Riordan Touts MTA’s Progress, Airport Plan

Even as he spent one last day mulling whether to run for governor, Mayor Richard Riordan made the Washington rounds Tuesday, reassuring federal officials that Los Angeles’ troubled regional transportation agency is back on track and urging them to focus on expanding the city’s airport.

During his meetings with top congressional and White House officials, including Cabinet secretaries, both California senators and key committee representatives, Riordan also urged them to act on long-sought tax credits for businesses in poor communities.

As he shuttled between stops, the mayor expressed confidence that the city’s message was getting through, an assessment echoed by officials on the other side of the various tables.

Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer said she was impressed by the apparent improvements at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, whose financial and planning woes have made it a national embarrassment.

“I think they’re doing a good job to restore confidence,” said Boxer, who met with Riordan and MTA interim Chief Executive Officer Julian Burke, as well as other top city staffers. “I really see a change in accountability.”

Riordan and Burke need to sell that message to federal officials in order to protect the MTA’s fragile funding.

In the budget released this week, President Clinton included $101.5 million for the MTA. That is the full amount the MTA was hoping to get. But in previous years, Congress has cut the president’s allocation. This year, the mayor and Burke hope to preserve the full amount.

Jaime de la Vega, Riordan’s assistant deputy mayor for transportation issues, said city officials were pleased about their chances this year.

“We have a lot more confidence this year because every issue that has been a problem in the past has been resolved,” he said after the morning meetings. De la Vega cited the MTA’s new management and its decision to suspend all rail projects except the subway to North Hollywood while it gets its house in order. Both moves, he said, have helped assuage suspicions about the agency in Washington.

One top federal official, Transportation Secretary Rodney Slater, called Riordan to commend him when the MTA recently decided to halt the projects, a tough move made necessary by its spiraling financial problems.

Although the MTA is a source of long-standing friction between Los Angeles and Washington, other issues were on the mayor’s agenda for the week, including efforts to secure more money for law enforcement, earlier tax credits for businesses located in the city’s newly created empowerment zone and creation of a federal task force to push ahead the city’s plans to expand Los Angeles International Airport.

That last notion, advanced by Riordan and airport Director Jack Driscoll, found an especially receptive audience in fellow Californian John Garamendi, deputy secretary of the interior.

Garamendi and Riordan spent 30 minutes discussing an array of environmental and other issues, both men seeming relaxed as they swapped suggestions for each other’s help. Each offered to cooperate on the other’s priorities, and Garamendi enthusiastically welcomed the notion of early federal task force involvement in the airport planning.

“The expansion of the airport is necessary for the future of Los Angeles,” the deputy secretary said. “It has to be done in a way that is consistent with the environmental laws, and I believe there are ways to do it that are very consistent with those laws.”

As for the task force, Garamendi added: “Whenever they’re ready, we’re ready to roll”

The proposed expansion would double the airport’s capacity over a 15-year period, and would cost $8 billion to $12 billion, a sum that would dwarf the MTA both in terms of money and economic impact to the region. The city’s unions are strongly supportive, and Riordan said the airlines will back it as well because it is in their interest to expand their airport operations.

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There is, however, some local opposition, specifically from neighbors who are concerned about increased noise, traffic and pollution. Although Driscoll said he believes those fears are overstated, City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, whose district includes the airport, opposes expansion.

Aware of the potentially divisive conflict brewing, Boxer urged Riordan to work on the local angle while federal officials focus on their part.

“I told the mayor that it’s very important to have as unified a community as possible and that it’s important for him to work on that,” she said. “He said he agreed.”

Riordan’s lobbying has also included pointed requests to members of Congress for Los Angeles to begin receiving tax breaks as soon as possible for businesses in its empowerment zone, created last month. The credits are scheduled to become available in 2000, but Riordan wants some portion of them to be offered in 1999 so that companies could begin receiving assistance more quickly. Officials did not definitively agree to that, but Riordan expressed optimism that at least some money can be found to begin the long-anticipated program.

Although policy issues dominated the mayor’s day, he was shadowed throughout by the looming deadline in the gubernatorial race. Riordan, who was bouncily airing the idea Monday, was quieter, more reflective Tuesday.

At virtually every stop of his Washington tour, officials and others tried to draw him out on the topic. Garamendi had a copy of the day’s paper with a picture of the mayor and speculation about his candidacy. Aides to Boxer joked about the prospect, and the mayor’s office had messages from business and political leaders all wanting to know Riordan’s plans.

The mayor shrugged off inquiries, promising each person who asked that “you’ll be the first to know,” then admitting that he had made the same promise dozens of times. The prospect of his entry in the race has unnerved candidates in both parties, who dread Riordan’s potential appeal to centrist Republicans and Democrats. Early polls suggest that Riordan could enter as a strong candidate, even as the front-runner.

Among those who are nervously awaiting Riordan’s decision are California Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, who has spent years seeking the nomination, only to have the mayor’s last-minute interest threaten to derail that effort. On Tuesday, Lungren ally Gov. Pete Wilson dismissed questions about Riordan’s potential candidacy with an allusion to two people who hold him in high regard: Sen. Dianne Feinstein and lawyer William Wardlaw, a powerful political insider.

Unlike Riordan, Wilson and Lungren, who are Republicans, Feinstein and Wardlaw are important figures in the Democratic Party.

“I don’t know that he wants to [run] nearly as much as Democratic cheerleaders for him want him to do,” Wilson said. “I’m not going to comment on it. I think he’s having a little fun with it now and he’s entitled to. But I don’t answer hypothetical questions.”