Gifts to MTA Board Members

* Regarding “MTA Contractors Dispense Thousands in Political Gifts,” Dec. 27: In a world filled with complications, here at last is a very simple problem to solve: The members of the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority should not accept any gifts from contractors, period.

What is depressing about your story is that this solution has escaped the notice of the board entirely. I had hoped for more incisive thinking from them, considering the power they wield and the awesome sums of public money they spread around. The members instead seem to like the more complex and trying path of accepting any and all gifts while calling on those special strengths (given particularly to politicians) which allow them to make impartial decisions even if one applicant before them has helped feather their nests and one has not. Gee, I wonder why.

I always liked Zev Yaroslavsky’s politics, but how disingenuous, how profoundly cynical are the quotes from Zev and from the mayor’s office saying that no matter how many gifts they get, they are still able to take a balanced view when doling out the megabucks. Come on, hasn’t anybody heard of “appearance of impropriety”? If contractors thought that giving a gift would disqualify them, the practice would end overnight.

JOHN DAVID

Studio City

* Are the MTA board and county supervisors asking us to believe that political contributions don’t influence their decisions regarding subway construction? Let’s ask Alice.

Bus riders are riding overcrowded buses. Once-proud drivers, who demanded and got order as they transported passengers on clean, well-maintained buses, are getting more demoralized as the bus system deteriorates, and anything goes.

But the bus system isn’t getting second-class treatment from the MTA, says the MTA and the board. No, no; bus riders are just imagining that. They’re whiners who don’t want to “share the pain” of a “shortfall” in MTA funds. Gotta raise the fares. Bus riders gotta pay their way.

Political contributions from contractors to decision-makers aren’t pressuring subway construction? Subway construction isn’t being undertaken to the neglect of the bus system? Alice says, are you in Wonderland?

DAMIANA CHAVEZ

Los Angeles

* Your chart on the largest contributors to MTA board members distorts reality by ignoring the fact that contributions were made over many years, and I and several other board members voted against measures supported by firms that gave donations.

However, the public must always be vigilant of the transportation-industrial complex, which invariably favors the most expensive option, costing taxpayers billions while failing to provide the transit alternatives promised by its backers.

There is no shortage of such follies in Los Angeles County. They begin with the Red Line subway tunneling fiascoes Downtown and in the Wilshire District, continue with the sinking of Hollywood Boulevard and the huge cost overruns in six of seven change orders revealed by an investigation I requested the inspector general undertake.

For years, I led the effort on behalf of a monorail along the Ventura Freeway, which would be built far more quickly and in a more cost-effective manner than a subway. That option won voter approval by a 5-1 margin. However, policy-makers, wooed by special interests, ignored that mandate and voted 8-5 for a subway that will not even be completed in the lifetimes of most of today’s Valley residents.

MICHAEL D. ANTONOVICH

Supervisor, Fifth District Chairman, MTA Board of Directors