AIRPORT-TENANT TIES ON COLLISION COURSE.

Byline: Tony Knight Daily News Staff Writer

An airport policeman put the eviction notice in Ed Cesar's hand: Get your business off of the Van Nuys Airport in 60 days.

There was no explanation, and in a case that has shocked local businesses and area homeowners, the Department of Airports has offered only guarded comments and no clear explanation.

But the message was clear to Ed and Barbara Cesar, owners of Syncro Aircraft Interiors: It doesn't matter that you have spent eight years building up your business in an old World War II hangar. Just get out.

``This is an example of what not do to with small business,'' Ed Cesar said. ``We're not politically experienced people. We're upholstery people. I've built my business up so big that there's nowhere to go. We don't want to fight with the city, but that's what they're forcing us to do.''

Airports Department officials say they are acting legally because the Cesars had only a month-to-month lease like many other small businesses at the airport.

But the case has mushroomed. Syncro's cause has been taken up by homeowner and community activists fighting airport noise problems and business people fighting airport leasing policies.

So much pressure has been placed on Mayor Richard Riordan, the City Council and the Airports Commission that last week - 49 days after the Cesars were given their 60-day notice - Commission Chairman Dan Garcia ordered the matter put on the commission agenda for a hearing.

``I think the process here has been very poor from start to finish,'' said Garcia, who will not take part in the hearing because he is a vice president for Warner Bros., a studio that has rented hangar space from the Cesars.

``In my opinion, but for the involvement of the city's attorney's office, this matter never would have come about,'' Garcia said. ``The . . . hearing is the best way I can think of to handle it. What will come out of it, nobody can say.''

George Jerome, Councilwoman Laura Chick's appointee to the citizen's council monitoring Van Nuys Airport, said the department's secrecy has ignited wild conjecture about ``hidden agendas'' and pointed up a growing community disaffection with the city bureaucrats.

``Whatever the ultimate agenda is, it's a detriment to the airport,'' Jerome said. ``The airport is in a state of shambles at this point. People at the airport are giving up right and left because the instability is staggering.''

Airports Department Executive Director Jack Driscoll acknowledged growing landlord-tenant problems at Van Nuys. Driscoll said he has assigned property manager Rick Adler to more closely manage the situation.

``I think the property folks have let it drift way too much,'' Driscoll said.

One source in the department, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said the department has created its own problems. ``They have no regard for the landlord-tenant relationship. They're politically arrogant. They have a lot of money, and they're accountable to no one.''

A quiet success

In a city crying out for business, Ed and Barbara Cesar are models of a clean, quiet, prospering enterprise that has grown from a mom-and-pop operation in a little hangar at the Compton Airport in 1979 to 28 employees remodeling private jets for the likes of Kevin Costner and John Travolta.

In the old hangar where Lockheed once built P-38 fighters, the storage rooms and offices have been subleased to other entrepreneurs who repair airplane seats and make covers for jet engines.

In the cavernous hangar area, major movie studios now shoot special-effects-laden scenes involving models of aircraft and spacecraft. The jet fighter scenes from ``True Lies'' were shot there, as were scenes from the movies ``Batman and Robin'' and ``Mortal Kombat.''

The Cesars say they've come to love the old redwood hangar that they restored with every effort to keep the 1940s decor and the can-do World War II spirit alive. But now, because of their inability to deal with the city bureaucracy, they are facing a May 19 deadline to get out, and, as Ed Cesar said, ``waiting for the bulldozers.''

Homeowners who have complained about airport noise said they are concerned that a quiet business is being kicked out of the airport.

``It's the kind of operation that the community really wants to see survive in there, because they're working with the movie business. They don't make a lot of noise, and they have an awful lot of community support,'' said Don Schultz, president of the Van Nuys Homeowners Association.

Others say the Syncro case is the tip of the iceberg. They say the department has mismanaged its assets at Van Nuys Airport, botched the Cesars' case and is trying to cover up its mistakes with the eviction.

``It's de rigueur for the Department of Airports, which is the most arrogant, secretive, Mandarin-like department in the city. They're bureaucrats who are sitting on a pot of money and lording life and death over little businesses,'' said Rowhit Shakla, executive director of the L.A. Regional Technology Office, a state-backed nonprofit whose goal is to encourage the growth of high-tech businesses and aid in defense conversion.

