The Business Buzz in the Region? Read On--and Write In as Well

Southern California is a hotbed of economic activity, where trends begin, new companies emerge, people with ideas try them out.

To better capture the buzz, the constant conversation of this region, this column, starting today, will occasionally illuminate several subjects, giving readers more of the business and economic news, insights, company developments and local happenings in the eight-county Southern California region.

We invite you to feed us information from Imperial, Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino, San Diego, Santa Barbara and Ventura counties.

A New Labor Force . . . Southern California’s hopes for expanding its infrastructure are going to have to go through one man: Miguel Contreras, executive secretary of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

Contreras and organized labor have gained enormous political clout as a result of Democratic gains in this year’s election. As reported by Ted Rohrlich in today’s Metro section, Contreras vows that any project built with the aid of public money will have to pay “living wages” and allow unions to try to organize their janitorial, catering and other service staffs.

Living wage is the labor-backed policy proposed for the new City Charter that stipulates minimum pay of $7.50 an hour with benefits, or $8.75 without benefits. Labor has already won the fight for that policy at the forthcoming Staples Arena and a major TrizecHahn project in Hollywood, but apparel manufacturers fear it will drive them from the region.

Significantly, Contreras is a member of the governing Commission of Los Angeles International Airport, appointed to that post earlier this year by Mayor Richard Riordan.

Contreras’ support can help win approval in the City Council and in state and federal agencies for a $12-billion expansion of LAX, with service employee unions getting living wage and organizing rights as part of the bargain.

And that should be of interest throughout the region because LAX looks to be the airport for all of Southern California. Certainly Orange County residents want it to be.

Will Orange Remain Aloof or Aloft? . . . A new survey of Orange County attitudes by UC Irvine economist Mark Baldassare reveals that by a clear plurality--48% to 41%, with 11% undecided--county residents oppose the building of an international airport at El Toro Marine Corps Air Station.

An equal percentage say that John Wayne Airport in Costa Mesa should remain the county’s only airport. That means, in effect, that O.C. folks choose LAX as their main airport because John Wayne is operating at capacity now and prevented by law from expanding.

LAX can grow roughly 20%, to 70 million passengers a year, on its present configuration but is planning to grow by 40 million passengers, and to more than double its cargo intake, to accommodate the traffic growth projected for Southern California.

Will Orange County really be able to let Los Angeles and other counties take both the annoyance of airport noise and the advantages of increased business that airports confer?

Perhaps not. El Segundo and other communities neighboring LAX are preparing legal war chests to fight the airport’s expansion. They are calling for a “regional solution” to air traffic. And so are O.C. businesspeople, in a group called Citizens for Jobs and the Economy. They are holding a luncheon Monday at the Hyatt Regency in Irvine, where they will hear Riordan lecture them on regional needs and air traffic realities.

San Diego, which sends 100 flights a day to LAX full of passengers bound for international and national destinations, is awakening to its need to accommodate new business. The city is refurbishing Brown Field, a small municipal airport in Otay Mesa, to serve increased passenger and freight traffic with Rodriguez Field in Tijuana.

The message clearly is that Southern California is an interrelated global community, not a collection of suburbs.

L.A.’s New Clout as a Diplomatic Center . . . A 31-member delegation of officials from China will visit Los Angeles on Monday for the purpose of contacting investors from Taiwan.

The officials, many of whom are involved in Beijing’s Center for Economic, Scientific and Technical Cooperation with Taiwan, are being hosted by Far East National Bank, a longtime Los Angeles institution that is now owned by Bank Sinopac of Taipei, Taiwan.

Los Angeles’ diplomatic usefulness is fascinating: Such a delegation traveling to Taiwan to meet potential investors would make international headlines. But in Los Angeles, such a meeting is an almost routine part of the region’s commerce.

New LAMP’s Sunset Mirrors Decline of Big Companies . . . The new Los Angeles Marketing Partnership, which helped rebuild the image of the city and the region, is closing as originally planned after five years of operation.

When it was founded in 1993, recalls Regina Birdsell, New LAMP’s executive director, it was backed by big companies such as Bank of America, First Interstate, Pacific Telesis and Wells Fargo that are now merged out of existence or under new, out-of-state management.

Los Angeles’ new marketing effort, which will be carried on by the Economic Development Corp., will work with organizations such as the Toy Council and the Food Industry Business Roundtable that represent the region’s entrepreneurial small businesses.

Wells Fargo in Better Touch Than Bank of America? . . . Wells Fargo (acquired by Minneapolis-based Norwest Bancorp) is building up an economics department in San Francisco, headed by Norwest’s economist, Sung Won Sohn, who will move to California if he can find an affordable house. BankAmerica (acquired by Charlotte, N.C.-based NationsBank) is cutting economic staff in California but retaining economic departments in New York and Charlotte.

Please send me information that could work in this column. E-mail to jim.flanigan@latimes.com or send a fax to (213) 237-4712. I will phone you back!