MTA Board Proposals

For a man whose patience is clearly among his many admirable leadership qualities, Mayor Richard Riordan’s sudden willingness to once again shuffle the organization of MTA’s Board of Directors is indeed curious (“Put New Wheels Under the MTA,” Commentary, Aug. 20).

MTA is barely 2 1/2 years old, and yet Riordan apparently considers it a failure already. No one said the MTA would be perfect. It has its faults, but it also has a great many virtues that are leading to positive changes. We have in place a responsible 20-year plan; we’ve formed a Cost Containment, Contracts and Efficiency Committee to find ways to substantially cut our costs; we plan a bus workshop this month to focus specifically on how we can improve our bus system; and we’ve opened a brand new rail line.

The 13-member board has shown remarkable teamwork so far on some major issues that will affect this region’s public transportation policy for decades to come. The MTA does not need “subsidiary business units” (which is a euphemism for a separate, often privately run business) to oversee bus operations and rail construction. This would dilute the accountability Riordan so desperately wants to see at the MTA. The agency is now structured so that all management functions are directly accountable to the CEO, who in turn reports to the Board of Directors. Filling the board’s seats with a collection of appointees, as the mayor suggests, does nothing to remove politics from the board--it simply shifts the votes to another layer of people who will vote as they are instructed to vote.

LARRY ZARIAN, Chairman

MTA Board of Directors

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* Thank you for publishing “The Future of Mexico’s Democracy Lies in Baja California” (Opinion, Aug. 20). Hugo Martinez McNaught notes that Mayor Ernesto Ruffo Appel of Baja California wants to expand the democratic rights of his constituents by giving them the recall and the plebiscite.

How ironic that in the same Opinion section Mayor Riordan of Alta California writes: “I will seek legislation in Sacramento calling for . . . a nine-member appointed [MTA] board. There would be no elected officials on the board. . . .” In other words, Riordan would actually reverse the progress of representative democracy, by denying the people the right to choose their rulers.

Hopefully Riordan will not get his way. Let us hope instead that Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles) will secure the passage of his SB 1152 in the state Senate. This bill, as it was passed in the Assembly, would make both the Los Angeles MTA and the Orange County Transportation Authority boards directly elected.If Polanco succeeds, we may soon see two good things: the right of the people to elect their transit board legislators, and the right of the people to vote on plebiscites concerning transit tax matters.

W. SNOW HUME

Fullerton