Governor Vetoes Bill to Scrap Transit Agencies : Measure Would Have Replaced RTD, County Panel With Single Transportation Authority

Gov. George Deukmejian late Tuesday granted the RTD a reprieve from its legislative death sentence by vetoing a bill to replace Los Angeles County’s two major public transportation agencies with a new super-agency.

The action, immediately attacked by the bill’s supporters, surprised a number of participants in the 10-month reorganization battle. By the time it passed the Legislature two weeks ago, the bill had been delicately amended to pick up support from a majority of the county Board of Supervisors, most members of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, the Los Angeles City Council and the League of California Cities.

But in his veto message, the governor echoed the objections of elected officials from small cities, Los Angeles business leaders and his Republican colleagues in the Assembly, who strongly opposed the bill earlier this month.

‘Cosmetic’ Differences

“If I were to have signed this bill, it would have raised false hopes and expectations that the transit service would improve,” Deukmejian said. “In reality many of the differences between the old (agencies) and the new (proposed by the legislation) are cosmetic in nature.”

He added: “In order to succeed where existing entities have failed, the new authority should not be burdened by statutory constraints. . . . “

The governor cited the bill’s requirement that 20% of the new transportation agency’s contracts go to minority firms and its failure to encourage more use of lower-cost private bus companies to provide transit service. He also objected to what he said was inadequate representation for the county’s smaller cities on the board of the proposed super-agency.

The bill’s Democratic co-authors, Assemblyman Richard Katz of Sepulveda and state Sen. Alan Robbins of Van Nuys, said the governor was making a major mistake.

“This is a governor who has shown a total lack of leadership in the transportation field,” Katz said. “The RTD is wasting millions of dollars of taxpayer money. It shows contempt and disregard for the riders, and he is going to allow it to continue. . . . That will be on the governor’s head.”

Given the narrow margins of support for the controversial bill in both houses of the Legislature, an override is considered impossible. And it is unlikely that a bill more to the governor’s liking would ever be passed by the Democrat-controlled Legislature. Assembly Democrats have pushed for higher affirmative action goals in public contracting and their allies in transit labor unions have strongly opposed any laws that would encourage greater use of private bus companies.

The bill would have abolished the problem-plagued Southern California Rapid Transit District and the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission. Introduced in reaction to reports of widespread management problems at the RTD, the bill would have created a new Metropolitan Transportation Authority, governed by a powerful board of high-profile elected officials, including Mayor Tom Bradley and the five county supervisors.

Bradley had supported the bill and Deputy Mayor Michael Gage said the veto was a “disappointment.” He said Bradley would try to push ahead with the reform effort by calling together local elected officials so a new “blueprint” for reorganization can be developed.

County Supervisor Deane Dana, a strong supporter of the legislation, said the veto was a “shame.” “We know the status quo doesn’t work,” he said.

Robbins, seizing on part of the governor’s veto message that held out hope for some reorganization legislation in the future, said he would call on the governor to convene a special session of the Legislature in January to pass an emergency reorganization bill. “I don’t think the governor wants to take public credit for saving the RTD and the commission,” he said.

The authors’ reform rhetoric never ignited much passion in Sacramento, even among some of the supporters who reluctantly provided crucially needed votes. Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti, a Los Angeles Democrat who at the behest of Robbins helped push the measure through upper house, told The Times recently that he was “not terribly sold on this bill” and compared it to “rearranging the deck chairs.”

Several Los Angeles Democrats in the Assembly also were skeptical about the reorganization’s effect on transit and traffic problems, although they went along with Katz, chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee and a rising power in the Legislature. “I don’t see an organizational solution to what is a basic problem of modern civilization--overload,” said Assemblyman Tom Hayden, D-Santa Monica.

While the embattled RTD is saved, John Dyer, its controversial general manager, may not be. The legislation would have prevented him from serving as head of the new agency, but his future is still in doubt. He is working without a contract and much of the agency’s criticism has been aimed at his leadership.

Dyer and RTD President Jan Hall were out of town at a transit conference and could not be reached late Tuesday.