AV must overcome L.A. indifference

Editorial Focus: The L.A. Department of Airports' rebuff of the 1996 Antelope Valley Air Show at the Plant 42/Palmdale Regional Airport was the most recent example of why the Antelope Valley must be more self-reliant and not so dependent on L.A. City or County.

We've seen it dozens of times before, over the years and in a variety of ways, with last week's Department of Airports rebuff of a 1996 Antelope Valley Air Show at Palmdale Regional Airport simply the most recent example.

John Driscoll, executive director of the DOA, conceded in an interview with a Valley Press reporter that his department hadn't taken the Antelope Valley effort as seriously as it should have.

The candor was refreshing.

But we then start to wonder, just why it is we're not taken seriously "downtown?"

Four plausible theories come to mind:

We're viewed as a bunch of country bumpkins lacking urban finesse and expertise;

We're seen as a politically powerless region with no clout where it counts;

Official Los Angeles sees no percentage in actively involving itself in the affairs of the Antelope Valley, unless involvement here helps to rid L.A. of some urban problem;

L.A.'s urban problems are so overwhelming and pervasive that anything happening in the Antelope Valley looks like a low priority or no priority.

The answer is probably all of the above. But to a large degree, the last two theories on the list are likely most prevalent.

It isn't that Los Angeles officials think ill of the Antelope Valley. They mostly don't think of us at all. And on those rare occasions when the Antelope Valley does come to mind, it's usually as a place to put something official L.A. doesn't want in its own backyard.

Remember the "Sagebrush/Barrio Compromise?" The Antelope Valley got a state prison in the wrong location and Los Angeles didn't get a prison at all, which is exactly what L.A. wanted.

If nothing else, the disappointment and frustration confronting air show organizers points to the premise that Antelope Valley people must work more closely and cooperatively together than ever before, and not count on support from Los Angeles officialdom.

The inescapable conclusion is that despite our population growth, despite our attraction of new businesses and services, and despite our increasing importance to the future of L.A., in most things we're pretty much on our own up here on the high desert. In the terminology of bureaucracy, we are seen as non-essential, irrelevant. We're out of sight, out of mind.

Whether it comes to planning and developing our enormous economic resource in Air Force Plant 42/Palmdale Regional Airport, attracting new industries for local jobs, fighting regulatory excesses or building up our social, political and economic leadership, we must learn to be increasingly self-reliant.

But until this Valley finds the strength, the will and the resources to finally sever the dysfunctional political umbilical cords to L.A. City and County, we'll just have to stand taller, yell louder and speak more eloquently to be heard above the din going on "downtown."