Category: Grants

City poised to take MORE FAA Grant Money

Since 2004, the airport has accepted $347 million in federal grants.

Mayor Rex Richardson has stated that the City’s “hands are tied” but said they will attempt to get senators and members of Congress to “back them up.” 

Last year SANeR members attended the City Hall meeting “explainer” of airport operations and were told that basically there is nothing they can do to mitigate the noise, adjust the noise ordinance, or even to reduce the number of flight schools operating out of LGB due to grant monies accepted from the FAA.

Next Tuesday, Council has placed another FAA Grant opportunity on the agenda. Item 25.

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While this “grant opportunity” is for the purchase of six electric vehicles and charging stations, it still will increase the FAA grant obligation burden on LGB by nearly one million dollars! Grant obligations have a twenty year lifespan. If we ever want to regain some modicum of control over the operations at LGB, we need to have a serious discussion about FAA grant money that is accepted on behalf of the Long Beach Airport.

This item has been placed on the “Consent Calendar” which means it is one of a list of items that will be passed without ANY DISCUSSION AT ALL at next week’s Council meeting. In order for a discussion to take place, a councilmember would have to move that it be removed from the consent calendar and placed on the regular agenda.

To comment on this item( agenda item 25), write to all CM’s, include the City Clerk and request that your response be submitted as part of the public record.

You can also submit an ecomment here before 4 PM next Tuesday 8/13/2024.

It is SANeR’s position that we would like the City to pause all applications and acceptance of FAA grant monies until further notice. We think that a discussion is part of transparency. Shouldn’t there at LEAST be a discussion?

Grant Opportunity!

SANER is working to expand our reach and we are adding new members/followers every day. More and more people from other neighborhoods are reaching out to us asking about General Aviation noise and lead pollution above their homes here in Long Beach.
To more effectively reach impacted residents and assess their health, safety, and noise concerns, SANeR wants to launch an outreach project via direct mail.
In order to fund this effort, SANeR is looking at possible grant funding.


As it turns out, there is a grant opportunity right here in Long Beach funded by fines collected from Noise Ordinance violations! This grant, titled Airport Noise Ordinance Neighborhood Impact Fund is administered by the Long Beach Community Foundation who distribute the fine monies once a year.
A small committee has worked on the grant application which is due this week.


The Airport Noise Ordinance Neighborhood Impact Fund states the following purpose:



GRANT PURPOSE
The Airport Noise Ordinance Neighborhood Impact Fund was funded with fines paid by certain airlines that have violated flight path noise restrictions at the Long Beach Airport. These charitable dollars can be used to fund projects that improve or benefit residents under the flight paths who are most impacted.

The borders of the flight path (as noted on this map within the black area) are meant to serve as a guide to show the most impacted areas.

Examples of worthy projects include public area improvements that benefit the impacted residents, community gatherings, neighborhood festivals, and nonprofit programming benefiting residents within the flight path, just to name a few. The more people benefitting in an area under the flight path, the better. Projects that work to gather people together to encourage neighborliness are prioritized.

Past grantees can be found here. The Foundation only list grant recipients up to 2021 and we are looking forward to seeing their page updated.

We are just about ready to submit our application. Wish us luck!

In Airport related news, Long Beach Airport celebrated the reopening of its historic terminal building (read more here). Next time you are at LGB, give it a look!