NEWS ANALYSIS : Pro-Business Image of Mayor Hits Turbulence

Whatever happened to Los Angeles’ pro-business mayor?

On Sunday, Richard Riordan told a national television audience that the airline industry has told “lie after lie” in its dispute over fees it pays to land at Los Angeles International Airport. That may have topped the time he called the airlines “mismanaged and inefficient . . . and addicted to steep public subsidies.”

Critics say those harsh words and the mayor’s threat to close LAX this Saturday to airlines that refuse to pay higher landing fees fly in the face of one of his central campaign themes--promoting private business by reducing fees and regulation.

But Riordan backers contend his tough stance falls squarely in line with his campaign promise to impose stringent management standards on city operations, including the city’s Department of Airports.

The two sides do agree on one point, that the Riordan Administration has gone after the airlines far more aggressively than predecessor Tom Bradley and his assistants ever would have.

“I don’t think Mayor Bradley would have been as intimidating or as arrogant,” said one airline executive, who asked not to be named. Said one lobbyist familiar with airport issues: “Mayor Bradley would have moved with a much more conciliatory attitude.”

Appearing at a luncheon Tuesday in Studio City--hours before the city and the airlines reached a tentative settlement that will avert a shutdown--Riordan said his hard line does not contradict his pro-business sentiments, but is merely designed to bring the city fees in line with those charged at other big city airports.

“We’re just trying to even out the playing field,” Riordan said. “These fees were handed down during the (Bradley) Administration. I just supported them.”

Riordan and his deputies are fond of describing the Airport, Harbor and Water and Power departments as the city’s “revenue centers.” They have been busily drawing plans to try to maximize income from all three city operations for potential future diversion to the Police Department.

“Being pro-business does not mean wilting in the face of controversy,” said Deputy Mayor Michael Keeley, who oversees operations in the three semi-independent departments. “As a business-minded mayor, (Riordan) has pledged above all to manage the city’s businesses effectively and efficiently. Sometimes that means that you have to take a tough position and stick to it.”

Keeley and others say this can be done without harming the airlines, which for more than 25 years have enjoyed landing rates at LAX that were among the lowest in the nation.

Observers said Bradley would likely have called in an arbitrator or convened high-level talks with airport executives to resolve the disagreement.

One executive said the airlines have been treated “as some sort of ugly sister” by the Riordan Administration instead of credited as one of the major economic engines for Los Angeles and Southern California.

Ada Brown, Southern California director for a travel agents association with 23,000 national members, agreed. “I’m surprised at his shortsightedness,” Brown said of Riordan. “He is ignoring the fact that this is really a tax on the traveling public.

“And when they talk about closing the airport,” she added, “the negative effect that would have on Southern California, and on every industry here, it is tremendous.”

A dissident official within the city’s Department of Airports agreed.

“This is a regional facility that just happens to be owned by the city,” the official said. “It’s the largest single economic generator in the county and maybe in California, and they are doing nothing to encourage the development of the airport.”

Sympathizers of this viewpoint said that LAX under the Bradley Administration was one of the best-run airports in the nation, where the airlines and city cooperated to the benefit of both. “They have destroyed the system,” the disgruntled airport official complained of the Riordan regime.

But, beginning more than a year before Riordan took office, City Councilwoman Ruth Galanter had begun to criticize the “cozy” relationship between the airport and airlines. “It seemed to me there was no reason we should continue to subsidize the airlines,” Galanter said this week.

Galanter last year persuaded the City Council to place on the ballot a measure, approved by voters, that would allow diversion of airport money to the city treasury if the federal government agrees.

Riordan took up the diversion of airport money with fervor in his campaign for mayor, making it the centerpiece of his plan for a massive expansion of the Police Department.

By the time he took office on July 1, a 40-year landing fee agreement with airlines had expired and the City Council had imposed the higher charges. The new Riordan-appointed Airport Commission has pursued the fees with a vengeance--culminating last week in letters informing airlines that they will not be allowed to take off from LAX starting Saturday if they do not pay the higher fees.

One political consultant who has followed the dispute argued that neither Riordan nor the airlines have presented their cases convincingly to the public. But the consultant, who also asked to remain anonymous, said that the mayor is likely to benefit from the poor esteem in which large corporations are generally held by the public.

“Elected officials frequently use large corporations when they are on the attack. It’s a great political issue,” the consultant said. “Getting more money from the airport will be a tremendous success for the Administration.”

Correspondent Jeff Schnaufer contributed to this report