Manning to FAA: Fax it and I'll ignore it

January 8, 2011

It was as bad as communications can get.

In the complicated Hot Creek predicament that turned into the $30 million loss for the town, the California Third Appellate District Court consistently hammered the Town and the Federal Aviation Administration for poor communications.

The three-member panel cited one instance for special consideration.

Early on in the process, after the Mammoth Lakes Town Council agreed on the development project, the FAA sent (by fax) a number of concerns to Bill Manning, the airport manager.

Manning’s response was to simply not respond.

“I believed that (the FAA representative’s) form of correspondence was ridiculous,” Manning testified, according to the court ruling.

“If he had issues or comments that he wanted me to deal with, I believe he would have sent me a formal FAA letter.

“We correspond regularly with the FAA. This – the fax notes, were highly irregular.

“I just felt like it wasn’t an official correspondence and I wasn’t obligated to respond to it.”