class="mt-image-left" style="float: left; margin: 0 0px 0px 0;" />Los Angeles World Airports rendering.

They are two of the most influential people in Los Angeles, in charge of billions of dollars in construction that is reminiscent of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal when it comes to creation of blue-collar jobs and impact on the economy.

Deborah Flint and Phil Washington could probably walk through L.A. without being recognized by most people. But the women and men who crowded the upstairs banquet room at the Palm Restaurant downtown for a Current Affairs Forum luncheon Friday knew who they were, and the details of their agencies' projects.

Flint, the speaker, is executive director of the Los Angeles World Airports, which runs LAX. Washington is CEO of LA Metro, which runs Los Angeles county bus system and its fast-growing collection of commuter rail lines. He was at the head table, just to her right, and didn't speak.

The audience consisted of representatives of the architects, engineers, construction companies, law firms, lobbyists, public affairs consultants, campaign managers, organized labor and others who hope to profit from the wave of construction initiated by the airport and Metro. As I looked around the room, I thought this is the hidden power of L.A., the well-connected insiders who know where things happen--and often make them happen themselves.

I asked Flint about the impact of the construction by the airport and Metro, some of whose projects are linked. "It's an opportunity to create a new economy," she said. The area, she said, "is very fortunate to have that vision."

The airport is about to begin construction of a $4.9-billion people mover that will take people from a facility away from the airport and bring them to the terminal buildings. Rental car companies will be housed there, and passengers will be picked up at the facility. Most of the funds will come from airport revenues, and the rest from tax-exempt bonds issued by the consortium of construction, engineering and other companies that will operate the system.

Illustrating the importance of the LAX-Metro collaboration, the people mover will connect to a light rail line running from the Expo line at Crenshaw south to a station near the airport. The cost of that project is $1.776 billion. In addition, Metro is planning a light rail line extending from the San Fernando Valley, through the Santa Monica Mountains and possibly to LAX, a multi billion-dollar proposal.

And, at LAX, Flint said at the luncheon, plans are to have all terminals renovated by 2028 plus adding 12 gates to the Tom Bradley international terminal with a tunnel connecting them to the main Bradley building.

She called Metro's Washington "a partner" in the effort and aid with him LAX had "found ways to minimize disruption on all our projects."

Flint acknowledged complaints about service at LAX and said they are discussed weekly by airport staff meeting as a "Guest Experience Council."

Having spent the last few years writing about the collapse and now the slow rise of the blue-collar economy in the Los Angeles area, I thought her most important message was about jobs. And the most interesting news was the job producing collaboration between LAX and Metro.

The excellent story by Meg James and Andrea Chang in Sunday's Los Angeles Times about the paper's new owner sheds light on Dr. Patrick Soon-Shiong as a person and is noteworthy for its examination of the controversies that have marked his professional life.

The reporters chased down a fellow student in a segregated South African school, Judy Forlee, who remembered him as "a very bright boy. He was at the top of the class and was quite outspoken in class." They talked to Sister Rose Seraphin who met him at Resurrection Church in Boyle Heights where Soon-Shiong and his wife Michelle Chan, a devout Catholic, were visiting. Sister Rose mistook him for a mechanic and asked him to fix the church bus, used to deliver food for the poor.

"Instead," James and Chang wrote, "Soon- Shiong wrote her a $2,500 check on the spot and over the next month bought the church a new walk-in refrigerator, donated freezers and sent a cardboard baler to press down boxes." The reporters quoted Sister Rose as saying "They transformed the place."

He sounds like a very nice guy. But that doesn't tell us what kind of a newspaper owner he'll be.

Strong-minded and quick acting, if his decision to abandon the 1935 Times building downtown for a new headquarters campus in El Segundo is any indication. In his LA Observed post Monday, Kevin Roderick noted that some staff members will be thrust into commuter hell by the move and it will work a special hardship on those living around downtown LA and who have grown fond of the area's lifestyle. And he said it could make staff retention and hiring difficult.

For me, working in the Times building meant laboring in a grand place and hallowed place with a rich history. But signs of neglect in the last few years made visits depressing, which counteracted any sentimental feelings of loss this alum has about the move. And I'm sure the Times will find a way to cover city hall without being across the street from it.

The big question is if Soon-Shiong's own political views will affect the paper's coverage of President Trump and other matters.

James and Chang wrote that Soon-Shiong is a political independent. He met with President Donald Trump twice in an effort to secure a health post in the new administration. But they also said he accompanied then Vice President Joe Biden to meet the Pope in the Vatican. And Soon-Shiong certainly didn't sound like Trump when he told the reporters, "We were always the underdogs...so I have great empathy for people who are underdogs for whatever circumstances they've been put in: whether poverty, whether religion, whether race, color, creed."

On the downside, as I wrote in Truthdig, Soon-Shiong hasn't seemed to like aggressive coverage of his business enterprises or his visits with Trump. Replying to stories in Politico and Stat, a website specializing in health matter, on his business controversies, Soon-Shiong tweeted "Politico/Stat attacks anyone who meets POTUS to serve the U.S. Important to give back. That's what I am going to do." He also tweeted, "Media attacks anyone who meets @POTUS to serve the USA. I grew up in a place with no freedom. Important to give back."

Hopefully, he will put all this aside and bring to the Times the resources and smarts to build up the staff to the level of its storied past and to make good on what he told James and Chang: "The last bastion to the health of democracy are journalists. We have to be a source of trust...We can be a beacon of light."