Panel Extends Job of Airport PR Consultant

Despite a continuing financial crisis that has forced the cutback of other programs, the commission that oversees Los Angeles International Airport has agreed to extend the $9-million contract of a public relations consultant who has close ties to Mayor James K. Hahn.

The mayor’s political appointees agreed earlier this month to pay up to $1.5 million more to Encino-based Winner & Associates. The contract extension--to be reviewed by the City Council today--comes despite the fact that the LAX expansion plan the public relations firm was promoting has been put on hold following the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

Airport staff members were so reluctant to continue the association with Winner in the midst of the airport’s worst financial crisis that they declined to sign the staff report recommending the extension, according to two LAX officials.

The contract was one of many cut by the airport staff in the wake of the terrorist attacks for services that did not appear directly related to security. But the staff was ordered earlier this month by the Airport Commission to reinstate the contract with the company run by Chuck Winner, a prominent supporter of Mayor Hahn.

At Hahn’s request, Winner was host of three fund-raisers during the mayoral campaign. The public relations executive and his family members and associates also gave more than $20,000 to the campaign that made Hahn mayor last June.

The airport agency first hired the public relations firm in late 1998 to promote the now-defunct $12-billion LAX expansion plan. Critics of the contract say the extension is unnecessary because Hahn scrapped the master plan drafted under his predecessor, Richard Riordan, and called for a new alternative that emphasizes security over expansion.

“What is this contract for?” said Councilwoman Ruth Galanter. “The Riordan plan is ostensibly dead, so there’s no reason for them to be disseminating information about that. And the Hahn plan is not invented yet. So there’s no reason for them to disseminate information about that.”

Airport Commission President Ted Stein defended the arrangement. He said the airport agency will only spend as much of the $1.5 million as needed.

Stein added that without the contract, LAX officials would have been unprepared to push ahead any new renovation plans that are completed and ready for public review.

Stein called the contract “a place holder.”

“Had we not renewed the contract, when we really needed help on the fifth alternative [for LAX expansion], we would have had to go out for a new” proposal, Stein said. “Then we would have been behind the eight ball and spent six months finding someone to hire.”

Airport Executive Director Lydia Kennard said the report recommending the Winner contract extension went without several staff signatures because employees were “on a tight deadline.” The new LAX expansion plan’s focus makes the Winner contract extension “consistent with safety and security,” Kennard said.

The mayor’s office rejected the allegation that the contract was in any way tied to Winner’s political support of Hahn.

“It’s an odd argument for critics to make that it’s a quid pro quo for someone that has been on contract and working for the airport for a number of years,” said Deputy Mayor Matt Middlebrook.

“In our view, it would be a serious mistake and a waste of a lot of institutional knowledge to change horses midstream,” Middlebrook said, “in terms of dealing with something as complex as coming up with a plan for the future for LAX.”

But airport staff members have cast an unusually critical eye on all contracts since Sept. 11. The airport faces a $127-million deficit in the current fiscal year with the contraction of air travel and spiraling security costs.

Airport staff members had cut many consulting contracts, including Winner’s, from the budget. At a meeting earlier this month in Van Nuys, that position was reconsidered.

Stein tried to downplay the cost of the extension by pointing out that funding for the contract was already in the budget.

But Karen Sisson, the airport’s chief financial officer, reported that $750,000 for the Winner contract had already been cut from this fiscal year’s budget. (The other half of the contract’s funding will come from the budget for the next fiscal year, which starts July 1.)

“These funds do not exist,” Sisson said. “Therefore, we would need to allocate the full $1.5 million.”

Several subcontractors who worked for Winner on the airport contract privately expressed concern about the firm’s management style and the quality of work the airport received for its multimillion-dollar investment.

One subcontractor, who asked to remain anonymous, described feeling “guilty, truly guilty,” for accepting payment for services Winner asked him to provide because so little real work was done.

“People who didn’t get this contract wish they would have gotten it. It would be your dream contract,” the subcontractor said.

The airport’s relationship with the public affairs firm began in December 1998, when the Airport Commission voted to award Winner a $3.2-million contract to promote Riordan’s controversial master plan. Winner farmed out many of these duties to dozens of subcontractors.

The commission eventually approved a total of five amendments to the Winner contract, bringing the total contract to about $9 million.

Winner and his associates reject allegations that their firm and its subcontractors did not earn the millions of dollars paid out by the airport agency for their services.

“Anyone who’s making that accusation doesn’t know me--that’s flat-out wrong,” Winner said. “If we weren’t doing a good job, I promise you no one would be coming back to us.”

The company prepared speeches for airport agency staff, placed advertising in newspapers and on local television and radio stations. All the efforts were designed to increase public knowledge about plans to expand LAX.

The firm also wrote news releases and brochures for the master plan and synthesized 12,000 pages of environmental and technical analysis to write the executive summary for the master plan’s environmental impact report, said Bob Rawitch, a vice president at Winner & Associates who worked on the contract.

But critics say it’s tough to measure what the firm has accomplished because its duties are vague and aren’t cataloged by the airport agency or the commission.

“It was a political act that awarded it,” Galanter said, “not a professional need.”

Many political observers say it’s unlikely, however, that the City Council will kill the Winner contract. Many of the subcontractors who have worked with the PR firm are consultants who have run political campaigns for council members.