Don’t Blink or We’ll End Up Buying a Station for MCA
I know that MCA Inc. runs an earthquake ride in its Universal Studios amusement park, but that’s no reason to spend federal earthquake relief money to build a subway station there.
Yes, it’s true. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Washington lobbyist, Arthur Sohikian, admitted the agency has discussed going after $42 million of our hard-won earthquake aid to help finance a Metro Rail station near the politically powerful corporation’s CityWalk and the rest of the theme park’s attractions. It would come from funds in the $8.6-billion relief bill. There is $550 million in the bill that can be spent however President Clinton wants.
MCA’s proposal has nothing to do with repairing earthquake damage. Rather, this is just the latest maneuver in an attempt to obtain federal funds for a subway stop at an amusement park and movie studio--a subway to the stars.
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The Metro Rail subway is already being constructed and eventually will run through the Cahuenga Pass, connecting the San Fernando Valley to Hollywood and Downtown Los Angeles.
When the route was first laid out, the subway planners proposed a stop at Universal City and the studio. At the time, MCA opposed it. Longtime transit board member Nick Patsaouras said that he and then-Mayor Tom Bradley visited MCA boss Lew Wasserman in the early ‘80s and asked him to reconsider. “He said: ‘We don’t need a subway here,’ ” Patsaouras recalled.
So transit planners found a site north of Universal City and began the expensive task of buying property and designing a station.
Then MCA changed its mind. The amusement park was a big success, as was CityWalk and a 14-theater multiplex. Cars packed the studio area. MCA asked the Metropolitan Transportation Authority to move the station to Universal Studios.
You have to understand that when MCA calls on government for help, it isn’t like the owner of Joe’s Market asking his councilman for a loading zone in front of the store. MCA and its chief, Wasserman, as generous political contributors, have a lot more clout. In fact, Wasserman has been the Democrats’ premier fund raiser in California for decades.
Wasserman’s influence and friendships extend beyond the Democratic Party. When Ronald Reagan was a young actor, Wasserman was his agent. The friendship continued through Reagan’s presidency. Then, as now, presidents, senators, governors and mayors returned Lew Wasserman’s calls.
Last month, the transportation authority staff took on this titan. The staff reported that changing plans this late in the game would delay by 21 months the opening of the Valley subway leg and add $59 million to the cost.
MCA began negotiating with transit officials. Both sides agreed the cost increase could be cut to $41 million if MCA donated the land for the station, and paid for part of the construction. That wasn’t good enough for Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden. “MCA should pay for the station themselves,” Holden protested when the request came up at an MTA committee meeting Jan. 13.
But Holden didn’t have a chance, as he might have guessed after observing the corps of powerful lobbyists MCA had unleashed at the meeting.
MCA representative Joe Cerrell, a well-known lobbyist and Democratic political manager, circulated around the meeting room, talking to reporters and pols while members of his team distributed information sheets to the press. Attorneys George Mihlsten and Lucinda Starrett of Latham & Watkins, a major lawyer-lobbyist firm, presented the MCA case to the committee. North Hollywood residents supporting MCA, organized by company executive Christine Hanson, were in the audience. Some of them testified for MCA.
No decision was made at the meeting. But on Jan. 26, the transportation authority board voted to tell its Washington lobbyists to work with MCA lobbyists to try to find federal funds to pay for the additional costs of moving the subway station to Universal City.
As it happened, by then the earthquake had hit and MCA and transportation authority lobbyists were also working on the earthquake relief bill. Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan had asked Wasserman and other L.A. corporate chiefs to have their Washington lobbyists help push the earthquake relief bill through Congress. The Metropolitan Transportation Authority lobbyists also supported the bill.
Amid all this frantic lobbying, a source familiar with the events told me, someone came up with the idea of tapping a big discretionary fund in the $8.6-billion earthquake relief bill. This fund, amounting to $550 million, was to be spent at Clinton’s discretion.
Last week, the idea popped up at a meeting of the transit authority’s Executive Management Committee. Riordan asked Sohikian, the MTA Washington lobbyist, “On the President’s discretionary money on the emergency funds--I’ve heard that $42 million has been set aside for the Universal Station. Have you heard anything about that?”
Sohikian replied: “At this point, it is still at the discretion of the President how he spends that money. . . . But yes, that, that has been discussed, Mr. Mayor.”
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This exchange was reported in Friday’s Times by reporter David Willman. At the same time, Patsaouras, Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich’s alternate on the MTA board, told the supervisor what had happened. With the embarrassing plan now in the open, Antonovich persuaded board members to call it off.
But don’t imagine we’ve heard the last of MCA’s subway to the stars. Backed by this kind of special interest, pork barrel projects never die.
They re-emerge over and over, buried in unrelated legislation. We’d better keep our eyes open.
