EDITORIAL MISTAKEN MISCIKOWSKI RECYCLED LAX PLAN DOESN'T DESERVE A THIRD CHANCE.

RICHARD Riordan couldn't do it. James Hahn couldn't. And now Cindy Miscikowski is giving it a try.

``It'' is selling the people of Los Angeles on a costly plan to expand Los Angeles International Airport. Try as he might, neither the past nor current mayor was able to pull it off, but that hasn't stopped the Westside Los Angeles City Councilwoman from giving it the old college third try.

In theory, the plan Miscikowski is offering is radically different from the one Hahn has tried, in vain, to promote - itself a repackaged version of Riordan's. It costs only one-third of the price - $3 billion instead of $9.1 billion - and scraps Hahn's misbegotten vision of a centralized off- site passenger check-in terminal that would be more likely to attract terrorists than repel them.

But that's just a theory.

In actuality, Miscikowski's proposal rests on the same $115 million environmental impact report used to sell the Riordan plan as well as Hahn's revision. And that means, even though Miscikowski's alternative looks better on paper, it could end up looking much the same in reality.

What Miscikowski seems to be saying is, ``Trust us.'' Under her vision, the city will go ahead and approve an EIR for LAX expansion, but out of its deep and abiding respect for the public, it wouldn't actually expand LAX.

Sure.

City Hall has done very little to earn that sort of trust. Special interests are clamoring for LAX expansion and the money it could bring them, and the pressure they exert in City Hall would hardly disappear after the council approved the master plan that makes it possible.

No wonder opponents of LAX expansion are feeling queasy about Miscikowski's maneuvers. Should she push forward, she can expect a fight, a fight that neither Riordan nor Hahn before her was able to win.

Miscikowski - and the people she serves - would be much better off ditching the Riordan-Hahn LAX plan in its entirety and going back to the drawing board.

Forget about this discredited scheme that no one likes - not the public, not the airlines - save for the contractors and the unions. Instead focus on what the region really needs to improve the quality of air service and life in general.

That means improving the runways and international terminal at LAX, as well as taking up the necessary efforts to beef up security, including a greater emphasis on FlyAway remote check-in facilities.

Moreover, real reform would embrace a truly regional approach to air travel, one that shifts the emphasis away from LAX and toward outlying airports in Ontario, Palmdale and Orange County. That's the only way to meet the region's growing air-transportation needs without making traffic on the San Diego Freeway even worse.

True, starting from scratch on airport reform would require a new EIR, which would cost millions. But better to spend millions now and do it right than to spend billions later doing it wrong.

The times are changing in City Hall, and Miscikowski is seriously mistaken if she thinks reassuring words are enough to win the public over to a flawed idea. Just ask Riordan and Hahn.