RTD Hires Attorney as Inspector General : Watchdog Is Part of Dyer’s Plan to Make District ‘Leaner and Meaner’

Pushing ahead with a campaign to rebuild public confidence in the besieged Southern California Rapid Transit District, its directors approved Monday the hiring of a career federal lawyer to fill the new spending watchdog position of inspector general.

The addition of an inspector general, who is to have internal auditing and investigative powers to ferret out waste, has been a much-touted element of General Manager John Dyer’s recently disclosed plan to make the transit system “leaner and meaner” after nearly a year of disclosures of alleged mismanagement.

Disclosures have included reports of high employee absenteeism, soaring administrative costs, freewheeling spending on travel and entertainment and, most recently, loosely controlled expenditures on one of the largest lobbying networks among the nation’s transit agencies.

After being introduced at a downtown press conference, the new inspector general, Ernesto V. Fuentes, was in the hot seat, answering questions about why he has failed the California State Bar examination three times.

Fuentes, 39, a San Francisco-based legal counsel for the U.S. Urban Mass Transportation Administration, acknowledged that he failed the California Bar exam once in 1972 and twice in 1982. He noted, however, that the failure rate for the California Bar exam is high--often between 50% and 70%--and said he was working full time for transportation administration when he took the exam and was limited in his ability to prepare.

Fuentes, who said he is licensed to practice law in Washington, said failing the Bar exam is beside the point. “I say it is irrelevant. I did not apply for a lawyer’s job,” he said.

RTD Board President Jan Hall, who praised Fuentes’ credentials, said his background was checked and board members were aware of his performance on the Bar exams. “We have a (legal) counsel for the district,” she said. “We were looking for . . . the ability to investigate and audit.”

Fuentes, a resident of Tiburon, has a law degree from Rutgers University, according to an RTD biography. He oversaw audits of contractors as an attorney in the U.S. Department of Justice and investigated employee complaints and grievances.

For the last five years, he has managed the legal review of transportation administration contracts in the Western United States.

The vote to hire Fuentes was 6 to 1, with board member Charles Storing in opposition. Storing did not explain his vote and could not be reached for comment later.

Fuentes, who was given a two-year contract at $75,000 a year, was recommended by Dyer after what was described as an extensive search spanning several months. Fuentes, who is to report to both Dyer and the directors, will begin work next month.

Dyer said the RTD’s inspector general position is the only one of its kind among transit agencies in the state. Fuentes will have a nine-member staff, he said.

Fuentes declined to discuss what part of the massive RTD operation most needs attention. He said he will review recent news reports on the agency and put the “serious allegations” on a list for consideration.

Among those likely to be placed on the list, Hall said, are how much the RTD has spent on lobbying in recent years and how well those expenditures have been controlled. The Times reported Sunday that the RTD has poured millions of dollars into one of the most costly and extensive lobbying efforts in the nation, in some cases without the accounting and auditing controls demanded by other transit systems or of other RTD contractors.

“The only information I have is what I read in the newspaper,” Hall said. “I would like to know more.”

Under questioning from reporters, Dyer said that the RTD does not know what the total cost of its lobbying effort has been, particularly when staff lobbying efforts and travel and entertainment expenses are considered.