County Cited for Late Traffic-Reduction Plan

Air pollution officials cited Los Angeles County on Tuesday for failing to meet a deadline for implementing a plan to reduce worker travel but encouraged the county to begin charging employees to park downtown.

A South Coast Air Quality Management District inspector served the county with a “notice of violation” warning that it faces fines of up to $25,000 a day for missing a Sept. 17 deadline for implementing a traffic-reduction plan. The potential fines will grow until a plan is submitted by the county and approved by the district, an AQMD spokesman said.

The Board of Supervisors on Sept. 18 voted to begin charging 8,000 Civic Center workers $70 to $225 a month to park in spaces now provided free. The parking fees, designed to discourage employees from commuting to work alone, are in response to an AQMD directive for major employers to reduce worker travel and, in turn, smog and traffic congestion.

The parking fees are due to begin Monday. But in a letter to the county’s chief administrative officer, AQMD Executive Director James Lents complained that a $70-a-month transportation allowance the county will give to employees will not be included in paychecks until Nov. 15.

The AQMD considers that to be the implementation date and, by that reckoning, the county will miss the deadline by two months. The county was first notified in December, 1988, that it must come up with a plan, AQMD spokesman Tom Eichhorn said.

No decision has been made on assessing fines. “We’re reviewing our legal options,” Eichhorn said.

County Supervisor Mike Antonovich called the AQMD act “an outrage.” He attributed delays to legal requirements for the supervisors to negotiate the traffic-reduction plan with county labor unions.

Antonovich pointed out that the county has already implemented portions of the plan, including putting 1,600 employees who work at the Department of Public Works headquarters in Alhambra on a four-day, 10-hour work schedule and closing the building on Friday.

Eichhorn complained that the county has been dragging its feet in implementing traffic reduction. County government, as the county’s largest employer, “ought to be a leader, not a laggard,” he said.

An AQMD hearing will be scheduled to decide what steps the county should be required to take until a traffic-reduction plan is implemented. The county can present its case at the hearing or challenge the AQMD in court.

The county’s largest union, Local 660 of the Service Employees International Union, has opposed the parking fees, contending that they are designed to open parking lots for high-rise private development, which will lead to more congestion and pollution.