LAX Plan’s Out, Booster’s In

If Tuesday’s Los Angeles City Council meeting were a civics class, the teacher would be scolded for handing the students such a no-brainer.

First, the background. Three years ago the City Council approved hiring Winner & Associates, an Encino-based public relations firm, to promote the expansion of Los Angeles International Airport. The PR firm has spent almost $9 million without budging hostile public opinion. Now the plan is dead. There is no new plan. And the airport faces a $127-million deficit because of business lost since the September terrorist attacks.

Now the test question: The city’s Airport Commission asked the council Tuesday to give the firm--headed by a prominent supporter of Mayor James K. Hahn, who appoints the commissioners--a $1.5-million contract extension. Should the PR agency get it?

This being not a class but a City Council meeting, not all council members aced the exam. Councilman Hal Bernson argued for the extension, and Councilman Nate Holden accused some of his colleagues of being cowed by a Times story Tuesday raising questions about the contract.

It was up to Councilwomen Ruth Galanter and Cindy Miscikowski to provide a dose of skepticism. Galanter wanted to know why the city would retain a public relations firm when it no longer had an airport plan to promote. Miscikowski expressed dismay at the vagueness of the contract. She wanted to know how the $9 million had been spent and how the firm would use the additional money. She also questioned how spending $1.5 million on public relations, especially in the absence of a plan to publicize, would look when so many airport employees had lost their jobs. “The timing is poor, to say the least,” she said.

The lack of details, not to mention the lack of a plan, only increases the appearance of political favoritism. The council itself is not immune. Many consultants hired to run campaigns work as subcontractors for the Winner firm or others like it. City Controller Laura Chick, whose office documented how much the city had spent on consultants for the LAX plan, suspects that the process of awarding consulting contracts is distressingly vague citywide, leaving the city open not only to inefficiencies but to improprieties.

Pressed by Galanter, Miscikowski and Councilman Jack Weiss, the council postponed a decision on the contract extension until mid-January, asking for more information before then. A detailed explanation of where the $9 million went will certainly be interesting reading. Still, the council action punts on a question with an obvious answer. The due date will come around again next month.