Funding Cutoff Gives MTA Chief His Biggest Challenge

Franklin E. White on Thursday faced the toughest task of his 18-month tenure as head of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority: how to persuade the federal government that local officials can competently build the city’s subway.

In his brief tenure here, White has endured a nine-day bus strike, a lawsuit accusing the MTA of discriminating against minority and poor bus riders, a budget deficit and a litany of problems with the subway’s construction. But the federal government’s decision Wednesday to freeze future funds for Los Angeles’ Metro Rail project will surely test his mettle.

Nonetheless, he was taking his latest crisis in stride.

“As secretary of transportation and public safety for the state of Virginia, I had to deal with the escape of half a dozen prisoners from Death Row,” he said.

In Los Angeles, White has demanded that contractors deliver what they are paid for. And he has voiced deep dissatisfaction with the private firm that inspects and helps manage construction of the multibillion-dollar subway.

But, he said, “you cannot build anything of the magnitude or complexity of what we are building without occasional problems.”

Concerned about mounting problems with the subway’s construction, the Federal Transit Administration suspended about $1.6 billion in funding for the project, holding up plans to extend the subway to East Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.

White is an accountant and lawyer who is not afraid to confront controversy. During last summer’s bus strike, he journeyed to the picket line--with a full complement of police behind him--to try to sell management’s offer to striking mechanics.

To resolve the latest crisis, White said that “all options are on the table,” including firing the people involved in the subway project. One consideration in whether to replace the contractors is how much such a move would increase costs and delay the project.

Meanwhile, White, a cautious, pragmatic man, has tried to downplay the federal decision.

He used the word glitch to describe the federal action, and confidently predicted that the problems with Washington would be resolved by the end of the month. He also noted that work continues on other transit projects.

“I believe absolutely within a very short period of time we will have the Federal Transit Administration agreeing with us on the circumstances under which we can safely resume the construction in Hollywood,” White said.

“When the system is up, no one will remember some of the bumps,” he said.

At the same time, the transit chief also appears increasingly frustrated and easy to anger when he sees the mounting problems with the subway’s construction.

“It will happen in this world that you pay for certain things to be done for you, and they’re either not done or not done well,” White said. “And we’re very upset with that.”

Despite his unflappable style, White’s task of restoring the federal government’s--and perhaps more important, the public’s--confidence in the subway project will not be easy.

At times, he has recommended courses of action only to be rebuffed by the MTA board.

He has tried unsuccessfully to reform the MTA by doing away with the Rail Construction Corp., an independent arm of the MTA that oversees rail construction. But his proposal has languished for several months because of opposition from board members, most notably Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre.

On another occasion the board allocated millions of dollars more than White recommended for the Blue Line extension to Pasadena.

“He’s got an incredibly difficult job,” said Richard Katz, chairman of the state Assembly Transportation Committee.

Indeed, White, who earns $175,000 a year, must deal with 13 board members, all with their own egos and political agendas.

“Whoever recruited Franklin for the job, to some extent, lied to him or misled him about how politically involved the board was and how much freedom and flexibility he would have to do his job,” Katz said. “I think he expected to find a place where professionals were allowed to do their work without political interference or micro-managing from the board.”

Some officials blame White for not being aggressive enough.

“If I were CEO, I’d say: ‘OK, I’ll follow the directions of the board but remember in four months when the bomb drops in your lap, don’t start passing the buck to me,’ ” said MTA board member Jim Cragin.

Some transit board members say they are frustrated that White has not moved more quickly to root out incompetence and replace contractors who have not performed adequately.

The dissolving of the Rail Construction Corp. is no more than an incremental step, said MTA board member Nick Patsaouras. “Changing the theater alone is not going to do it,” Patsaouras said. “You have to change the actors.”

Alatorre, who has clashed repeatedly with White since the chief executive took over in spring, 1993, again criticized him in the wake of the federal action freezing future subway funding.

“His (White’s) responsibility is to implement the policies of the board,” said Alatorre, an appointee of Mayor Richard Riordan. “He spends too much time trying to undo it.”

But White sees things as more complicated.

“My job is to make sure, as we go down the road, that we reach the right blend” of accountability and speed, White said in a recent interview. “And it’s important we talk about that blend. Because if you overdo it, you cost yourself money.”

White, who came to Los Angeles after serving as New York state’s transportation commissioner, said the latest crisis has brought him a sort of dubious fame.

“All my friends are calling me from New York asking me: ‘What is this mess you’ve gotten yourself in?’ ”

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