Jon Ralston on the politics being played out after the county’s late but noisy arrival to the debate over flight path’s right turn

Friday, April 27, 2007 | 7:19 a.m.

I couldn't help but chuckle as I witnessed the county come out of the closet this week and all but declare its love for the so-called right turn at McCarran International Airport.

The county's coy silence and Switzerland impersonation during this manufactured controversy has been surpassed only by the pandering party and cynical campaign at Las Vegas City Hall. The city has brandished an erratic blunderbuss, which has fired at noise, safety and air quality when convenient. The county has donned a see-no-evil, hear-no-evil and especially speak-no-evil mask to conduct its charade of non-intervention.

It has been an open secret that the airport folks, who protested years ago when the FAA removed the right turn, have been watching with disdain as Mayor Oscar Goodman, Councilman Steve Wolfson and the compliant seals that sit with them stirred their constituents into a frenzy. So when airport boss Randy Walker, with an assist from his boss, County Manager Virginia Valentine, decided to do an "Apocalypse Now" road show this week, no one should have been surprised.

Oh the horror, we were told, if the right turn is eliminated - the economy will tank, the Strip might go dark and for all we know, planes might crash into the Stratosphere. OK, they didn't go that far, but you get the message.

The righteousness of the county's position, though, is not matched by the government's style, which some of the city folks understandably have viewed as haughty. Wolfson, who has had to respond to a constituent uprising, has wondered about the rush to turn right and the refusal to sit down and compromise.

Walker flat out denied during a taping of "Face to Face," which will air tonight, that he ever prodded the FAA to reinstate the right turn. All he would say is how airport officials felt when the turn was abandoned more than five years ago: "Were we unhappy with the FAA for doing what they did against our advice? Absolutely."

But Rep. Jon Porter insisted in an interview that an FAA official told him that the county folks were behind the move to reinstate the turn. And the congressman said he asked county officials quite some time ago to have a public hearing on the issue. But, Porter said, the county folks told him they didn't want to stir up this hornet's nest.

And no wonder, considering what has happened since the city started its spectacularly entertaining genuflecting and gyrating to please some angry home- owners. No Cirque de Soleil production could capture the contortions city officials have gone through to please the angry mob.

It's the noise! It's the safety! It's the pollution!

We have no chance to win! We have 15 percent chance to win! We have 60 percent chance to win!

If the city folks could only keep their stories straight. Walker says he finally went over the edge when news outlets started blaming the right-hand turn for noise in areas where it had nothing to do with the change.

"That's really a problem for the airport, for the citizens to be confused about these noise issues," Walker said. "Because, we have noise issues all over the valley, not just with the right-hand turn. We don't need this misinformation out there that noise at Palace Station is the result of the right-hand turn ... We're not going to get into the position where we think it's OK to have noise over this person's house and not over this person's house. Because, no matter where those aircraft fly, they're going to fly over somebody's house."

I asked Walker about possible compromises and he said flatly: "I don't know of one, and my airspace experts don't know of one."

The airport director also dismissed any concerns about safety or air quality. Walker said that the skies are much safer than the roads and that the pollution issue is a red herring because fewer delays means better air quality.

The political potency of the issue, the facts notwithstanding, is undeniable. You noticed the county put Walker and Valentine out front, not any commissioners. And it's no coincidence that talk has surfaced of Councilman Larry Brown thinking the right political turn for him might be to run against Commissioner Chip Maxfield.

So expect the city's orgy of faux constituent service to continue through the inevitable loss of its legal challenges and maybe mid-six figures down the drain. But I think we have seen the end of the county's sounds of silence over this noisy issue.