Santa Monica Municipal Airport

Santa Monica Municipal Airport is conducting a contest to name a two-mile road the airport is planning to construct around its runway in December. Entries, which are due by 5 p.m. Nov. 20, must be submitted on an entry blank or letter-sized paper and must include a 50- to 100-word explanation of the suggested name. There is a limit of three entries per person. There are two categories: one for school children and one for the public.

In the wake of September's deadly jet crash, Santa Monica officials sued the Federal Aviation Administration on Thursday to gain control of the city's embattled airport, which local groups want to turn into a park. Filed in U.S. District Court in downtown Los Angeles, the lawsuit seeks a declaration that the city holds clear title to the 227 acres containing the oldest continuously operating airport in the county. It also challenges the constitutionality of a 1948 agreement between the city and federal authorities that requires the historic property and its 5,000-foot runway to remain an airport in perpetuity or be returned at the option of the FAA to the U.S. government.

The city will also apply for a $300,000 grant from the Federal Aviation Administration to install security fencing, access gates and sound walls as part of the city's 1984 agreement to redevelop Santa Monica Municipal Airport. Under the agreement, the city will develop an airport noise program, operate the airport until 2015, create a five-acre extension of Clover Park and develop about 37 acres of city-owned land.

Santa Monica is at war with its airport, and it has been for decades. Ever since private jets first rumbled onto the single runway of Santa Monica Municipal Airport ? nestled in the neighborhoods of Sunset Park and Ocean Park, bordered by a sliver of Los Angeles ? there have been lawsuits, trips to Capitol Hill and frosty showdowns between the Santa Monica City Council and the Federal Aviation Administration, which controls air traffic. On the agenda at various times: noise, pollution, safety.

Theater "Dooley" (First Stage, Hollywood United Methodist Church, 6817 Franklin Ave., Hollywood, [323] 850-6271). Staged reading of Harry Cronin's play about a war hero facing disgrace and ruin. 7 p.m. Pop/Rock White Stripes (Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, [310] 276-6168). Ingredients for success: one guitar, one drum set, add a mixture of scuzzy garage rock and blues, with a dash of mid-'60s influences. Bake under heavy stage lights.

The city of Santa Monica will ask the Federal Aviation Administration for more than $1 million to pay for improvements at Santa Monica Municipal Airport. Airport Director Jeffrey P. Mathieu termed the proposed renovation routine and said it is designed to prevent accidents and runway deterioration. The City Council voted unanimously this week to direct city staff to formally apply for the funds. The FAA has already tentatively approved an informal city request for the $1 million.

The Santa Monica City Council postponed until next month a decision on when to schedule a referendum election that could overturn its approval of a controversial office project at Santa Monica Municipal Airport. By waiting until after Jan. 1 to schedule the election, the council can take advantage of a change in the state law regulating referendum petitions, which removes the deadline for the election.

A Santa Monica Superior Court judge this week refused to grant an emergency temporary restraining order to block a controversial commercial and retail office project at Santa Monica Municipal Airport.

A home-built, single-engine plane apparently lost power as it approached Santa Monica Municipal Airport on Sunday, smashing into a family garage and critically injuring the 62-year-old pilot. The aircraft, called a "pusher plane" because of its rear propeller, barely missed a house when it crashed in the 13000 block of Warren Avenue in Mar Vista.

Santa Monica Mayor Dennis Zane said Friday he will recommend that the City Council next week rescind its approval of a controversial 822,000-square-foot commercial office project proposed for Santa Monica Municipal Airport. Zane said he will try, instead, to garner community support for a 580,000-square-foot office project that would set aside more than 20 acres of the 37.5-acre site on the city's eastern border for recreational facilities.

Harrison FORD arrived at the private hangar he uses to fly in and out of Santa Monica Municipal Airport with the expression of someone waiting in line at the DMV. It's not that he is rude or mad, there's just other places he'd rather be -- the sky is crystal blue, and for a guy who owns a few planes and a helicopter, the prospect of another earth-bound interview just isn't that scintillating. ? Munching on a bran muffin, the sinewy 65-year-old movie star admits as much: "I don't know if 'patience' is the word, but the press and promotion, it does take a different kind of energy and a different kind of commitment than making the film itself, but I'm ready for it."

While Santa Monica seeks to banish fast corporate jets from its much-contested airport, Hawthorne has rolled out a new asphalt carpet for them and other private planes. Hawthorne Municipal Airport, a.k.a. Jack Northrop Field, has just completed a $5.5-million resurfacing of its runway, part of a $25-million renovation intended to entice new air traffic and add momentum to the revitalization of the east side of the 90,000-population municipality.

Theater "Dooley" (First Stage, Hollywood United Methodist Church, 6817 Franklin Ave., Hollywood, [323] 850-6271). Staged reading of Harry Cronin's play about a war hero facing disgrace and ruin. 7 p.m. Pop/Rock White Stripes (Troubadour, 9081 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, [310] 276-6168). Ingredients for success: one guitar, one drum set, add a mixture of scuzzy garage rock and blues, with a dash of mid-'60s influences. Bake under heavy stage lights.

A home-built, single-engine plane apparently lost power as it approached Santa Monica Municipal Airport on Sunday, smashing into a family garage and critically injuring the 62-year-old pilot. The aircraft, called a "pusher plane" because of its rear propeller, barely missed a house when it crashed in the 13000 block of Warren Avenue in Mar Vista.

Did you catch "The Ken and Judy Show" Tuesday night? That's Santa Monica Mayor Judy Abdo and Councilman Ken Genser, who performed a marathon duet at the City Council meeting. The two were clearly singing harmony as they unveiled an obviously prearranged compromise they had struck over the citywide commercial development standards. It went like this: Abdo called on Genser each time a new subject arose. He offered an amendment. She said, "That's friendly." And so on for hours.

The city of Santa Monica will ask the Federal Aviation Administration for more than $1 million to pay for improvements at Santa Monica Municipal Airport. Airport Director Jeffrey P. Mathieu termed the proposed renovation routine and said it is designed to prevent accidents and runway deterioration. The City Council voted unanimously this week to direct city staff to formally apply for the funds. The FAA has already tentatively approved an informal city request for the $1 million.

With proposed commercial development at Santa Monica Municipal Airport under attack from almost every conceivable direction, city officials are now scrambling to see if the project can be salvaged at all. At the very least, the project seems certain to be scaled back considerably from what the Santa Monica City Council approved on Oct. 10--an 822,000-square-foot development composed of six office buildings of six stories each and four parking structures in the airport's eastern corner.

A experimental, single-engine, kit-built airplane lost power over West Los Angeles late Thursday afternoon and slammed into two houses, setting off a spectacular fire in one and heavily damaging a van parked in front of another, authorities said. No one was seriously injured. The pilot, a man in his 30s, walked away uninjured from the crash in the 2900 block of South Greenfield Avenue, police said. A passenger suffered minor injuries and was taken to UCLA Medical Center, officers said.

The crash of a single-engine airplane into a West Los Angeles neighborhood Sunday as it approached Santa Monica Municipal Airport has revived questions about the safety and appropriateness of a busy general aviation airport in a densely populated residential area.

Santa Monica's Museum of Flying doesn't draw the nearly 13 million visitors a year that Disneyland does, but its director hopes that the museum someday will at least be mentioned in the same breath as other big Southern California attractions. The museum, which celebrates its first anniversary this month, doesn't have flying Dumbos or imaginary flights to the moon, but it does have one of the famed Douglas World Cruisers that took off from Santa Monica to circle the globe in 1924.