Department secrecy

Driscoll, Garcia and mayoral aides said they had been cautioned by airport attorneys not to discuss the Syncro case. Airports officials refer all inquiries to Assistant City Attorney Bret Lobner, who offered no explanation.

``I can't really make much of a comment on the matter. The notice has been given pursuant to the terms of the lease.''

Last week, the 12-member advisory council, composed of community members appointed to study noise problems and help plan development at the airport, criticized Lobner for his silence and unanimously called for the eviction to be stayed pending an investigation.

The citizens council also unanimously voted to recommend the City Council take jurisdiction in the eviction case. And they called for Garcia to appear before them to explain landlord-tenant relations.

``If you have a reason for the eviction, put it on the table,'' citizens council member Jerome challenged Lobner. ``This isn't the time to dig in your heels from a PR standpoint. Do something for the city as your job title requires you to do, and try to make the city look a little better.''

Chick and Councilman Joel Wachs have written to the airports department demanding an explanation. They said Syncro is the type of business to be encouraged, not evicted.

Lobner said the eviction process would proceed on schedule with the 60-day notice expiring May 19 even though the hearing before the commission has been scheduled for that very day.

``There won't be a hearing,'' Lobner said. ``We're simply giving them the opportunity to address the board. That's not a hearing.

``I don't think anything has changed. There has been a lot of questions, and the board members want to hear what Syncro has to say.''

Lease in disarray

Department of Airports records show that the Cesars have tried for more than five years to negotiate a long-term lease but were always rebuffed.

The records show a leasehold in disarray. The original lease from 1990 is for only a small part of the hangar, and a subsequent 1992 lease includes half the building.

The Cesars expanded into the other half, refurbishing it while maintaining the World War II ambience, with the verbal assent of the department, records show. They never had a lease on that half of the building, although they subleased it to Warner Bros. for the ``Batman'' production for $38,500 a month.

The Cesars also have taken control of the old Oasis Terminal building nearby, remodeling and landscaping it. Records show the lease was never executed.

``I've been paying rent on it for six years,'' Cesar said.

An Oct. 22, 1996, memo from Don Miller, assistant airports property manager, bears out some of Syncro's claims: ``The entire Syncro issue is a mess and is personally embarrassing from a landlord-tenant standpoint. Unfortunately, my assessment is that the business issues have been subverted by petty personal attitudes.''

Claim problems

Why the Cesars were unable to get a five-year lease despite years of trying is unclear. Records show the Cesars ran afoul of the department when they were told to file a claim in 1995 for $319,000 in repairs they made to the old hangar back in 1992.

Unable to compile accurate receipts for the work, they used blank receipts provided by a contractor friend, who then admitted to airport staff that he hadn't done all the work.

``We didn't want to file a claim,'' Ed Cesar said. ``Our bookkeeping at that time was in disarray. When we put that claim in, we thought that's what we were owed for what we did. I mean we saved a building.''

The Cesars made a clean breast of their mistake in writing to Garcia. The airports department referred the case to the district attorney for fraud.

No criminal case was filed and the deputy district attorney on the case said he found insufficient evidence to prove fraud.

Now, the Cesars say all they want is a chance to plead their case.

``They gave me a building that was in bad shape and nobody would help me,'' Ed Cesar said. ``They could have helped me. They could have at least given us some Henry's (roofing tar). But they don't care. This building would have been lost.''

Shakla, whose nonprofit state agency is working to help new technology and defense conversion businesses, said he knew of the problem with the claim documents and dismissed the Cesars' mistake as a common problem with small businesses that are growing fast.

``It's not fraudulent on its face,'' Shakla said. ``The fact of the matter is the work was done. So big deal. Based on that little technicality, they're evicting them.

``My impression is that there is something driving this thing that is not out in the open,'' he said.

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

PHOTO (1) Ed and Barbara Cesar, owners of Synchro Aircraft Interiors, have been given 60 days to vacate their facility at Van Nuys Airport.

(2 -- 3) Before and after: top photo taken by Ed Cesar shows the former World War II hangar before it was restored. The same hangar is seen after the Cesars spruced it up, keeping the look of 1940s decor.

Michael Owen Baker/Daily News