Comment from Jayme Jonat

I submit these comments in response to the FAA notice of rulemaking promulgated on July 29, 2022. These comments specifically address the FAA’s mischaracterization of the Town’s actions and the status of the litigation against the Town of East Hampton relating to the East Hampton Town Airport (the “Airport”). First, the notice fails to mention the myriad initial issues raised by the Town’s arbitrary and capricious plan to close and reopen the HTO Airport. As made clear by Ms. Kennington-Gardiner, the Regional Administrator of the FAA, in her February 2, 2022 letter, the HTO Airport could not transform into a private-use airport with the Town’s planned noise and access restrictions overnight. Any mention of that letter or the FAA’s serious concerns with the initial process is conspicuously absent. Specifically, Ms. Kennington-Gardiner’s letter raised the issue of whether, despite the expiration of federal grant assurances, certain federal statutory obligations remained in effect and could not be ‘extinguished’ by the nominal closing and re-opening of the airport, including exclusive rights, revenue use, and civil rights obligations. That issue is the subject of a pending Part 16 proceeding before the FAA. After that letter from the FAA and three lawsuits seeking temporary injunctive relief were filed in February 2022, the Town postponed its deactivation-and-reactivation to May 17, 2022. As the FAA correctly notes, the New York Supreme Court, Suffolk County (Baisley, J.S.C.) issued three temporary restraining orders on May 16, 2022—the day before the HTO Airport was scheduled to deactivate—in substance, precluding such deactivation. Five minutes before midnight on May 17, 2022, the Town filed another letter from Ms. Kennington-Gardiner. Although the Town insists that the FAA has deactivated the public-use “HTO” identifier and activated “JPX” as a private-use identifier, it is clear that the FAA’s May 17, 2022 letter alone does not evince transformation of the airport from public to private use, particularly in light of three court orders explicitly preventing that. Instead, Ms. Kennington-Gardiner merely concluded in her May 17 letter that it would be “more prudent to continue operating the airport under the JPX identifier after May 19, 2022.” Rather than converting the Airport from public to private use, the airport merely took on a new location identifier. Consequently, the statement that the Airport is now a private-use airport as a result of the FAA deactivation of HTO is false and contrary to the explicit order of the Supreme Court; orders which were upheld on appeal. It is also not clear when the deactivation of the HTO identifier became irreversible. It seems that the Town could have stopped the deactivation process far earlier, despite its representation to the Court that continuing to take administrative steps after February 18, 2022 would not render the process irreversible. Further, the statement that the Town took steps to effectuate the Court’s order is blatantly untrue. Rather, the Town intentionally disregarded the Court’s orders and has continued its crusade of imposing restrictions on the use of the Airport. Despite the Court’s orders, the “JPX” Airport is operating as a private-use airport. As explained in certain petitioners’ pending motion for contempt against the Town, the Town has instituted a variety of measures effectively privatizing the airport. Users of the “JPX” Airport are required to utilize special-use instrument procedures to operate at the Airport that are not available to the general public. The Town is requiring potential users of the special-use instrument procedures to submit an application and is either no longer or sporadically processing such applications with the added requirement of providing proof of insurance and indemnification. The Town further purports that FAA approval of each application is required. The FAA has not said that advanced written permission and indemnification is required; rather, to permit public access to the Airport, the Town should dispense with these requirements. Finally, it is incorrect to state that the Airport’s operating status has “remained in flux.” The operating status of the Airport has been and remains public-use, which was solidified by the temporary restraining orders issued by the Supreme Court on May 16, 2022. The fact that the Town has blatantly violated the Court’s orders does not affect the fact that the Airport is a public-use facility.