A federal judge has dismissed a Westchester County Airport tenant”™s constitutional challenge of county administrators”™ decision to lease hangar space to one of the county”™s large corporations rather than renew the current lease there.
In the wake of Judge Cathy Siebel”™s recent decision in U.S. District Court in White Plains, County Executive Andrew J. Spano blasted the aviation tenant”™s attorney for filing yet another “frivolous” lawsuit against the county.
The head of the general aviation services company that brought the case in 2008 said the company, 41 North 73 West Inc., which does business at the county airport as Avitat Westchester and Jet Systems, will lose $1 million a year with the loss of one of its two leased hangars to JP Morgan Chase & Co. Avitat”™s lease expires in March 2010. The county”™s lease award to JP Morgan will leave Avitat, an Exxon Mobil fuel dealer for private and corporate jets, with about 40 percent of its current hangar space.
As recommended by Spano, the Board of Legislators last spring approved a long-term lease to JP Morgan for the approximately 38,000-square-foot hangar, aircraft ramp space and about 13,000 square feet of office space. JP Morgan will pay about $1.1 million in annual rent and can opt to extend the lease for 30 years. The financial services company plans an $18 million hangar renovation using “green” construction materials and building features.
“We”™re respectfully disappointed,” Michael W. Dolphin, Jet Systems president and CEO, said of
the court decision. He said the company might appeal the ruling.
The company in its lawsuit claimed county officials violated its constitutional rights to equal protection, due process and free speech during the lease renewal process. It sought to stop the county from denying Avitat a long-term renewal of its hangar lease that began in 2006, four years after Avitat began managing the ”™50s-era hangar space for former tenant General Electric. The company contended county officials”™ refusal to offer an exclusive renewal, which it claimed was standard practice, was retaliation against Avitat for filing a complaint in 2006 with the Federal Aviation Administration regarding allegedly corrupt practices by a former airport manager. The FAA rejected that claim.Â
Spano last spring told legislators the JP Morgan proposal was the best of four received by the county. He called the company a “high-quality corporate citizen” with more than 1,000 employees in Westchester and an established record as an airport tenant.
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Spano said the lease with a corporate tenant would give the county approval over subtenants, unlike its current arrangement with Avitat. JP Morgan”™s occupancy also would be best for the environment, he argued, as the company is a four-time winner of the county”™s annual award for operating the quietest fleet at the airport.
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Dolphin has estimated Avitat would bring the county $16.3 million more than JP Morgan in fuel pumping fees over the 30-year term of the lease.
With the JP Morgan lease, Avitat will be left with a long-term lease for an adjoining 25,000-square-foot hangar and office, reception and cafe space, where the company completed a $9-million renovation and expansion in 2006. JP Morgan”™s Westchester fleet of four aircraft will displace five jets of Avitat”™s corporate clients: Morgan Stanley, Metropolitan Life Insurance Co., Ernst and Young, The McGraw-Hill Companies and Madison Square Garden L.P., whose jet flies the New York Rangers and New York Knicks teams.
In throwing out the lawsuit, Judge Siebel barred Avitat from returning to court with an amended complaint based on constitutional grounds. Dolphin, though, said the company might pursue legal action on other grounds with another attorney. Civil rights attorney Jonathan Lovett represented the company in the federal case.
“You can change horses halfway through the race,” Dolphin said. “You can get a fresh horse and reenter the race and see how it goes.”
Dolphin, though, said the company”™s legal recourse is “kind of coming into an exhaustion mode.” If the JP Morgan lease deal is final, “You pull up your big-boy pants and get on with it.”
Spano, named in the federal complaint with three other county officials, in a press release called it “yet another example of a frivolous lawsuit brought against the county by clients of Jonathan Lovett. He continues to waste county tax dollars with lawsuits that go nowhere but require us to respond.”
County officials said Westchester County has spent more than $2 million dollars defending lawsuits brought by Lovett, who since 2000 has filed 32 federal lawsuits against the county. Most have been either dismissed or withdrawn by Lovett, they said.
Lovett this year moved his practice from White Plains to Hawthorne and joined retired Westchester County Court Judge Rory Bellantoni in a new partnership, Lovett and Bellantoni L.L.P. He did not return a call for comment last week.
