SPRING 2005 NEWSLETTER
GEORGIA FOI ACCESS
GEORGIA FIRST AMENDMENT FOUNDATION

Gadflies get wings
Critics of growing air traffic at DeKalb-Peachtree Airport hope the county finally will be forced to take them seriously

By Corey Dade
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

Atlanta, March 16, 2005 -- Residents who live near DeKalb-Peachtree Airport have complained for years of giant aircraft swooping over their rooftops in the cover of night and commercial airliners parked on the runways.

But tales of secret operations and hidden records at the north DeKalb County facility largely were dismissed as conspiracy theories from a band of extremists.

Now a previously unheralded lawsuit filed last year has enlivened a cause that once conjured images of mythical black helicopters and has brought unprecedented scrutiny to how a neighborhood airfield became the second-busiest airport in Georgia.

The lawsuit accuses DeKalb County of illegally concealing information about its expansion of the airport as a haven for the private jets of some of Atlanta's major corporations. The allegations bring to the surface three decades of community fears of a "Hartsfield North" encroaching on their homes.

"There is no question about it, the support makes you feel good," said Charles "Mickey" Feltus, who lives near the airport and filed the lawsuit. "But you still have to remain wary of the whole thing because we've been lied to so much. I go back to my favorite [Richard M.] Nixon quote: 'When the bastards are after you, paranoia is just good planning.' "

Officials with DeKalb County, which owns and operates the airport, declined to discuss specifics of the case, citing the litigation. But they have long denied wrongdoing at the airport. They insist they must withhold certain information --- including records of aircraft noise levels, flight tracks and identification numbers --- because of a confidentiality agreement between DeKalb and the Federal Aviation Administration.

"The irony in this case is that disclosure of the confidential information could render interested citizens with less opportunity to obtain the noise information," DeKalb County said in a motion filed this week. "In other words, the FAA may terminate the county's access to their flight track information. The termination will eradicate the county's ability to identify an aircraft to a specific noise complaint."

DeKalb's refusal to release the records has drawn a surprising rebuke from state politicians as the Georgia Senate considers restricting the ability of local governments to withhold records. Georgia Attorney General Thurbert Baker supplied the legal framework in a recent unofficial opinion that generally supports the release of airport documents.

The lawsuit, filed in DeKalb Superior Court under the Georgia Open Records Act, has struck a chord that has carried across the traditional divide in DeKalb between north and south, where communities are waging their own battles against the county in the name of open government.

Airport activists, once marginalized for a religious intensity that scared away broad support, now draw meeting crowds as large as 300 from all quarters. They have been invited next week to address the South DeKalb Neighborhoods Coalition, arguably the largest and most influential umbrella organization south of Memorial Drive.

The coalition has used state environmental records to have nearby landfills closed. Some members have criticized DeKalb County for blocking or ignoring their requests for documents of subdivisions built in flood plains.

"We want to know more about what their plight is and the legal actions that they have taken," said Gil Turman, president of the south DeKalb group. "This is not a south DeKalb, central DeKalb or north DeKalb issue. If they can slam the door on [airport records], they can slam the door on anybody."

The heightened attention has stoked the airport activists' principal allegation --- that DeKalb has ignored a 66,000-pound limit on aircraft allowed to land at the airport in order to entice larger private planes to lease hangars.

DeKalb County makes a handsome sum from the roughly 600 aircraft based at DeKalb-Peachtree. Most of the $7.4 million per year in tax revenue, hangar rentals and other fees comes from the more than 300 corporate jets whose owners include Waffle House, HoneyBaked Ham, the developer Cousins Properties and Orkin pest control.

Mechanics at the facility are in demand by such prominent figures as Bishop Eddie Long, senior pastor of New Birth Missionary Baptist Church in Lithonia, who owns a Gulfstream II jet hangared at Fulton County Airport-Brown Field.

Neighbors around DeKalb-Peachtree have spent years banging at the wall protecting airport records and developing an encyclopedic knowledge of aviation regulations and a resourcefulness for finding information. Primarily through the citizens group PDK Watch, which takes its name from the airport's official acronym, their thousands of files, countless logs of flight activity and brittle, old architectural drawings formed the basis for Feltus' lawsuit.

Many of Feltus' neighbors say their support for the lawsuit comes at great personal sacrifice. Rallies and meetings often include requests for donations to pay for legal fees. Through its nonprofit fund-raising organization, the community has raised more than $70,000.

"We are already heavily in debt," airport watchdog Larry Foster recently told a sympathetic audience gathered at a north DeKalb church for an update on the lawsuit. Foster, a Georgia Tech history professor and participant in the movement for the past 17 years, said he has contributed $2,500 of his own money. "We need $15,000 a month. That doesn't pay back what [the attorney] is owed, but it keeps us going."

To prevail in his lawsuit, under open records law, Feltus must show that DeKalb failed to respond to his request for documents within three days and that the lack of response was intentional.

The lawsuit also argues that DeKalb has evaded federal law requiring environmental studies of the noise, air and ground pollution that increasingly larger aircraft have brought to the surrounding neighborhoods.

Another claim is that airport officials have obstructed the collection of taxes on aircraft and cost DeKalb $2 million per year in lost revenue.

Airport activists believe their fight is getting attention. But at a recent gathering at Clairmont Baptist Church, the burgeoning political support for their cause was met with more caution than optimism.

"The county thinks it can use taxpayer money to fight this thing out until we can't do this any longer," Foster told the group. "I would like each and every one of you to think for a moment what it means to live in your home. What would it mean to have to leave your house?"