Sheriff Awarded Job of Policing New ‘Blue Line’ : Transit: RTD board bows to pressure and votes to give the duty to deputies--rather than the agency’s own police force.

Buckling under intense lobbying from county supervisors and the mayor of Los Angeles, RTD directors Tuesday reversed a previous decision and voted to have sheriff’s deputies--and not its own police force--protect the new Long Beach-Los Angeles light-rail line.

“We succumbed to political pressure. That’s the truth,” said Southern California Rapid Transit District board President Gordana Swanson after the 7-1 vote. “It had nothing to do with our (transit officers’) ability to do the job. It had everything to do with politics.”

Tuesday’s vote settles a long-running dispute between the RTD and the county Transportation Commission, which is financing the $871-million “Blue Line” and has been pressing for the district to hire sheriff’s deputies to police it. Commission officials say they believe the deputies are better-equipped to handle the job.

The Blue Line, set to open July 16, runs through areas of South-Central Los Angeles that are plagued by gang violence and drug use. Rail experts agree that its success--as well as the success of other lines planned for elsewhere in the county--depends upon riders feeling safe enough to board the trains.

Under the plan accepted by the board Tuesday, the Sheriff’s Department will hold the contract for policing the 22-mile line during its first two years of operation. The sheriff will provide a special force of 126 officers, investigators and supervisors to patrol the trolley line, at a cost to the commission of $9.9 million a year.

RTD board members, meanwhile, said they intend to beef up the district’s own police force during the two-year period so that the transit officers can take over when the contract with the sheriff expires.

But that was little comfort to the three dozen or so transit police officers who attended Tuesday’s meeting. After the vote, the grim-faced officers left the room, grumbling that morale, which has been a problem in the past, may now sink even lower.

“I think it’s a slap in the face,” said Frank Bielman, president of the Southern California Transit Police Officers’ Assn.

He added that he does not believe the sheriff will give up the job after two years: “Once the camel’s got his nose in the tent, he’s all the way in.”

RTD officers have complained that the Sheriff’s Department is nosing in on their turf and have also said that they can provide security for $4 million a year less.

Norman Jester, the commission’s director of rail activation, said money is not the issue.

“This was not a turf issue,” he said. “This was not a dollars-and-cents issue. This was an issue that had the safety of the public at stake.”

Jester praised the RTD board for making what he said was a tough decision to reverse itself.

“This was not an easy topic to resolve,” he said.

Swanson said representatives of Mayor Tom Bradley and the county supervisors “put a great deal of pressure on us,” particularly on board members who are political appointees. Seven of the board’s 11 members are appointed, two by the mayor and five by the supervisors.

Board Vice President Marvin Holen said he cast the lone dissenting vote because the plan does not provide a specific date for the RTD to begin training its own officers to take over policing of the line. He said the lack of such a date would undermine the district’s ability to “maintain the morale and the integrity” of the transit police force.

The board’s vote, taken during a special meeting, came at the last possible minute for the Sheriff’s Department, which had insisted that if a decision were not made by Tuesday, deputies would not have adequate time to prepare for the opening of the line.

Swanson said the timing was also a factor in the board’s decision.

“This has been going on for much too long,” she said. “We wanted to settle it and we wanted to get on with it. We cannot jeopardize the safe start-up of the line.”