Clear the Air Over LAX

Mayor James K. Hahn’s $9-billion plan for remaking Los Angeles International Airport was not attracting rave reviews even before federal and county prosecutors started looking into allegations that contracting at the city’s airport, port, and water and power departments was linked to campaign donations. It’s in even more trouble now.

The Times reported Friday that executives of an engineering company told federal prosecutors their firm lost a multimillion-dollar LAX contract after refusing to contribute $100,000 to Hahn’s 2002 campaign against San Fernando Valley secession. According to sources familiar with the investigation, the executives said a lobbyist for the company had solicited the donation at the behest of Ted Stein, Hahn’s appointee as president of the Airport Commission and an avid fundraiser.

Stein and the lobbyist deny the allegation, and Hahn has defended Stein, saying he would wait until the investigations were completed before making a judgment.

Like anyone else, Stein deserves this presumption of innocence. But there are plenty of other reasons why Hahn should have acted long ago to remove Stein and restore confidence in the operation of a vital city asset.

A highly critical audit by City Controller Laura Chick found that, in addition to making the final decision on airport contracts, Stein sometimes sat in on staff committees evaluating initial bids, a practice Chick called ripe for abuse. Hahn has since barred commissioners from such micromanagement. He also recently signed a measure passed by the City Council that bans commissioners from fundraising. Yet the man whose actions triggered both reforms was left in place to promote one of the most expensive public works projects in the nation, one that would involve billions of dollars worth of contracts.

Chick’s report was not the first time Stein had come under criticism. In 2002, another airport commissioner charged that Stein left him “completely out of the loop” on contract matters. He complained of Stein’s “autocratic leadership” and “confrontational, abrasive, disrespectful and uncivil” manner. Hahn’s response? He fired that commissioner and one other who had questioned Stein’s leadership and the airport overhaul.

We have called before for Hahn to scale back his LAX plan, which critics say would neither increase security as touted nor boost the region’s long-term economy. It is also time for fresh oversight at LAX. The widely held perception that the city’s airport and other departments operate under a pay-to-play system is bad for the airport. It is bad for Los Angeles. And it is bad for citizens already cynical about government.