RTD Official Draws Fire From Supervisors, Board : Transportation: The agency’s general manager is being criticized for approving controversial contracts. His leadership ability has also been questioned.

Southern California Rapid Transit District General Manager Alan F. Pegg has come under fire from some county supervisors and RTD board members a week before the district board meets to routinely evaluate Pegg’s performance.

Pegg’s recent approval of two controversial consulting contracts brought him criticism at a time when the district is fighting the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission for control of mass transit development in the area.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Peter F. Schabarum says Pegg should be fired. Supervisors Michael Antonovich and Deane Dana have expressed serious doubts about the general manager’s ability to run the largest bus transit system in the nation.

In addition, three of the 11 RTD board members are questioning Pegg’s abilities to lead the transit district as it prepares to take over the new Long Beach-to-Los Angeles light rail line built by the commission. The trolley line is the first leg of a 150-mile, $5-billion commuter rail network to be built by the commission and operated by the RTD.

Through an RTD spokesman, Pegg declined to discuss criticisms of himself.

Pegg was appointed general manager in July, 1988, replacing the embattled John Dyer, who had resigned in January of that year. At the time, the RTD was racked by problems of low morale on the transit police force, alcohol and drug abuse among drivers, serious bus accidents and fraudulent insurance claims against the district.

Pegg--a financial expert who came to the RTD from the Chicago transit authority in 1987--worked as the district’s controller/treasurer before being named to the $118,000-a-year general manager’s job.

Any move to oust Pegg is expected to meet with strong resistance from a majority of the board, according to Marvin L. Holen, the board’s vice president and a strong supporter of the general manager. He said the opposition was coming primarily from conservative local politicians who favor smaller, private bus companies over a strong metropolitan public transit system.

“Alan is doing a good job. . . . He has an excellent grasp of the problems of transportation,” Holen said. The general manager’s “one shortcoming” is the inability to anticipate the political fallout of some of his actions, Holen said.

RTD board President Gordana Swanson agreed that Pegg has done “a very good job . . . under very adverse conditions.” She said Pegg “has brought us a long way” toward solving the district’s varied problems.

Pegg touched off a controversy when he recently sidestepped the district’s “revolving door” hiring policies by paying an outside consultant $99,500 to hire former RTD board member Jan Hall as a RTD lobbyist. District policy prohibits the RTD from hiring a board member for at least a year after he or she resigns. Pegg has defended his action, saying RTD lawyers had told him that hiring Hall through the consultant was legal.

Hall resigned from the board in January to take the lobbying job. By keeping the contract under $100,000, Pegg was not required to get board approval. The general manager is authorized to routinely negotiate contracts under $100,000 without prior authorization from the board, and records show that hundreds of such contracts are approved each year, for everything from the purchase of office equipment to hiring of construction inspectors.

When Pegg’s handling of the Hall contract was disclosed in January, RTD board member Nick Patsaouras, frequently critical of Pegg, called on him to either rescind it or resign. Swanson, a supporter of Pegg, was so upset with his action that she led the successful move to cancel the contract.

Last week the board was informed that Pegg had negotiated a $99,000 contract with a consulting firm to hire Robert J. Murray as interim assistant general manager to supervise Metro Rail contracts and construction. The firm, Jacob Associates, had been under contract to the RTD for several years to perform various services. The unusual arrangement put Murray in the position of supervising the consulting firm that employed him.

RTD officials said Murray, realizing the potential conflict of interest, asked to have the Jacobson contract nullified and requested that the district hire him directly.

“They (Pegg and Murray) have worked it out . . . but only after the fact,” RTD board member Larry Gonzales said. “That’s two contracts within two weeks. It raises questions in my mind, as to (the) general manager’s judgments. . . .”

RTD directors Patsaouras and Jeff Jenkins expressed similar feelings. Both said the two contracts, plus Pegg’s inability to lead the RTD out of the conflicts it has with the transportation commission, have weakened their confidence in the manager’s work.

Pegg is scheduled to undergo his annual performance evaluation by the board in a closed session Feb. 22. Normally, the results of the evaluation are confidential, a district official said.

Individual RTD board members are appointed by the county Board of Supervisors, the Los Angeles mayor’s office or the League of California Cities. Patsaouras is an Antonovich appointee. Jenkins was appointed by Schabarum and Gonzales by Mayor Tom Bradley. Holen was named by Supervisor Edmund D. Edelman.

During a recent supervisors meeting, Schabarum said, “I’m hopeful there are six votes on the RTD board to relieve Mr. Pegg of his job. He shouldn’t have been appointed in the first place.”

Antonovich questions Pegg’s ability to provide the kind of leadership needed to solve the district’s problems. “I am supporting a change in the management,” he said. “If it can’t be done by Mr. Pegg himself, then he ought to step down and allow somebody to come in who can do the job.”