Edelman Elected Chairman of MTA : Politics: Supervisor will serve until his year-end retirement. Antonovich is picked to succeed him. He sought to take job immediately.

In a compromise over who should hold one of the region’s most powerful political posts, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board Wednesday elected Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman as its next chairman, picking fellow Supervisor Mike Antonovich to succeed him after his retirement in December.

Antonovich had angled to take over the job immediately, lobbying board members to bypass the usual rotation and install him as the next chairman over Edelman. But observers said a lack of votes forced Antonovich to accept a compromise that would allow him to serve out the remainder of Edelman’s one-year term as chairman, which begins Friday.

The chairmanship is one of the county’s most important positions, with the power to direct the $2.9-billion agency’s agenda for the coming year, including the fate of proposed bus fare hikes, labor negotiations and mammoth public works projects, such as a rail line spanning the San Fernando Valley.

Antonovich said the vote to appoint him now as Edelman’s successor was important for continuity’s sake.

“This is a good compromise,” he said. “We need to have a full team working together. You have everybody here right now.”

But Supervisor Gloria Molina, who voted against Antonovich, disagreed, saying the Board of Supervisors should decide later who among its members would replace Edelman. Under MTA rules governing the tenure of its officers, the county board has the right to hold the chairmanship for the entire year.

To select Antonovich now “is totally inappropriate,” said Molina, who in a rare appearance at Wednesday’s MTA meeting, unsuccessfully sought to postpone the vote on Edelman’s replacement.

The dual election of Edelman, who is vacationing in Europe, and Antonovich effectively shuts out the possibility of Supervisor-elect Zev Yaroslavsky assuming the post as one of the duties he will take over from Edelman. Yaroslavsky, now an alternate on the MTA board as a Los Angeles city councilman, said he did not want the job, but criticized Antonovich for trying to depose Edelman.

“I wasn’t seeking the chairmanship,” he said. “I have plenty on my plate without running this organization.”

Antonovich’s intervention in the normal course of succession made the MTA appear like a “Wild West saloon” run by whim, without regard for proper procedure, Yaroslavsky said.

“It didn’t speak well of Mike Antonovich . . . that (he) would try to pull such a banana republic type of stunt.”

Originally, Antonovich had pushed to have himself elected chairman immediately, without the wait until Edelman’s retirement. His office had put on the MTA board’s agenda an item calling for an amendment to current succession rules.

But the item was effectively withdrawn when it became apparent Antonovich could not muster enough votes to muscle Edelman aside.

“We beat that,” said one MTA official who asked not to be identified. Several of the board members had already declared their support for Edelman, and “they weren’t going to renege on their commitments,” the official said.

In the past, Antonovich and Edelman have clashed on the design and route of a planned east-west Valley rail line. Edelman has advocated a subway paralleling Burbank and Chandler boulevards, while Antonovich has pressed for an elevated line straddling the Ventura Freeway.

The matter comes before the board later this summer--during Edelman’s tenure as MTA chairman--when cost analyses of the two proposals will be presented.

Officials predicted that Antonovich would try to delay a final vote on the issue until he takes the gavel, but the supervisor said he was confident an elevated rail line would be found to cost less and would win the board’s backing on that basis alone.

As the new chairman, replacing Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre, Edelman will have other matters requiring immediate attention, such as a proposed 25-cent increase in bus fares recommended to help erase the MTA’s $126-million operating shortfall.

The board had been scheduled to vote on the highly controversial plan Wednesday, but deferred action until next month--partly to turn its full attention to the succession flap but also to give members more time to weigh the issue, officials said.

The MTA is also locked in fractious negotiations with its biggest union, representing 4,400 bus and train drivers, whose three-year contract expires today. Last week, the union rank and file overwhelmingly voted to authorize its leadership to call a strike if talks fail.

On Wednesday, a three-member investigative board appointed by Gov. Pete Wilson heard testimony that a bus drivers’ strike would cripple the region. It will report on the status of negotiations to the governor within a week. The report will probably move Wilson to seek a 60-day restraining order against any job action to let talks continue--standard procedure in such cases.

The MTA has already produced a contingency plan for supervisors and non-union employees to operate buses and trains in the event of a strike. The MTA board ratified the plan Wednesday.