Pressured by Mayor, LAX Drops Consultant

Under pressure from Mayor Richard Riordan, airport officials have dropped a consultant charged with managing public relations for the proposed expansion of Los Angeles International Airport, even as the mayor’s aides work behind the scenes to hire a friend of Riordan’s closest advisor.

The outgoing consultant, Edelman Worldwide, had been working under a $1.67-million contract to provide public outreach for the multibillion-dollar project, which is being studied by the airport staff and commission but has yet to receive approval from either the city or federal government.

The size of that contract and other consulting agreements at the airport have provoked criticism from both sides of the intense and expanding airport debate. Supporters of the expansion, such as Riordan, have complained that they are not getting their money’s worth; opponents, led by Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, have questioned the propriety of paying city money to build support for a project that has not been approved.

The proposed expansion would nearly double capacity at the airport, already one of the nation’s largest and one of the region’s most important generators of economic activity. Estimates for the expansion range from $8 billion to $12 billion, money that Riordan and others say would help create hundreds of thousands of jobs and enrich the region. Opponents counter that residents living near the airport already shoulder too much of the burden for air traffic, and instead favor development of other Southern California airports such as Palmdale.

At the airport, officials would say little about the decision to drop Edelman.

“They reached a mutual conclusion,” was all that spokeswoman Nancy Castles would say. Jack Driscoll, general manager of the airport, declined to elaborate.

But Galanter, whose determined fight against the expansion appears to be gaining ground, used the occasion to tweak Riordan.

“This is Dick Riordan’s problem,” she said. “He thinks that air safety and ground safety and air pollution and traffic congestion are public relations problems. But to the people who experience them, they’re real problems.”

With Edelman now out of the airport picture, top aides to Riordan privately have discussed hiring Barbara Yanow Johnson, a well-connected lawyer, significant Democratic Party fixture and close friend of Riordan confidant Bill Wardlaw.

According to a letter from Johnson to Deputy Mayor Kelly Martin, the two have talked about hiring Johnson to work two to three days a week. Although the letter did not specify for how long that work would continue, Johnson proposed that she be paid $10,000 a month--or more than $1,000 a day.

The letter is dated April 14, 1996, but sources familiar with it said the year is incorrect, and that the letter actually was written in April of this year.

The mayor’s office has not hired Johnson directly, but in her letter, she implied that she expects to be receiving city work. “I’m really looking forward to working together,” Johnson wrote. “I assume I will report directly to you, and will work directly with your staff person.”

The suggestion that Johnson already has been offered a job has reached some members of the airport commission and other airport officials, who grumble that the Riordan administration, after downplaying the seriousness of the LAX expansion issue for months, now is applying improper pressure on the project.

In fact, the mayor’s office has been eager in recent months to demonstrate its resolve on the issue. Riordan has been mentioning the expansion in most of his major speeches, and his aides have been working to improve their oversight of the project.

In her letter, Johnson alluded to that, telling Martin: “I agree that the contract will send a signal and serve to focus attention as to just how seriously you view this effort.”

Dan Garcia, president of the airport commission, said he had heard that the mayor’s office was interested in having the airport hire Johnson, but had not discussed the issue directly with Riordan.

“The issue of retaining Barbara Johnson . . . has certainly been raised,” he said. “It seems that a lot of talk about it has taken place.”

Asked whether he felt pressured to bring her on, Garcia responded: “I can’t tell.”

Noelia Rodriguez, the mayor’s press secretary, said there was no pressure on anyone to hire Johnson because, if a deal with her can be finalized, it would have her reporting directly to the mayor’s office, not the airport commission. Rodriguez said negotiations with Johnson were not quite complete, but that Riordan “is looking forward to her being part of his administration.”

Galanter said the discussions between the mayor’s office and Johnson were evidence that the Riordan administration is skirting city rules on the hiring of outside consultants in order to steer a contract to a supporter.

“That’s the way they’ve been doing business since they hit town,” Galanter said.

“Mayor Riordan is very fond of criticizing all his predecessors and everybody else in public life of cronyism,” she added. “But he’s one of the best examples of that that we have. . . . The nicest thing I can think of to say is that it’s fiscally irresponsible.”

Rodriguez dismissed those comments and said Riordan was pleased to be able to attract someone of Johnson’s abilities.

“The mayor is proud that he is able to recruit high-quality, intelligent, enthusiastic people who are dedicated to Los Angeles, who want to make a difference for Los Angeles and who care about the future of Los Angeles,” she said. “Barbara will be an A-plus member of that team.”