We know that the Federal Aviation Administration is pressuring the airport to build a modernized terminal farther from the existing runway, but a 2005 development agreement between the airport and the city prohibits terminal construction and increased flight traffic through 2015, though negotiations should already be underway by 2012.
We also know that city and airport officials, meanwhile, support placing a high-speed-rail station adjacent to the airport at San Fernando Boulevard and Hollywood Way.
We can presume that airport officials wouldn't invest $120 million in a transit center they'd later regret if a high-speed-rail station and brand-new flight terminal come to pass.
All of this builds to two very important questions: What exactly is the airport authority's vision of the future, and how do city officials plan to respond?
Councilman David Gordon — who more often than not finds himself the lone voice of opposition to council decisions, as he was once again in the transit center vote — has for several weeks been pushing for public release of a still-secret City Council memo about current airport affairs, a document he suggests could clarify the situation, at least from the city's side of things.
It appears everyone else at City Hall, naturally, disagrees with Gordon.
The airport memo saga started in July, when council members sought and received legal advice from consulting attorney Peter Kirsch, a national expert on airport law who helped shape the current agreement.
Whatever Kirsch wrote, Gordon hoped to share with the rest of town, but legal advice is protected from public release by attorney-client privilege, and the council was in no hurry to waive that right.
So Gordon pushed for Kirsch to prepare an advice-redacted, just-the-facts version of his memo, which Kirsch confirmed he did and City Atty. Dennis Barlow confirmed he received.
