LOS ANGELES — A Superior Court judge will hear arguments Oct. 31 on a motion for summary judgment in a lawsuit Ontario, Calif. filed to gain control of its local airport from Los Angeles.
Ontario wants Judge Gloria Trask to end the joint-powers agreement that resulted in the city ceding control of LA/Ontario International Airport to Los Angeles in an acquisition agreement signed in 1985.
Los Angeles' attorneys, who want the judge to throw out the lawsuit, argued in court documents that Ontario waited too long to file the lawsuit and missed the deadline on the statute of limitations.
Ontario filed the lawsuit on June 3, 2013 after talks broke down between Los Angeles officials and Ontario over return of the airport, also known by airport code ONT.
Los Angeles city council members and Mayor Eric Garcetti have indicated support of return of the airport, but the process wasn't moving quickly enough for Ontario city leaders who are concerned about the rapid decline in airport business.
"ONT has been neglected and mismanaged by Los Angeles, and specifically, LAWA and currently is in a downward economic spiral that will not stop unless local control of its operations is restored," Andre Cronthall and Scott Sveslosky, attorneys with Sheppard, Mullin, Richter & Hampton LLP, representing Ontario, argued in the complaint.
In court documents, Ontario argued that after traffic peaked at 7.2 million passengers in 2007, Los Angeles ceased "its best efforts to attract and obtain additional regular scheduled airline service for ONT" as required by the two agreements. Passenger levels at ONT have dropped by 40.3% since 2007 to levels not seen since the early 1980's, according to the complaint.
The parties signed a JPA in 1967 followed by the acquisition agreement in 1985 that ceded control of the airport to Los Angeles World Airports, the city's airport bureau.
Cronthall and Sveslosky further argued that LAWA and its Chief Executive Officer Gina Marie Lindsey decided to abandon the regionalization objective that has previously united the airports, to focus on growth at Los Angeles International Airport.
City of Attorney Mike Feuer argues in court documents that if Ontario wanted to overturn the JPA it needed to do it within four years of its signing - and is now 40 years too late.
