Politics & Government
Baca Tries to Force Sale of Ontario Airport
Congressman Joe Baca introduced a bill that could cut off federal transportation grants for Los Angeles World Airports unless it sells Ontario International Airport to inland cities.
An Inland Empire congressman has introduced a bill that seeks to cut off federal transportation grants for Los Angeles World Airports -- including LAX -- unless the city-owned agency sells Ontario International Airport to inland cities, it was reported today.
Rep. Joe Baca, D-Ontario, introduced the bill Friday. He told the Riverside Press-Enterprise that he is tired of "delay tactics" that he said the City of Los Angeles is using to keep control of the Ontario airport, 36 miles east of the Los Angeles city limits, the Riverside Press-Enterprise reported.
Several cities, including Diamond Bar, Walnut, Industry and Claremont, have joined forces to call for the airport's sale.
Find out what's happening in Diamond Bar-Walnutwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
Passenger traffic has dropped by a third and the number of flights in and out of Ontario has plunged in the past five years, conditions that Inland Empire politicians blame on lackluster marketing by Los Angeles. LAWA says the problem is a worldwide recession that has prompted airlines to drop smaller airports all across the country.
Ontario, in San Bernardino County, has asked other inland cities to join it in pressing LA to let locals run the inland airport.
Find out what's happening in Diamond Bar-Walnutwith free, real-time updates from Patch.
LAWA operates LAX, and owns a huge potential airport site at Lancaster, all part of a regional airport scheme dating from the 1950s. It built Ontario as a reliever airport to divert regional passengers from the big airport in Los Angeles.
Baca's bill, if passed and signed into law, would block all federal grants to the three airports. LAWA has received $156 million in federal transportation money in the past two years, the Press-Enterprise reported.
Talks have begun about transferring Ontario to local governments in Riverside and San Bernardino counties, but Baca complained "it just seems like there's a lot of delay tactics," the Press-Enterprise reported.
"We've been doing this for almost a year and a half now," he told the newspaper.
LAWA executive director Gina Marie Lindsay told the Press-Enterprise that trends in the aviation industry are responsible for Ontario's problems. "Local control, in and of itself, is not going to be a cure all," she told the paper in an e-mail.
