DieselDragRacer
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http://www.palmbeachpost.com/news/trump-sues-to-prevent-runway-expansion-811278.html?cxntlid=thbz_hm
Donald Trump sued Palm Beach County on Monday, the latest step in his decades-long war against jet planes screaming over his home, Palm Beach's ritzy Mar-a-Lago club.
The suit, filed today in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, takes aim at Palm Beach International Airport's plan to add a second commercial runway. It asks that the expansion be blocked, that flights be prevented from flying over Mar-a-Lago, that Bruce Pelly, the airport's director, pay damages.
Trump will amend his suit to also seek damages from Palm Beach County after meeting a legal requirement that the county have six months' notice of a lawsuit seeking damages, said Trump attorney Jim Beasley, who provided the Palm Beach Post with a copy of the lawsuit Monday.
The lawsuit accuses the county of ignoring options that would reduce noise to make its expansion seem necessary.
The county had not yet received the filing Monday afternoon, said Jim Mize, chief assistant county attorney.
Pelly was philosophical. "Ah well," Pelly said. "He's sued me before."
That was in 1995, also against the county and Pelly, also stemming from flights over Mar-a-Lago, which sits directly in PBIA's main flight path. Trump says noise and exhaust from the planes have damaged the estate, a National Historic Landmark.
That time, a deal was brokered. The county agreed that noise over Mar-a-Largo would not worsen, and Trump agreed to drop the lawsuit and instead build a lavish golf course on 215 acres of rented county land, a lease the county had been balking on because of Trump's legal threat.
But in an interview Monday Trump said that the county hasn't held up its end of the bargain.
"They agreed to do things that they didn't do," Trump said, repeating the phrase three times for emphasis.
He called Pelly "incompetent" and harshly criticized the plan to add a runway, which he said was a waste of taxpayer money that Pelly wanted built because "I guess he needs something to do."
The expansion, usually called a $400 million project, was put on hold in January, after Pelly told federal officials that the recession had sapped the airport's traffic so much that, for now, the expansion was not necessary. "We knew he was going to try to stop the project, but there is no project," Pelly said Monday.
But Trump's suit alleges that the county is pushing forward with funding pieces of the plan that are only necessary if it intends to complete the expansion.
Trump said that "by the time they finish it," the project will cost $1 billion. "Somebody had to do something about it," he said.
He added: "I think I'm going to save the people of Florida and the people of Palm Beach County $1 billion, which is a nice contribution that I make."
The noise of planes taking off from the airport has long been controversial, particularly in Palm Beach and West Palm Beach. It has been a Trump pet peeve since at least the '80s, when he and other Palm Beachers mounted a political campaign to finance candidates who promised to work the issue. At the time, he backed one idea not in his latest lawsuit: that the airport simply be moved elsewhere.
Donald Trump sued Palm Beach County on Monday, the latest step in his decades-long war against jet planes screaming over his home, Palm Beach's ritzy Mar-a-Lago club.
The suit, filed today in Palm Beach County Circuit Court, takes aim at Palm Beach International Airport's plan to add a second commercial runway. It asks that the expansion be blocked, that flights be prevented from flying over Mar-a-Lago, that Bruce Pelly, the airport's director, pay damages.
Trump will amend his suit to also seek damages from Palm Beach County after meeting a legal requirement that the county have six months' notice of a lawsuit seeking damages, said Trump attorney Jim Beasley, who provided the Palm Beach Post with a copy of the lawsuit Monday.
The lawsuit accuses the county of ignoring options that would reduce noise to make its expansion seem necessary.
The county had not yet received the filing Monday afternoon, said Jim Mize, chief assistant county attorney.
Pelly was philosophical. "Ah well," Pelly said. "He's sued me before."
That was in 1995, also against the county and Pelly, also stemming from flights over Mar-a-Lago, which sits directly in PBIA's main flight path. Trump says noise and exhaust from the planes have damaged the estate, a National Historic Landmark.
That time, a deal was brokered. The county agreed that noise over Mar-a-Largo would not worsen, and Trump agreed to drop the lawsuit and instead build a lavish golf course on 215 acres of rented county land, a lease the county had been balking on because of Trump's legal threat.
But in an interview Monday Trump said that the county hasn't held up its end of the bargain.
"They agreed to do things that they didn't do," Trump said, repeating the phrase three times for emphasis.
He called Pelly "incompetent" and harshly criticized the plan to add a runway, which he said was a waste of taxpayer money that Pelly wanted built because "I guess he needs something to do."
The expansion, usually called a $400 million project, was put on hold in January, after Pelly told federal officials that the recession had sapped the airport's traffic so much that, for now, the expansion was not necessary. "We knew he was going to try to stop the project, but there is no project," Pelly said Monday.
But Trump's suit alleges that the county is pushing forward with funding pieces of the plan that are only necessary if it intends to complete the expansion.
Trump said that "by the time they finish it," the project will cost $1 billion. "Somebody had to do something about it," he said.
He added: "I think I'm going to save the people of Florida and the people of Palm Beach County $1 billion, which is a nice contribution that I make."
The noise of planes taking off from the airport has long been controversial, particularly in Palm Beach and West Palm Beach. It has been a Trump pet peeve since at least the '80s, when he and other Palm Beachers mounted a political campaign to finance candidates who promised to work the issue. At the time, he backed one idea not in his latest lawsuit: that the airport simply be moved elsewhere.
