LAX as Retirement Home for the Mayor’s Cronies : Airports: Politics took precedence in the secretive selection of a new manager

In 1984, visitors from around the world came to Los Angeles for the Olympic Games and left with admiration for how Mayor Tom Bradley had marshaled our city’s resources to put on a world-class, smooth and safe extravaganza. One of the jewels in our crown, residents and visitors agreed, was Los Angeles International Airport, with its new, efficient terminal access roads and new international terminal (named for the mayor).

Less than a decade ago, LAX was a symbol of California’s international leadership in aviation and transportation policy, a gateway to the promise of the Pacific Rim and a catalyst for trade and economic growth. Now it has become a political football, a symbol of the dissipation of vision and leadership in City Hall.

Two weeks ago, the Board of Airport Commissioners appointed John Driscoll, the city personnel director, to the top post of general manager of the Department of Airports, replacing Clifton Moore, long-time head of the airport and one of the world’s leading airport executives. Driscoll was chosen to head the country’s third-largest airport despite the fact that he has no aviation management experience, in sharp contrast to other candidates for the post from the department itself and elsewhere around the United States.

The appointment of a novice to the No. 1 airport job follows closely on the heels of the effort to install the mayor’s longtime political aide, Philip Depoian, in a deputy general manager slot in the department, which also oversees the city’s airports at Ontario, Palmdale and Van Nuys. The public should know that the department’s current professional deputy general managers do not enjoy the Civil Service protection planned for Depoian.

Is LAX an airport or a retirement home for political cronies? Politics, not planning, took precedence in the secretive selection process, characterized by Councilwoman Ruth Galanter as sneaky and underhanded.

Particularly at this time of recession and regional economic transformation, it is vital that the city aggressively pursue the improvement of our aviation and other transportation infrastructure. Already, the city’s four airports account for about $40 billion in economic activity and approximately 400,000 jobs. Tourism and trade will be cornerstones of our economy in the 21st Century, but there is less and less evidence that City Hall is cognizant of transportation’s importance to our future.

While politicians fiddle, the Northside project--400 acres of vacant land adjacent to LAX--languishes, denying the city revenue it desperately needs.

For more than two years, the city has held off collecting a $3-per-passenger facility charge, which would bring in nearly $60 million a year. This money could build a people-mover and other improvements to ease ground traffic congestion in and around LAX.

This month, the city’s 40-year-old landing fees agreement with the airlines ends, and there has been little, if any, public debate about this critical matter. For the past several years, the airlines have paid as little as one-quarter the fees they pay to other leading airports, and it would be a shame if the city did not drive a harder, and better, bargain this time around.

LAX today is overcrowded, in the air and on the ground. Still, time and money is being spent on planning for its expansion beyond its airspace and traffic capacity, despite the likelihood of strenuous opposition and, probably, long and costly litigation, by the neighborhoods and communities around the airport. Meanwhile, Los Angeles has done little to accelerate the development of its Ontario and Palmdale airports. Most elected officials recognize the potential of Palmdale, but only Richard Katz, chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee (and unofficial mayoral candidate), has made any effort to actually do something about it.

We will all pay, literally, for this bureaucratic cronyism and inertia when international trade companies and tourists begin to take their business elsewhere. Opportunities are being lost, and millions of dollars are being squandered, at a time when the citizens of Los Angeles cannot afford to tolerate either.

You can’t construct an airport or a mass-transit system overnight. It takes leadership, as well as professional experience and competence, to plan and build for the future. Unfortunately, when our city requires a visionary agenda and the energy to implement it, City Hall is paralyzed by political malaise. LAX is but one casualty of what has sadly become “politics as usual” in Los Angeles. The civic triumph of 1984 stands in sharp contrast to the short-sightedness of city government today.