"City Council adopts LAX modernization plan despite legal threats"

Tuesday, December 7, 2004

City Council adopts LAX modernization plan despite legal threats 
The Associated Press


LOS ANGELES - An $11 billion plan to modernize Los Angeles International
Airport was adopted Tuesday by the city despite threats of a legal challenge
by county leaders. 
 
The City Council voted 12-3 to move forward with a proposal to overhaul the
world's fifth-busiest airport, a project that has already cost at least $125
million to develop and would be carried out in two phases. 

The first stage would run nearly $3 billion to move a runway, add gates to
the international terminal, and build a consolidated rental car center,
transit hub and employee parking lot. 

Demolition of three terminals and construction of a central passenger
check-in facility would come in the next phase only after further study
because of a compromise between Mayor James Hahn and City Councilwoman Cindy
Miscikowski and others. That stage would cost nearly $8 billion. 

Altogether, the remodeling would be the largest in the airport's 75-year
history. 

Hours before the city's green light, the county Board of Supervisors
unanimously approved a measure to sue over concerns about the plan's
security measures and future growth in cargo and passengers. 

Hahn was dismayed by the county's action. 

"I think that we've tried to reach out to the county ... so I'm disappointed
that they would choose litigation," he said. 

In October, the City Council voted to override objections to the plan by the
county Airport Land Use Commission, said Elizabeth Kaltman, the mayor's
press deputy. The commission had ruled that the proposal violated the
airport land use plan. 

On Tuesday, the City Council gave final approval to that override and
certified an environmental study of the project's effects on surrounding
areas, Kaltman said. 

Opposing the plan were councilmen Antonio Villaraigosa and Bernard Parks,
who are both running for mayor, and Jack Weiss, who said it would make
passengers vulnerable to terrorism by concentrating them in one facility. 

Supporters hope to begin construction next year, though the Federal Aviation
Administration must sign off on the blueprint before that happens. 

FAA spokesman Donn Walker said his agency will likely announce its decision
early next year. 

The move came a day after the city Board of Airport Commissioners passed a
$500 million agreement with community groups to ease noise and pollution in
cities affected by the expansion project.


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