Rand Corp.’s Role in Airport Study Moving Into Different Flight Path

By HOWARD FINE

Staff Reporter

When L.A. Mayor James Hahn last month announced that the city would hire Rand Corp. to conduct a comprehensive review of the security issues surrounding his proposed airport renovation, he said the study would be done in time for the City Council to consider its conclusions as it takes up the airport plan.

Now, it’s not so clear whether the full report will be ready. And Rand’s role, apparently, has changed.

While it will provide an interim report before the council vote, expected later this year, Rand won’t issue a final document until “somewhere down the road,” said David Kissinger, airport deputy to L.A. City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski.

And instead of a one-time role, the think tank’s involvement in the planning process will be ongoing, Kissinger said.

Details of Rand’s contract are still being worked out, according to Kissinger and officials with the airport and Rand. Unresolved is what would be included in the interim report and what would be left to the future.

“As far as we are aware, the scope of the study due out before council consideration will be the same as was announced last month,” said Yusef Robb, a spokesman for Hahn. But Kissinger said it was not certain whether the comprehensive study would be completed within that 90- to 100-day timeframe.

Rand’s role in the project, and the report itself, could prove pivotal in the debate over LAX’s renovation.

Hahn was forced to ask Rand for the study after Miscikowski and Councilman Jack Weiss expressed concerns about the security impacts of Hahn’s Alternative D airport master plan proposal.

“The Rand Corp. study will be the most important study done of the LAX modernization proposal,” Weiss told the Business Journal last month. “It will probably be the most important study that I consider when I make my decision to vote.”

Weiss did not return calls last week.

Fueling those concerns was an earlier Rand study conducted at the request of U.S. Rep. Jane Harman, D-Redondo Beach. That eight-page report concluded that Hahn’s proposed offsite parking and staging area at Manchester Square would concentrate people and make for an inviting terrorist target.

Hahn countered Rand’s conclusions with a report by San Diego-based Security Applications International Corp. But that failed to sway Miscikowski or Weiss.

Also still outstanding is the cost of the Rand contract, which was initially put at about $500,000 for the one-time study.

As of last week, it appeared likely that the city Airport Commission would consider the Rand contract on July 6, when it takes up the larger advance planning contract that airport staff has recommended be awarded to architecture and engineering firm DMJM. Rand’s contract would be a subcontract to that one, allowing it to be let out without bidding.

While Rand, airport officials and the mayor’s office would not comment on the negotiations over the current contract, sources familiar with the talks attributed the apparent shift to a desire to have Rand’s input on various security issues as they come up during the long planning process ahead.