrage and sense of betrayal over the proposed ordinance amendment (Agenda Item 10B) that would repeal hard-won protections against touch-and-go and other training operations at Torrance Airport. This proposal does not reflect the will of Torrance residents. It reflects pressure from special interest aviation lobbyist groups who continue to operate with little to no regard for community impact.
The City and its residents already fought and won this battle. Ordinance 3930 was passed with overwhelming public support and a clear goal: to protect our community from constant disruption, danger, and environmental harm. At the time, we were shown the City stood with us. So why are we now being asked to sacrifice our peace, health, and safety again just to avoid a lawsuit? As a reminder, we have already been through this. A 10:00 a.m. – 6:00 p.m. weekdays-only compromise on touch-and-go and other training operations was considered and rightly rejected by the Council in favor of a full ban, because even a limited window failed to adequately protect residents from the relentless frequency, noise, and safety concerns caused by low-altitude training flights. Now, the City is not only revisiting a flawed proposal, but worsening it by allowing such operations on Saturdays.
The proposed hours (Monday – Friday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m. and Saturdays, 11 a.m. – 2:30 p.m.) still allow for noise nuisance during peak residential quiet times, especially on Saturdays. That’s not a reasonable compromise.
It’s a dangerous rollback of the protections we fought so hard to secure, serving private aviation interests at residents' expense.
Furthermore, enforcement is already failing. Despite the full ban still being in place, touch-and-go and other training activity has noticeably increased in recent weeks, demonstrating a clear lack of accountability. If airport users are violating the ban now, how can we trust them to comply with what’s being proposed? Let’s be clear:
· The City is the owner and operator of the airport.
· You are under no federal obligation to allow training operations. · You have the authority, and furthermore the responsibility, to protect your residents of Torrance.
If a settlement is truly unavoidable, the current proposal is far too lenient. Any amended ordinance must be more restrictive:
• Limit all touch-and-go and other training operations to Monday – Friday, 11:00 a.m. – 2:30 p.m. • Prohibit said operations on all weekends and holidays. • Update landing fees to escalate with repeated same-day landings to reduce airspace congestion and abuse.
• Implement visible enforcement, with real penalties for violations.
The community deserves clear, lasting protections from noise and safety risks, not just compromises born out of legal pressure. You were elected to serve the people of Torrance, not out-of-town pilots and flight schools who profit at our expense.
10. ADMINISTRATIVE MATTERS
10A. Police – Renew Ordinance 3902 Approving the Military Equipment Use Policy. Expenditure: None. 10B. City Attorney – Discuss and Consider Adopting an ORDINANCE Amending the Torrance Municipal Code Regulating Touch (and Stop) and Go, Full Stop-Taxi Back, and Low Approaches at the Torrance Municipal Airport and Adopt California Environmental Quality Act Exemption. Expenditure: None. 1 PUBLIC COMMENT REPORT FOR
AGENDA ITEM 10B
We should not be asked to sacrifice our quality of life, safety, and peace of mind to appease special interest groups. We’ve already compromised enough. Please do not undo the protections we fought so hard to win.
Please uphold Ordinance 3930. Do not cave under pressure. Do not betray our trust.
Reject Agenda Item 10B and keep the ban in place. Put Torrance residents first.
Sincerely,
Sarah S.
Torrance Resident & Voter
P.S.
Some food for thought: If the City does not uphold the ban, it will lead to louder calls for complete airport closure. That’s not what we want, but peace is what we need. As the airport’s owner and operator, the City could decide to close the facility to private hobbyists and flight schools, while allowing only essential services like the helipad to remain. We hope it doesn’t come to that, but if you won’t protect us through meaningful restrictions we may be left with no other option.
Name: Yi Wang
Comment - 06/15/2025 08:18 PM: ( No Vote )
Please not to amend the existing Touch and Go (T&G) ban. That will cause great harm to residents. We oppose this settlement that will force residents to suffer safety, noise and pollution problems from repetitive, low altitude training flights over our homes.
Name: Mike Griffiths
Comment - 06/16/2025 01:40 AM: ( Against )
Unfortunately, I am out of town and won’t be back in time to attend this council meeting to speak on this important issue.
As the Councilmember that a year and a half ago led the City Council to make changes at our airport to successfully protect our residents, I am strongly opposed to the City voluntarily rolling back any of those changes that were approved. Specifically, rolling back the ban on touch-and-go’s will allow the return of significant noise and safety concerns of residents living around the airport. Our job as Councilmembers is to represent and protect the best interests of our residents. As a former Councilmember, unfortunately, I no longer have a vote on this matter. What I can say is that if I were still on the Council today, I would be voting to take EVERY action to fight this rollback. Settling should NOT be the option of choice! Fighting this lawsuit with every ounce of energy IS the RIGHT thing to do. This is what our residents deserve. Too often, I have seen the City choose the path of settling rather than fighting. I’d rather risk going to court with the associated legal expenses than settle in a way that will negatively impact our community.
Our residents deserve this. The expense, even if ultimately lost, would at least show our residents that our City will stand up strongly to protect them. And, based on the analysis by Daniel Will of COTAR (emailed/transmitted to you separately), it sounds like there could be a strong possibility that the City would win and keep the touch-and-go ban in place. You’ll never know unless you continue the fight. Again, our residents deserve this! The airport enterprise fund plus the new landing fee revenue can afford to pay for this legal expense. Please vote NO on this revision to our airport ordinance.
