The Architects of the Plan to Boost LAX Landing Fees

A ‘60s activist and a pro-business San Fernando Valley land developer are the unlikely duo behind Mayor Richard Riordan’s plan to strong-arm the airlines into paying higher landing fees at Los Angeles International Airport.

Most of the attention has fallen on the developer, Theodore (Ted) Stein Jr., who is president of the Board of Airport Commissioners. Months before the mayoral election, Riordan had Stein begin working on a plan to squeeze more city revenues out of the airport. That effort on Tuesday thrust him into negotiations in Washington with airlines officials.

But the person who has received little recent publicity but deserves much of the credit for originating the idea that airlines should pay higher fees is Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, a Yale-educated planner who is very much Stein’s opposite. She battled urban renewal developers in New Haven, Conn., in the late 1960s and was elected to the Los Angeles City Council in 1987 on a pledge to control big development.

True to his eclectic style, Riordan picked up ideas from both of them in forging the plan to triple landing fees.

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I talked to Galanter at City Hall on Tuesday about how it all started. She discussed the airport in a strong voice full of conviction. The voice is worth noting because she almost lost it in 1987 when a man entered her home and repeatedly stabbed her in the neck. I remember waiting, along with other reporters, at UCLA Medical Center to see if she would live out the day. She did, but her voice was hoarse and hard to hear for a long time afterward.

At the time of the attack, Galanter was running for the council. She won from her sickbed. Still weak-voiced and suffering from the trauma of the attack, Galanter assumed her council seat and quickly began a battle with the airlines and the Airport Commission.

Los Angeles International Airport is especially important to Galanter because it is in her 6th District. Airport officials had shown little remorse or sympathy for generating the noise and traffic the huge facility inflicts upon the community. Taking up the fight for her constituents, Galanter said she “began learning more than I ever wanted to know about airports.”

She found more than she had expected: a cozy relationship had developed between the airlines, the administrators and part-time commissioners--appointed by the mayor--who run the facility. The most visible symbol of the relationship were the frequent overseas junkets taken by the mayor, council members and airport commissioners at city expense to promote air travel and trade.

Neither the council nor Mayor Tom Bradley’s Administration supported her criticisms, but Galanter pressed ahead, proposing an increase in the landing fees paid by airlines, the lowest of any major airport in the country. Riordan adopted this stand as his own when he ran for mayor.

Most important, Gallanter authored a ballot proposition permitting the city to use the sizable airport surplus for services such as police and firefighting. The voters approved Proposition K in 1992. Riordan proposed in his campaign that the surplus be spent on hiring more cops.

Enter Ted Stein.

One day, halfway through the mayoral campaign, I had lunch with Stein near his Valley office. He is an unpretentious, pleasant man. But his quiet manner masks a certain toughness he needed to make it as a land developer and, before that, as a deputy district attorney.

I was expecting political gossip. But as it turned out, Stein had been assigned by Riordan to look beyond the election and plan an airport reorganization. He was putting it all together: higher fees, using surplus revenues for police and eventually, selling or leasing the facility.

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Stein became Airport Commission chief soon after Riordan’s inauguration, and was given an office near the mayor’s with the title of senior counselor. Airport Commission presidents of the past were always peripheral figures.

Stein’s next step is to implement Galanter’s Proposition K and begin the task of shifting surplus airport revenues to the police. This promises to be as hard, if not harder, than trying to extract the higher landing fees from the airlines. For the money to be diverted to law enforcement, federal laws must be changed. The airline industry dominates the congressional committees with jurisdiction over the issue.

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Rep. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City) have pledged to fight for Los Angeles. Berman is optimistic about getting the backing of the Clinton Administration, always in need of California support.

Galanter was alone when she began the fight in 1987. The City Hall big shots never invited her on one of their airport junkets. But what was then considered heresy is now city policy and Galanter and Stein are its architects.