Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad got a rough reception in New York last week. But in OC, visitors from not just Iran, but from Syria and North Korea, too, have been politely hosted by representatives of the U.S. Olympic Committee. USOC Chairman and Newport Beach businessman Peter Ueberroth has set up what he calls a “mini, quiet U.N.” in an unassuming, unmarked office on Fairchild Road near MacArthur Boulevard in Irvine. It’s a car hop from Ueberroth’s own office and just a teleconference away from USOC’s Colorado Springs HQ. Global sports exec Robert Fasulo and volleyball legend Bob Ctvrtlik head a seven-person staff handling the U.S.’ international outreach for next year’s Olympic Games in Beijing, a showcase for China that will take place amid world tension and terrorism fears. Ueberroth says it is one of the “most important Olympics ever, negative or positive,” ranking with Berlin in 1936, London in 1948 and his own Los Angeles production of 1984. Often reviled in this country, the Chinese government has an ally in Ueberroth, who reminds that China’s defection from the Russian boycott was key to L.A.’s ’84 success. Foreign dignitaries and athletes arriving in Irvine are taken to area training facilities, as well as to Angels games, Disneyland, Hollywood and other tourist attractions. Ctvertlik (stuh-VERT-lick) says the Irvine office is understated by design, to put visitors at ease and counter stereotypes of American greed and arrogance. In 2004 Ueberroth inherited a scandal-plagued organization,”terrible …
self-interested, ungainly, ineffective”,and implemented sweeping reforms. All 125 USOC directors were let go and replaced with an 11-member board: “They wanted me to have an eight-year term. I said, ‘I will do four, and after China I’m gone'” …
Is China friend or foe? Economic heavyweights Donald Straszheim (formerly of Merrill Lynch, now of Roth Capital Partners in Newport Beach) and UCI’s Peter Navarro (author of “The Coming China Wars”) debate this week on “Inside OC” …
Real Estate vulture funds, they are a-formin’ …
Air travel in Southern California has finally surpassed pre-9/11 levels. El Toro Airport slayer Len Kranser reports the region handled 61 million travelers for the first eight months, up 2.5% from last year and breaking the record set in 2001. Yet LAX handled 3.5 million fewer passengers through August than it did in 2001,Long Beach, John Wayne, Ontario, Burbank and Palm Springs accounted for the gains. Kranser says JWA is up to 900,000 passengers a month; annualized, that’s more than the airport’s 10.3 million-passenger cap and right at its future cap of 10.8 million. So Kranser wonders why the airport is “spending $652 million on a capital improvement program billed as necessary to achieve 10.8 MAP?” He predicts JWA will take away airlines’ seat allocations to remain within the limit.