Respectfully,
Mike Griffiths, Torrance Resident and former Councilmember for District 6
Name: Chuck Costello
Comment - 06/16/2025 11:42 AM: ( Against )
TACO, TACO, Taco.....Torrance Always Chickens Out. Don’t chicken out this time and accept a settlement that is very bad for thousands of Torrance residents. After long consideration, little more than a year ago Council adopted a ban on touch-and-go flights that has significantly improved quality of life for the community. It is legally 2 defensible – defend it! No federal law, ANCA or otherwise, compels the City to lift the ban. Take a closer look at the legal issues of the case and change your mind about approving a new ordinance tonight. At the very least, defer action. Don’t rely on legal advice that is not accurate as your reason for making bad policy for the City.
You own the airport and have legal authority to regulate flight operations. You are not attempting to regulate aircraft in the air during flight. Even the terms of the proposed settlement call for prohibiting T&Gs at certain hours and on certain days, a clear recognition that discretionary local authority exists to do so. Be willing to fight to retain local control of TOA, don’t give it up in a bad settlement.
And don’t settle one lawsuit to buy another, maybe worse. CEQA clearly applies to the facts of this situation. The recommended exemption is not applicable and will be challenged in court. Changing the legal status quo (current reality at TOA, not some invalid reference to a 1990 ordinance) by allowing T&G flights will have an obvious, immediate, significant negative impact on the environment from the noise and lead pollution. Don’t accept the City Attorney’s incorrect interpretation of CEQA here (remember he was wrong at first last time and reversed himself).
Finally, don’t take actions that will cause residents to lose support for keeping open an airport in Torrance that serves so few.
Chuck Costello, COTAR
Name: Joshua Sedaghat
Comment - 06/16/2025 03:32 PM: ( Against )
Honorable Mayor and Members of the City Council:
I am deeply saddened and angered to see this ordinance/agenda item 10B being considered. Implementing the touch- and-go ban provided much-needed peace and balance for Torrance residents. The proposed settlement is not a compromise; it is the city being beaten down by the pilots and giving up on its residents.
You must not settle! You have every right to ban touch-and-go landings at Torrance Airport. Precedent has already been set by other airports like the Compton/Woodley Airport (CPM) and Clearwater Airport in Florida (CLW), where they have successfully banned touch-and-go landings. Torrance must follow in their footsteps to protect their residents. Settling will not be sufficient for your constituents and will only cause further conflict.
You own the land, you own the runways, and you are NOT federally preempted. While you cannot dictate what happens in the air, you CAN control what happens on your land, including any landing/takeoff policies. So I implore you to exercise your right to do so - DO NOT SETTLE. Touch-and-go operations must remain banned!
I would also challenge the claim that amending the existing ordinance would be exempt from completing a CEQA Environmental Impact Review. Amending the ordinance would result in significant environmental changes, namely noise and air quality. We’d go from 0 allowable touch-and-go hours to 43.5 hours a week. That would significantly increase operations, dramatically increasing flight volume above noise-sensitive land and increasing exposure to lead pollution. Even in his own analysis, the city attorney states that touch-and go operations had increased dramatically before the ban, disturbing residents while posing safety and quality of life concerns. Yet he follows that up by claiming that the proposed amendments (which severely loosen training restrictions) would not cause significant environmental changes?!
It appears the city attorney has also based this exemption claim on a comparison between the proposed ordinance and historic conditions that existed before the adoption of the touch-and-go ban. This is an incorrect application of CEQA law – the proposed change should instead be evaluated against current, existing environmental conditions, not 3 past conditions that no longer exist. In this case, the current baseline condition at Torrance Airport is the absence of touch-and-go operations, per the City’s enacted ordinance. Any change that permits and results in a foreseeable increase in aircraft operations, noise, or related environmental impacts compared to that existing baseline constitutes as an environmental impact under CEQA.
By relying on pre-ban operating conditions as the baseline, the City risks making a legally flawed determination of environmental insignificance and improperly exempting the project from CEQA review. This opens the City to potential litigation and undermines public trust in the environmental transparency CEQA is designed to uphold. If this change to the ordinance is approved, the City must first perform its due diligence by following CEQA protocol BEFORE implementing an updated ordinance.
Finally, if a change to the ordinance is completely unavoidable, the proposed allowable time windows for touch-and-go landings must be more limited. Eight hours on weekdays, and any time at all on weekends, are far too disruptive. To be more balanced, the restrictions should allow 2-3 hours during weekdays (e.g., 11 am—1 or 2 pm) and be prohibited entirely during weekends.
Joshua S.
Resident and Voter
Name: Jason Mills
Comment - 06/16/2025 05:21 PM: ( Against )
Dear Directors and Mayor Chen,
As Torrance residents of 30 years living on the riviera hillside at the west end of the runway (take off side), our basic quality of life had become nearly unlivable by the incessant and abusive touch and go training loops that went on unchecked directly over our roof for a few years while the war raged on between the pilots and affected residents. The changes you have adopted on behalf of all of us on the ground who had suffered daily was a Godsend and finally brought peace back to our lives and we remain extremely grateful to you for that.
It is being said that Touch and Go training might be allowed once again and this is absolutely devastating news to so many of us. Please do not forget the all-out war that will commence immediately should this be allowed, with you all right in the middle, and all of us residents being subjected once again to continuous noise and air pollution so that a VERY SMALL GROUP OF PRIVATE BUSINESS CAN PROFIT FROM OUR MISERY.
Torrance is NOT the place for this kind of intensive training activity, and I urge and beg you to NOT amend the current rules and open the floodgates once again. Please do the right thing for your residents and keep the current ordinances in place.
Sincerely yours,
Jason Mills
Name: Hans Wang
Comment - 06/16/2025 07:09 PM: ( No Vote )
Pls don’t allow these , it will bring noise , pollution and safety problem to the residents. 4