Court Fines Four RTD Drivers; Warrants Out for 12 No-Shows

Arrest warrants were issued Thursday for a dozen current or former RTD drivers who failed to appear for arraignment on charges that they had operated buses with lapsed or suspended licenses.

Eleven other drivers appeared at their Municipal Court arraignment. Four of those pleaded no contest to the charges and were given fines and placed on two years’ probation, Deputy City Atty. Sharyn Siskel said. A no-contest plea is equivalent to a conviction for sentencing purposes.

Driver Shirley Hill was assessed the stiffest fine, $240, after pleading no contest to a charge of driving with a suspended license. The three other drivers, James Carter, Halbert Atkins and Edward Harris, received $150 fines each, Siskel said.

The remaining seven drivers either pleaded innocent to the charges or sought a delay in their arraignment to try to obtain documentation that they had been driving legally, Siskel added.

All 11 drivers who appeared in court are now with the district, said an RTD spokesman, who added that three of the 12 who failed to appear were discharged earlier for other reasons. The RTD spokesman said the district will work with authorities to serve the arrest warrants on the nine drivers who failed to appear.

The spokesman added that the district would consider further, unspecified disciplinary action against drivers who are convicted of the license-related charges.

Los Angeles City Atty. James K. Hahn had announced the crackdown on the 23 drivers Jan. 5 after a three-month investigation into news reports that hundreds of drivers may have been driving illegally.

In other developments Thursday involving the embattled transit district:

- The Rapid Transit District Board postponed for two weeks consideration of General Manager John Dyer’s 12-point “action plan” to reform district operations and practices. Dyer sought the delay so he could incorporate just-released recommendations from a safety panel as well as proposals to improve bus service to the handicapped into his plan.

The plan sets out Dyer’s proposals for correcting such problems as drug use by drivers, employee absenteeism costing millions a year and uncontrolled expense spending by RTD executives and board members.

Some board members remained skeptical Thursday that Dyer would be able to win support for much of his plan or obtain the necessary money, about $2.5 million, to finance it. When Dyer suggested that individual board members lobby the agencies who appointed them to the board, the City of Los Angeles’ representative, Norm Emerson, said such money might be difficult to raise because of what he called a “credibility problem.”

- Heard testimony from individual members of the safety panel who pronounced the huge bus system in generally good health, but said that additional supervisors should be hired to better monitor individual drivers. The panel had also suggested that the district consider either hiring more employees or reduce service in order to avoid overextending its operations.

Paul Kadowaki, director of instruction with the Chicago Transit Authority, said that the Los Angeles district needs better centralization and follow-up procedures in its training program to ensure that drivers fully understand the rules.

Leonard Ronis, former general manager of the Cleveland system, meanwhile, said the RTD needs to tighten up its accident investigation procedures, enforce its rules better and conduct psychological prescreening of driver applicants.