MTA Chief Launches Bid to Revamp Construction Arm : Transit: White hires executive to review troubled Rail Construction Corp. Board delays effort to dissolve agency.

Attempting to gain tighter control over the troubled Los Angeles subway and light-rail projects, the top executive of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority announced Wednesday that he has begun revamping the agency’s construction practices.

But elected officials rebuffed his attempt to immediately dissolve the MTA subsidiary that is overseeing construction of the multibillion-dollar Metro Rail project.

Chief Executive Officer Franklin E. White first announced the hiring of a veteran public transit executive to review how the agency designs, builds and monitors the transit project.

“Over the past year I have become increasingly concerned about the rail construction program,” White said as he announced the hiring of Jerry B. Baxter, now chief of regional operations for the California Department of Transportation.

Baxter, a 32-year Caltrans veteran who has supervised freeway repairs after the Northridge earthquake, will be “responsible for revamping the MTA’s rail construction procedures and practices,” White said.

But within hours, officials who serve on the MTA’s board of directors declined to vote on White’s proposal to dissolve the Rail Construction Corp., a subsidiary agency that has come under fire because of problems with construction quality and cost overruns.

The frenzy of maneuvering Wednesday reflected an increasingly public struggle for power over key decisions driving the nation’s largest public works project.

White, who was hired to lead the MTA in the spring of 1993, has had to address serious problems reported by The Times, including subway tunnel walls built thinner than designed and leaks of potentially hazardous gases.

Within the past month, he and other MTA officials have drawn criticism for the handling of subway tunneling beneath Hollywood Boulevard. Ground sinkage there of up to nine inches, ruptures of water and sewer lines and damage to buildings have forced a costly halt in the tunneling.

Federal agencies are investigating the problems. The Hollywood area’s congressman, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles), called for a review by the U.S. secretary of transportation.

At Wednesday’s MTA board meeting, White sought to disband the RCC, which in 1990 had absorbed authority over rail construction held by the Southern California Rapid Transit District.

The RCC is governed by its own board of political appointees who recommend contract awards and changes to the MTA.

White’s proposal said the consolidation in 1993 of the region’s transit agencies into the MTA has rendered the RCC obsolete. “So far as we can determine, no other city has found it necessary to utilize a similarly structured . . . subsidiary for the construction of its transit system,” he said.

However, few of the 11 MTA board members on hand wanted to act on White’s proposal.

Two of them--Los Angeles County Supervisors Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Mike Antonovich--later said they were ready to support White but had been asked to delay action by Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and City Councilman Richard Alatorre.

“I was ready to vote today,” Burke said. “But the mayor wanted to put it over for a month so he would have a chance to discuss it.”

She said the RCC’s role in administering construction contracts obscures accountability and has diluted the power of elected officials on the MTA board.

“It’s very difficult to have the RCC making all of the decisions that they make,” Burke said. “We really don’t have a chance to have input.”

Riordan, who sits on the MTA board and has three appointees on it, was traveling Wednesday from Washington, D.C., according to an aide.

“It’s not that the mayor agrees or disagrees,” said the mayor’s press secretary, Noelia Rodriguez. “He just wanted to be a part of the discussion related to this issue.”

Alatorre, who has opposed White’s proposal, was said by an aide to be on vacation. “The councilman wants to have some input prior to having some action taken,” said Sharon Neely, who left the MTA one year ago to join Alatorre’s staff.

One official who urged a vote Wednesday was county Supervisor Gloria Molina. Declaring that the time for delay was past, Molina said she was “fairly disgusted” with the MTA’s rail construction performance. She noted that White first sought and failed to win board approval to dissolve the RCC four months ago.

“I am concerned that the RCC is a key culprit” in the construction problems, Molina said. “We’re operating in the dark. . . . We need to have more hands-on involvement. We need to get control.”

The chairman of the RCC, Robert E. Kruse, said the agency has done nothing wrong and has the expertise to manage the work.

“This is the best-managed public works program in the country,” said Kruse, an equipment-leasing contractor who serves without salary. “We (the RCC) make a fine sacrificial lamb at the moment.”

In a related development, the MTA’s inspector general issued an analysis of seven subway contract increases, totaling about $2 million, that were granted to Tutor-Saliba Corp. The review was requested last spring by Antonovich.

The inspector general found that six of the seven increases, or “change orders,” approved by RCC staff and consultants were “questionable” and possibly unjustified.

Kruse said Wednesday that the change orders were appropriate and that the inspector general’s report amounts to second-guessing.

Ronald N. Tutor, president of Tutor-Saliba, said his company has been paid only what it was owed and that any questioning of the change orders should be directed to representatives of Parsons-Dillingham, the construction management firm that oversees subway construction on behalf of the RCC.

Ed Edelman, who will be chairman of the MTA until he retires as a county supervisor in December, said he wanted to postpone White’s proposal for one month, until the newly hired Baxter offers his advice.

However, Baxter said he would not begin working at the MTA until Nov. 1. His salary and title have yet to be determined.

“It’s not a reflection on Frank (White),” Edelman said. “We’re trying to move in an orderly way. It may not be as fast as some people like, but we’re headed in the right direction.”