Glendale Ends Lawsuit With Pilots, Pays Them $77K For Attorney's Fees

By Casey Kuhn
Published: Thursday, October 27, 2016 - 6:10pm
(Photo by Casey Kuhn - KJZZ)
Gary Davis looks over his hangar at Glendale Airport. He has two planes, a golf cart and tools in it.

For two years Glendale has been in a legal struggle with airplane hangar-owners at the city airport.

Glendale City Council voted to terminate the lawsuit and pay the Glendale Airport Pilots Association’s attorney’s fees of $77,000. The Glendale mayor abstained from the vote, as he owns a hangar and is a pilot.

The lawsuit came when inspectors started enforcing stricter Federal Aviation Administration rules about what can and cannot be kept in a hangar.

Until this summer, the FAA said only airplanes could be stored in hangars, and not things like cars, RVs or motorcycles. Now, the agency says as long as there is aircraft, other storage is fine.

Glendale gets millions of dollars in grant money from the FAA for the airport.