EDITORIAL WELCOME BACK, LYDIA MASSIVE LAX GROWTH PLAN SIDETRACKED IN FAVOR OF REGIONALIZED APPROACH.

WITH the re-hiring of Lydia Kennard to head Los Angeles World Airports, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has, with a single action, repudiated his predecessor's grandiose scheme to massively expand Los Angeles International Airport.

Kennard, LAWA's whip-smart former executive director, was run out of the job in 2003 after enduring years of an imperious Airport Commission led at the time by developer and attorney Ted Stein, who was doing the bidding of then-Mayor James Hahn until the investigations of pay-to-play contracting led to his resignation.

Kennard was too decent to make a federal case out of her maltreatment and didn't really have to. That's because nearly everyone in the region shared her skepticism over Hahn's $11 billion LAX modernization plan, as well as her belief that a regionalized approach was best.

Her resignation was a loss to Los Angeles. Kennard was largely credited with the tight security at LAX before and during the 9-11 crisis. Considering that LAX has been high on the list of terrorist targets, there's a good chance that Kennard's leadership has actually saved lives.

Kennard was replaced with Kim Day, whose main task was to ram through Hahn's LAX plan before election day, even if it stood no chance of ever being fully carried out. The result was a half-commitment to a half-baked plan that security experts say didn't address safety and no one in the city liked other than those who would profit from it.

Luckily, it's not too late for the city to extract itself from this bad plan.

Villaraigosa opposed most of Hahn's plan during his campaign, except a few immediate safety issues like fixing the runways. He says he's still feels the same way and supports regionalization. So far, those have only been promises. But the reinstatement of Kennard is a hopeful sign that the $11 billion fiasco that Los Angeles nearly got stuck with has been permanently derailed.

Welcome back, Lydia. The airport and the city of Los Angeles will be better for your return.