Transit Agencies in L.A. Approve Merger Proposal

Seeking to end years of feuding, the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission and the Southern California Rapid Transit District agreed Wednesday to merge under a plan worked out by Mayor Tom Bradley and a key aide.

If approved by the Legislature, the merger would create the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a bureaucratic behemoth whose access to billions of dollars in local and federal transit funds would instantly make it one of the nation’s largest public works agencies.

The MTA would be responsible for building in Los Angeles what is envisioned as the nation’s second-largest rail rapid transit system. Planners believe the network could shape the future of the region itself--where homes are built and businesses located. Among its first tasks would be a reevaluation of that vision in light of recession-generated budget shortfalls.

Ironically, RTD and LACTC directors decided a key point--how to structure the new MTA--on a casual voice vote. There was confusion initially over what, in fact, had been decided.

Ultimately, it took 5 1/2 hours and a review of tape-recorded proceedings for staff to determine that the boards had agreed to a more rigid organizational structure than originally recommended.

The two agencies have been feuding almost from the day in 1976 that the Legislature created the LACTC to manage the growing amount of money being spent on transit in the county. The Legislature has tried several times to merge the bodies only to be frustrated by issues of money, authority and the RTD’s union contracts.

Top officials of the two agencies generally praised Wednesday’s compromise, which was worked out in a series of meetings between board members and Jane Ellison, Bradley’s liaison to the commission.

“I’m astonished, shocked and delighted we were able to agree on as much as we did today,” said Jacki Bacharach of the LACTC.

“There were some gyrations and pretzel twists at some points (in the private talks),” Ellison said, “but whenever we came to a point where some people absolutely couldn’t give in on some point, we turned the tables and asked what they could live with.”

What is clear is that the boards agreed to combine their operations under a single policy panel, which would be named within 90 days of the Legislature approving the plan. The RTD and LACTC would continue to exist during a nine-month transition period, during which all their staffs, grants and responsibilities would be assumed by the MTA.

In some ways, the new MTA would appear to resemble the current LACTC--which is responsible for financing and building the county’s 300-mile rail rapid transit system--with the RTD added as a subsidiary to operate buses and some trains. However, the new agency would have a larger board of directors with more votes given to local officials at the expense of the county Board of Supervisors.

County Supervisor Ed Edelman was rankled by the makeup of the new MTA board of directors, arguing that giving cities two more votes for a total of eight on the 13-member board, would create friction and could complicate the merger’s passage through the Legislature.

“I don’t want to call this a power grab, (although) some may call it that,” Edelman said during a joint meeting of the RTD and LACTC boards. “I’m going to fight it and I think other supervisors are going to try to fight it.”

The new agency would be governed by the 13-member board, but most of its operations would be controlled by a chief executive officer, to whom the board could delegate a broad range of powers, from condemning private property to approving contracts to resolving contractors’ bid disputes.

Unlike an earlier LACTC proposal, the MTA board as proposed would retain the authority to hire and fire--or at least approve the hiring and firing--of most high-level executives. The commission’s proposal to delegate that authority to the chief executive officer raised questions about the checks and balances being built into an agency that has been described by RTD critics as the “biggest checkbook in Los Angeles County.”

Left unresolved were such issues as layoffs after the merger and the division of power among the MTA’s planning, construction and operating subsidiaries. These issues are expected to be addressed in drafting merger legislation.

Unresolved for a time was how the new MTA would be structured.

Transportation Commission Policy Director Sharon Neely said she thought that in voting the boards were asking the Legislature to formally create at least three subsidiaries of the MTA, one each to plan, build and operate rail and bus lines. Ellison said she believed the boards had rejected that motion in favor of a less-formal approach that would let the MTA create its own structure.

Commission spokesman Michael Bustamante said Wednesday evening that recordings showed the boards agreed to recommend that the Legislature formally create the three subsidiaries.

The biggest battle concerned the makeup of the new MTA board.

Under the adopted plan, the board would include the five county supervisors, four directors from the city of Los Angeles and four from the 86 smaller cities in the county. The four Los Angeles city members would include the mayor, a City Council member and two citizens appointed by the mayor. The smaller cities’ representatives would be chosen by a special county commission, with one representative from each of four “transit corridors” throughout the county.

The Board of Supervisors went on record Tuesday opposing the addition of two more directors representing cities, saying the supervisors’ power would be diluted. But assurances built into the final proposal eased all concerns but those of Edelman, who was able to muster only weak support from two smaller-city representatives who had their own objections to the MTA board makeup.

Ellison said she was able to win support from other supervisors, including Mike Antonovich and Kenneth Hahn, by promising that some of the smaller-city representatives come from cities in their districts. The transit corridors from which smaller-city representatives will be chosen were drawn to assure Antonovich that one director would come from northern Los Angeles County and assure Hahn that a director would come from Long Beach, the county’s second-largest city.