Lack of Interest, Participation Threatens Board Survival -- Again

In order to make good on some political promises, Los Angeles mayor Antonio Villaraigosa resurrected an aviation-oriented panel that dissolved in 2003 from lack of interest from its members. History seems destined to repeat itself.

According to the Los Angeles Times, Villaraigosa is attempting to embrace his promised regional mentality when it comes to aviation. In short, he wants to send some flights coming to Los Angeles International Airport to other area airports.

So, he reconvened the Southern California Regional Airport Authority to help facilitate that. Trouble is, the board was re-launched about a year ago and has yet to even define its mission. The last meeting was six months ago.

"It's just going nowhere," said county Supervisor Don Knabe, one of four voting members and whose district includes LAX. "It's really been at a snail's pace, this whole process, so obviously I'm disappointed."

The SCRAA has scheduled its next meeting for Sept. 13 -- which will be only its fourth meeting since June 2006 -- after canceling its meetings in May, June and July, according to the Times. But, no one is holding their breath.

"I don't even pay attention to it now, because literally the last I heard was that all they were doing was talking about organizing," said David Voss, a former airport commissioner under former L.A. mayor James Hahn.

The purpose of the SCRAA was to implement Villaraigosa's plan of "regionalization" and becoming a metropolitan area with more than one major airport.

"We're doing what we can, as fast as we can, to regionalize air travel by encouraging expansion at Ontario and other airports," Villaraigosa spokesman Matt Szabo said.

The mayor's office would reportedly like to see SCRAA move passengers to the regional airports -- Palmdale Regional and Ontario International Airport -- by rail and bus by working for an extension of the Metro Gold Line east to Ontario, Szabo said, a project likely to take several years.

Villaraigosa's camp remains optimistic about the board, though, saying it has already made some "critical" progress by getting a single flight by United Airlines to PMD as well as 30 daily direct flights to ONT.

For now, the Times reports, much of the board's time, should it successfully meet again, will be focused a 29-page report outlining ways to structure a board.

FMI: www.scraa.org, www.lawa.org