Sheriff Gets Job of Blue Line Security : Transportation: RTD directors withdraw plan to let transit police handle patrols for rail route. The higher cost of contracting for deputies stirs heated debate.

After praising their own transit police as a “very fine, very excellent” agency, Southern California Rapid Transit District directors Thursday withdrew their plan to let transit police patrol the Blue Line, opting instead to rehire the Sheriff’s Department for two more years.

Debate was especially heated because the contract with the Sheriff’s Department could cost $5 million a year more than using the RTD police--an important difference as the transit district struggles to resolve a $42-million deficit while pledging not to cut service, fire employees or raise fares.

The sudden reversal--the second flip-flop by the RTD on this topic in as many years--was praised by Neil Peterson of the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission, which lobbied hard for the Sheriff’s Department because of its exceptional record on the Blue Line.

“The commission wants to make sure there is a real and perceived level of safety on the Blue Line,” said Peterson, who believes the rail project’s success is key to public acceptance of the entire 300-mile rail rapid transit system planned for the region.

RTD police, meanwhile, denounced the decision as a waste of taxpayers’ money and a crippling blow to the morale of their agency, which has struggled over the last two years to shed an unprofessional image.

“Our officers have once again had the agency that sponsors them turn its back on them,” said David Swearengin Jr. of the Transit Police Officers Assn., which represents the 198 RTD police officers. “You have just taken our morale away from us.”

Board member Mas Fukai, who introduced the resolution favoring the sheriff, conceded that the board’s vote was not based on the quality of RTD police, which the entire board agreed has improved markedly since Police Chief Sharon K. Papa was hired two years ago.

Fukai, named to the RTD board by Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, said he supported the Sheriff’s Department because the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission would not accept any other agency. LACTC pays the operating subsidies for the Blue Line.

“I admit it is a political decision, no question about it,” he said.

Each of the 11 RTD board members said that after their vote last month to turn over Blue Line security to RTD police in mid-1993, they had been swamped with letters from mayors and other elected officials in the areas they represent.

The letter writers said security was the key to public acceptance of rail rapid transit--and thus to raising money needed to bring new lines to the cities they govern. That echoes LACTC themes, but Peterson said he neither organized nor encouraged the letter-writing.

While agreeing to keep sheriff’s deputies on patrol on the Blue Line until at least 1994, the RTD board asked LACTC to finance a 20% increase in the RTD force, to 242 officers, to improve security on buses. RTD staff estimated this would require next year’s RTD police budget to grow by 60%, to $13.7 million.

RTD board member Antonio R. Villaraigosa dismissed that request as an effort to “sugar coat” the vote for the Sheriff’s Department. Even at that, he said, the request is not likely to be granted because recession-reduced tax revenues have left the LACTC facing a $133-million budget shortfall of its own.

Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre, who was named to the RTD board by Mayor Tom Bradley, agreed. “I don’t think we’re being very honest about this,” he said.

Villaraigosa, who was named to the RTD board by Supervisor Gloria Molina, argued forcefully that the RTD board should use the Blue Line security issue to trim its own deficit rather than add to the LACTC’s shortfall.

“We’re facing a ($42-million) deficit, and I’ve heard (Board President Marvin Holen) say we are not going to cut service, not going to cut employees and not going to raise fares,” he said. “Well, where are we going to get the money, folks? We have a chance on the table now to save $5 million. Are we going to ignore it?”

Villaraigosa also questioned the Sheriff’s Department’s fitness, noting recent controversies over officer-involved shootings and allegedly racist in-house clubs. That irritated Fukai and sparked a brief shouting match among board members.

“I’m not going to sit here and take that baloney,” the usually calm Fukai grumbled before stalking off to fetch himself a beverage.

Alatorre, like most other board members, sympathized with RTD police, calling the proposal to forsake them in favor of the Sheriff’s Department “blatantly unfair” and a “tremendous injustice.”

But in the end, Alatorre, along with six other directors on the 11-member board, voted in favor of the sheriff.