City Panel Backs LAX Plan

In the first City Council action on the $9-billion modernization plan for Los Angeles International Airport, the planning committee voted 2 to 1 Wednesday to endorse the proposal and send it on for further review.

The council’s commerce committee will hold more hearings today on the plan, setting the stage for a full council vote before the end of the year on the airport overhaul, which has involved years of planning and $130 million to come up with a blueprint.

If 10 members of the 15-member council approve the plan, it will go on to the Federal Aviation Administration for a final review, and construction could begin next year at the world’s fifth-busiest airport.

“It gets the good things started now,” said Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski, who earlier this summer worked out an 11th-hour compromise with Mayor James K. Hahn that postpones the most controversial aspects of his renovation proposal.

So-called “green light projects” such as a consolidated rental-car facility, a transit hub and an elevated tram would be built first at an estimated cost of about $3 billion.

The postponed elements include a central check-in center at Manchester Square near the San Diego Freeway and demolition of Terminals 1, 2, and 3 on the north side of the airport.

Those “yellow light projects” would require further review before approval could be given.

The central check-in facility has been highly controversial, with some security experts suggesting it would make passengers more vulnerable to a terrorist attack by concentrating them in one place.

It was criticized once again during the two-hour Planning and Land Use Management Committee hearing.

Edward Saenz, a representative of Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), told the council that the check-in facility represented “the world’s first billion-dollar curb” and should be eliminated.

Councilmen Tony Cardenas and Ed Reyes voted to support the modernization plan, with Reyes saying it “gets off the ground” with needed improvements.

But Councilman Jack Weiss, who has repeatedly questioned security measures at the airport, voted against the plan.

Weiss suggested it was dishonest and irresponsible to include the yellow light projects because many officials, he said, have no intention of ever building them.

“I think it would be better to be honest with the people of the city,” said Weiss, who wants to scratch the check-in center from the plan. If the council decided to eliminate the yellow light projects, officially doing so would force the airport to conduct more environmental studies, which could take up to 2 1/2 years, said Assistant City Atty. Claudia Culling.

The entire plan, including the limited improvements and the more controversial check-in center, were considered as a single package in the environmental reports. “To do nothing would mean we stagnate, we would be paralyzed, there would be no improvements,” Reyes said.

Miscikowski agreed, saying Weiss’ proposal would scuttle “the whole thing for now.”

Weiss disagreed.

“Just because someone has seen fit to crazy glue bad public policy proposals onto good public policy proposals” doesn’t mean “that the council should go along with it,” he said.

Cardenas, who chairs the commerce committee, said he planned to ask more questions today about the plan’s financing.