LAX-Area Cities Propose Deal With L.A.

Cities near Los Angeles International Airport want Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to limit the number of passengers who use the airport and cancel plans for an off-site check-in center in exchange for dropping their lawsuits against the city.

A confidential 15-point settlement proposal obtained by The Times also asks the mayor to take more steps to lessen the effects of noise, air pollution and traffic; spread flights to airports around the region; and pay legal costs for the lawsuit.

The cities of Inglewood, Culver City and El Segundo, Los Angeles County and the Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion have sued in state court alleging that the environmental studies for the LAX modernization plan understate the effects of noise, air pollution and traffic.

Los Angeles officials have already spent $5 million on legal costs related to the $11-billion blueprint. Attorneys representing airport-area cities and residents refused to comment Tuesday on their proposed settlement, but plan to meet with Villaraigosa and Bill Rosendahl, the new Westside councilman, to discuss a formal agreement. Both politicians oppose the most expensive and controversial parts of the airport plan, including the check-in center.

“We need to get some feedback from our mayor,” said Jan Chatten-Brown, an attorney who represents residents. “Obviously, the regional approach is always what we’ve been advocating with some kind of enforceable constraint on LAX.”

Some attorneys emphasized that the proposal is very preliminary. “Those points are very general and conceptual. They are not settlement points,” said Barbara Lichman, an attorney for the county, Inglewood and Culver City. “Each of the parties in this lawsuit has their own specific issues that have to be addressed in this settlement.”

Villaraigosa has said he is open to negotiations. “Yes, we would like to settle the lawsuit,” the mayor said at a news conference at LAX on Monday. Rosendahl echoed the mayor’s remarks Tuesday. “I am eager to work with the mayor and the communities I represent on a solution that stops LAX expansion and makes a true commitment to regional aviation,” he said.

Residents urged the mayor to meet with them quickly, saying they will soon have to turn their attention to drafting briefs for an Oct. 14 hearing.

“Time is growing increasingly short,” said El Segundo Mayor Kelly McDowell, who added that his most immediate concern is the plan to move the southernmost LAX runway 55 feet closer to his city. The environmental studies on the planned construction, which would move the two parallel runways farther apart and add a center taxiway, will be released next month.

Villaraigosa has said he supports this part of the plan. It’s unclear how far Villaraigosa would be willing to go to resolve the lawsuits. His predecessor, Mayor James K. Hahn, and Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski tried for months and failed to reach a legal agreement with El Segundo to limit growth at LAX to 78.9 million annual passengers until 2015.

The proposal failed to advance because of objections from the city’s legal advisors, who worried that the agreement would be rejected by the Federal Aviation Administration.

Airport-area residents said their settlement proposal would ask Los Angeles to limit passengers at LAX by reducing the number of gates where airplanes park.

But it is unclear whether such a move would be legal because federal law prohibits airport operators from constraining capacity. Airlines have also said that they would oppose such an agreement.

Other settlement requests also present hurdles.

Even though the mayor has said he wants to do away with the most controversial elements in the LAX modernization plan, including demolishing Terminals 1, 2 and 3, it’s unclear if he can do so without revising the proposal’s complex environmental studies, a process that could take up to 30 months.

The mayor also remarked this week that his first priority for the city’s airport agency is figuring out how to distribute burgeoning growth in air traffic among the region’s airports.

But most of the area’s mid-size airports cannot grow, and the airlines are reluctant to add flights at Ontario International or Palmdale, which are also operated by Los Angeles, until communities in the area can support them.

The proposed settlement also asks Los Angeles to accelerate a program to insulate homes near the flight path at LAX, study traffic after controversial elements are removed from the plan, and hire an ombudsman to work with communities.