Mayoral Candidates Join Opposition to Expanding LAX

In a reflection of the sway held by vocal community organizations, all six top mayoral candidates have pledged to oppose a plan to expand Los Angeles International Airport, airport growth critics announced Monday.

City Atty. James K. Hahn and businessman Steve Soboroff, who had previously given qualified support for the expansion, joined their four mayoral rivals in opposing the proposal to increase annual passenger trips at LAX from 67 million to 89 million by 2015.

The pledge, drafted by an anti-expansion group, said the LAX master plan “should not be submitted to nor approved by the city of Los Angeles.” It also stated that the airport should be constrained to operate safely within its existing facilities and that Los Angeles should work with the airport and other communities to develop a regional air transportation plan.

The pledges came as the campaign moves into its final two-week stretch before the April 10 election. On Monday, Soboroff unveiled a plan to draw biotech firms to Los Angeles, and Rep. Xavier Becerra proposed giving Los Angeles residents rebates if they conserve electricity.

The opposition by all six candidates to the LAX expansion is a blow to Mayor Richard Riordan and officials at the airport, who have spent six years and more than $60 million putting together a $12-billion proposal to expand runways, build a new passenger terminal and make highway and rail improvements to serve an expected boom in demand for passenger and cargo services.

Riordan has endorsed Soboroff for mayor, but his spokesman said Monday that the mayor does not expect the real estate broker to mirror all his positions.

“Everybody who has had an association with the mayor knows that he does not ask for ideological purity,” said Deputy Mayor Ben Austin. “He asks for his associates to exercise their judgment, which is what Steve is doing.”

The signed pledges were released Monday by the Alliance for a Regional Solution to Airport Congestion, a coalition representing about 2,000 residents of Westchester and Playa del Rey who want to see, among other measures, air traffic diverted to the Ontario and Palmdale airports.

At a news conference outside the airport’s north runway Monday afternoon, Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), Los Angeles City Councilman Ruth Galanter and El Segundo Mayor Mike Gordon said the candidates were listening to constituent complaints about noise levels, air pollution and traffic problems that would only worsen if the airport is allowed to continue to grow.

“All the candidates have begun to realize that the people impacted by the airport are a significant enough voting block that they are worth paying attention to,” Galanter said.

“I am thrilled that we got all six candidates--that means the master plan is dead on arrival,” Gordon said.

Although their four opponents had already registered their opposition to the LAX expansion, Hahn and Soboroff had supported the proposal with some qualifications. Both said they wanted the airport to focus on mitigation measures to reduce traffic, noise and air pollution before construction of a new passenger terminal.

In a statement released Monday, Hahn said the current master plan does not achieve a regional solution or address neighbors’ needs.

“I believe we must scrap the current master plan and take a leadership role with our neighboring cities to find a truly regional solution,” he said.

Ace Smith, campaign manager for Soboroff, insisted that the real estate broker did not change his position about the airport.

“He’s always said he’s got serious problems with the master plan,” Smith said. “The question here was, ‘Does he favor it as it exists?’ The answer is no.”

The airport plan is strongly backed by business and labor groups, who were quick to respond Monday.

Lydia H. Kennard, executive director of Los Angeles World Airports, the city agency that operates LAX, called the pledges “neither surprising nor particularly significant.”

Kennard said she was confident that once the election is over “the next mayor will work constructively” with the airport to deal with its problems.

Brad Rooker, president of a sheet metal workers union local in Los Angeles, said he believes that Hahn and Antonio Villaraigosa, who has the endorsement of the County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, will revisit the airport issue if elected.

Meanwhile, Becerra took on another hot issue Monday, proposing an energy-saving rebate plan that would give consumers who save electricity a discount on their bill.

The Democratic congressman laid out a plan that would reward people who save energy by reselling the electricity they would have used to the state power grid, and then splitting the profit from the sale with the consumer. The rest of the money would go to paying down the DWP’s debt.

Under his proposal, Becerra said people who reduce their energy use by 20% would get a 36% discount in their bill. Those who cut their electricity usage by 10% would save 15% on their bill.

“Simply because we’re an island in a stormy sea doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be conservationists,” said Becerra, who challenged the mayor and the Department of Water and Power to implement his idea right away. “This is a win-win situation. Why we’re not doing this right now, I don’t know.”

Frank Salas, chief of staff for DWP General Manager S. David Freeman, said the agency would look at the plan.

“We’ve got to work out the details, but it’s something that we would consider,” Salas said. “If we could conserve energy, that’s that much more energy we could sell to the state and help get us through the crisis in the summer.”

If the DWP recommended the plan, it would have to be approved by the department’s board, the City Council and Riordan.

Austin said that Riordan is “open to all proposals.”

“The bottom line is that Los Angeles has a secure and affordable source of energy, and only because of that are we able to have a conversation about how to help our neighbors,” Austin added.

On Monday, Becerra demonstrated how to cut electricity use at his downtown headquarters: He oversaw maintenance workers unscrewing light bulbs, then shut down an idle computer.

And he even got down on his knees and cleaned out the campaign’s packed refrigerator, explaining that keeping air circulating inside the refrigerator and cleaning the condenser coils underneath or behind the machine helps reduce energy use.

Meanwhile, at a campaign stop in Northridge, Soboroff unveiled his plan to promote the biotech and biomedicine industries.

He proposed a tax credit for companies that create jobs in those sectors, but declined to say how much it might cost.

He also promised to hire a specialist in the mayor’s office to focus solely on luring biotech and biomed companies to Los Angeles. And he pledged to work with leaders of USC, UCLA and other academic institutions to encourage commercial development of their research.

With an ample supply of labor, financial institutions, real estate and research institutions, Los Angeles can support dramatic growth in the industry, he said.

“We have the ingredients to bake the cake; we just haven’t put them together well,” he said.

Hahn picked up support from a group of Asian Pacific American leaders Monday who credited the city attorney for his outreach to Asian communities in Los Angeles. The group of backers who gathered in Little Tokyo to announce their support for Hahn included former Harbor Commission President Leland Wong, Francis Hashimoto, president of the Little Tokyo Business Assn., and Joseph Ahn, past president of the Korean American Coalition.

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Times staff writer Michael Finnegan contributed to this story.