New MTA Board Chief Faces Tough Challenges : Transit: Glendale Councilman Larry Zarian brings high energy to the leadership post. But he has been accused of mismanagement in business dealings.

Larry Zarian has high hopes for the troubled Metropolitan Transportation Authority: hopes of regaining the public trust, of exorcising provincial politics from the MTA’s decisions, of pushing the cash-strapped agency from the red to the black.

By all accounts, the longtime Glendale city councilman, who inherited the chairmanship of the MTA board on Saturday, has the energy and ambition to try to accomplish the monumental task he has laid out for himself. Supporters, colleagues and even detractors describe him as highly motivated and dedicated, a savvy deal-maker who is comfortable in both the front and back rooms.

But as he steps into one of the county’s most powerful posts, Zarian, 57, also brings a political and personal history that includes recent accusations of mismanagement and misrepresentation--the very criticisms that dog the agency he is trying to reinvent.

A pair of lawsuits over property he owns have cast a cloud over Zarian’s business dealings. Allegations that he lied about his educational background have stung his reputation. And some observers question whether he can command the respect of his colleagues, many of whom come to the MTA board with electoral mandates and much larger spheres of influence.

“If Larry shows that he can do the job, that he can talk to his colleagues in a way they can understand and that shows he’s responsive to their concerns, I think they’ll respect him,” said Donald Camph, a transportation policy consultant from Culver City.

“But whether Larry can [turn the MTA around] by himself, well, to be honest, I’m not sure Superman can do it by himself. It can be done, but he’ll need a lot of help.”

Others are less charitable.

“He was a nothing, a Glendale City Council person, and now he’s king of L.A. transit,” said one skeptical MTA official.

Zarian, a retired entrepreneur, defends his record, saying that he has demonstrated his fitness for the job with an active civic life in Glendale and by hard work on the MTA. Although he represents a so-called corridor city, Zarian was a highly visible figure during last year’s bus strike and was chairman of the agency’s important finance and budget committee.

“Just because I come from a small city doesn’t mean I don’t have leadership abilities,” he said in an interview at Glendale City Hall.

As MTA chairman, Zarian will preside over the monthly meetings in which the region’s transit system is designed and millions of dollars in contracts are doled out. His position will allow him to decide which issues come before the board, and to control debate. Zarian will also represent the agency before state and federal legislators who award scarce transportation funds.

No one doubts his passion for transportation issues. In November, he used the backdrop of Glendale’s train station to launch his bid for reelection to the City Council and to trumpet his achievements on the MTA board.

One of Zarian’s foremost goals as MTA chairman, where he succeeds County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, is to get board members to act for the good of the region, not merely their own districts.

But John Fasana, a Duarte city councilman who has served with Zarian on the MTA board for the last two years, said Zarian must be realistic about the demands put on politicians who want to remain in office.

“We want to be regionally focused . . . but at the same time, the bottom line is that there have been times when I know if my region isn’t getting equal treatment, I’ll use any means I can to attain that treatment,” Fasana said.

In fact, despite his insistence on the bigger picture, Zarian has been a forceful advocate for his own city, promoting a $559-million light-rail line from Los Angeles to Burbank via Glendale.

When word went out that the proposed trolley system might be omitted from the MTA’s new 20-year plan, an irate Zarian called MTA Chief Executive Officer Franklin L. White at home to demand an explanation.

In spite of Zarian’s efforts, the line was cut from the long-range plan, although the MTA board agreed to reconsider it if more funding becomes available. Zarian denies that his boosterism for the line is an example of the provincialism he decries, saying instead that he and his constituents were willing, in the end, to sacrifice it for the greater good of the $2.9-billion agency’s financial health.

As the former owner of a chain of retail shops called Anthony’s Department Store, Zarian wants to import business principles to the MTA, which faces a $350-million deficit this year.

Zarian advocates closer scrutiny of contracts, a reduction in the number of MTA consultants and frugal spending of contingency funds. He also said the agency may have to rethink its current emphasis on subway construction, including the controversial decision to locate a rail line across the San Fernando Valley, mostly underground.

In his quest to mold the MTA along the lines of the private sector, Zarian has a like-minded thinker in Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, another businessman-turned-politician.

Riordan’s support is crucial on the 13-member MTA board because he controls four votes: his own and those of three appointees. Despite being the board’s chairman, Zarian does not wield that kind of power because only the mayor of Los Angeles can appoint others to the board.

“By nature of Larry not having that kind of clout, he’s not going to have that much influence or power in getting other members to go along with him,” said Mel Wilson, a Northridge real estate broker and a Riordan MTA appointee.

“It’s a new league--he’s moved up another step in wheeling and dealing,” said David Weaver, a two-time Glendale City Council candidate whom Zarian defeated in April. “How successful he’ll be, I don’t know.”

Zarian said he has established a good rapport with the other board members and is confident that he will be able to run the board and rein in MTA staff.

Zarian’s staunch conservative principles stem from an upbringing as an immigrant widow’s son who entered the real estate business by buying his first home in Glendale at the age of 19. He went on to work in the jewelry business, then retail, accumulating enough real estate holdings along the way--from Hawaii to Burbank--to allow him to retire at the age of 45.

At least two of those investments have landed Zarian in trouble.

Five years ago, a group of dissatisfied homeowners filed a lawsuit alleging that Zarian and his business partners knowingly sold poorly built condominiums in Glendale’s Glen Valley development. The $15-million suit, which still awaits trial, alleges such defects as leaky pipes, faulty electrical systems and walls so thin that conversations can be easily overheard.

In May, another lawsuit was filed with similar allegations about the Mount View Terrace complex in Montrose.

Aiming to defuse the issue, Zarian brought up the allegations himself in an interview.

“There aren’t too many condominium complexes in Los Angeles or anywhere that don’t have a lawsuit against them,” he said.

Critics also accuse Zarian of misrepresenting his background, particularly the perception that he is a graduate of UCLA.

During his reelection campaign, opponents insinuated that Zarian had lied about his education by pretending to hold a college degree when in fact he never graduated. A published report, which Zarian later refuted, said he claimed to have graduated in 1959 with a bachelor’s degree; indeed, his current resume lists his schooling as Glendale College and UCLA, where his “major” was “political science.”

Zarian now contends that he never claimed to have earned a bachelor’s degree. UCLA officials confirm that Zarian enrolled in extension courses in the early 1960s but did not take regular undergraduate classes that would have qualified him for a degree.

In the April election, Zarian kept his seat on the City Council with 5,198 votes, about 1,000 more than Weaver, his nearest competitor.

Rumors have long circulated that Zarian, a committed Republican, is preparing to run for higher office, possibly Antonovich’s county seat if the veteran supervisor decides to retire.

“I think he wants to be known and respected and sought-after,” Weaver said. “That’s the type of person he is. He wants to be the center and have others help. . . . “