Mayor Moves to Shuffle Commission Seats

Leland Wong, a member of the city’s Harbor Commission, has been nominated for a spot on the Airport Commission board by Mayor Richard Riordan, who intends to replace Wong with controversial former Commissioner Ted Stein, a failed candidate for city attorney in last year’s elections.

Early Monday, the mayor’s office would not confirm or deny reports that Wong was being considered for an opening on the Airport Commission. But late in the day, after rumors of the nomination began to circulate at City Hall, it issued a press release announcing the nomination.

Once forwarded to the City Council, both nominations could be controversial. Wong would replace Ed Manning, who was well-liked even by airport expansion opponents and Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, in part because he lived in the community near the airport. Galanter last week referred to Manning as the Airport Commission’s lone “community-based” member.

Manning announced his resignation from the Airport Commission last week. He is leaving to take a job in Sacramento.

Stein, meanwhile, is a lightning rod for controversy. Considered to be abrasive and demanding, he is disliked by Riordan administration insiders as well as critics of the mayor. Stein previously served on the Airport Commission and came under fire for his role in hiring a former confidant of President Clinton, Webster Hubbell. Hubbell has since been indicted, and one count touches on his work for the city.

The combination of Wong and Stein angered many Riordan critics at the City Council, and has raised the possibility that one or more of the nominations will be scotched.

“One is just worse than the other,” said one influential council aide. “I can’t see the council approving this, at least Stein.”

The commission shuffle underway at the airport has confounded Riordan’s attempts to move forward on expanding the facility.

That idea, a centerpiece of his second term, has faced stiff opposition from airport neighbors as well as a growing number of elected officials. A number of council members once generally supported Riordan’s proposal to nearly double the capacity of the facility. But some of them were antagonized by the ouster of Airport Commission President Dan Garcia, a popular and respected city leader, who left only after securing Riordan’s commitment to demand the resignation of fellow Commissioner Bill Dahl, a longtime Garcia antagonist.

As a result, Riordan is replacing a majority of the commissioners on one of the city’s most important bodies.

Meanwhile, Galanter has bottled up the airport’s attempt to move forward on another front, its campaign to hire a public relations consultant for the expansion effort. Galanter won the support of her council colleagues to delay that hiring, arguing that it is inappropriate to spend city money to lobby for a project that has yet to win city approval.