Hello,

I have a complaint and feel that I was taken advantage of by the court
system in Lakeway TX. It concerns my landing a small plane at Lakeway
Airport in July, of 2004. I knew that the Airport is closed after
sunset and before sunrise but I was issued a ticket by a police officer
that didn't even know what time sunset was. I wanted to pursue it
via a local television station and see if you could keep other people
from being taken advantage of. The following excerpt is from an email
that I sent to an aviation bulletin board.


"I landed at Lakeway in the middle of July, 2004. Sunset was 8:30 pm
according to the newspaper and other official records. I touched down
at about 8:20 pm and had the airplane tied down and walking away when a
policeman came up and issued me a ticket for landing after sunset. I
told him I touched down at 8:20 pm and asked him of the exact time of
sunset. He didn't know but issued me a $1200 ticket. I had 3
witnesses with sworn affidavits as to the time that I touched down but
no lawyers would touch the case because of Lakeway's reputation of
people loosing cases in court. It is a court of record and they film
all activity so if you loose you not only have to pay the ticket but
you have to pay court costs that are extremely high. They even give
tickets to people walking in the park after sunset when signs are not
in plain sight. It's $200 by the way for that offense. This happen to
a daughter and son-in-law of a local airport resident that was baby
sitting their grandchild while their daughter and son-in-law went out
to eat. They finished dinner early so they decided to go walking in
the park and was promptly issued a ticket in broad daylight for walking
in the park after sunset. They have changed the speed limit signs
overnight and have ticketed the citizens without issuing notices. If
you land anywhere close to sunset, please have accurate touchdown times
and a camera to prove your innocence. It takes more than witnesses to
even get representation for a court hearing. I finally found an AOPA
lawyer to represent me but after talking to his lawyer friends, he
convinced me to ask for deferred adjudication which I did. Lakeway
should abide by FAA regulations of 30 minutes before and after sunset
and should install an AWOS(Automatic Weather Observation Service) to
announce the sunset times in Lakeway because they are obviously
different than the real times."

I have been on probation with Lakeway since July of 2004 and am off
this month. I didn't want to pursue any action until now for fear
that they would automatically raise my fine back to the $1200. I ended
up with 6 months probation and a 750 dollar fine. Please consider
following up on this injustice. I will do anything to help spread the
word about the way the community of Lakeway does business. By the way,
Lakeway had an official sunset link on their website that stated sunset
as being 2031 and after I was issued the ticket the link was taken out
of the website. Is it a coverup? Thanks