A Stealth Attack That Leaves No Trace of Why

We got a lesson in secret government Friday from Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan and the other Metropolitan Transportation Authority committee members who recommended firing Franklin White as boss of the MTA. The committee’s recommendation, expected to be accepted by the full MTA board next week, is important to everyone in Los Angeles County, even those who don’t ride the buses and trains.

For now the board must pick a new chief executive officer, and the wrong choice could cost the taxpayers many millions in more cost overruns and waste. Furthermore, the disarray in the agency will undoubtedly hurt the MTA’s quest for federal funds for rail construction and other transit operations.

Yet this decision and the discussion that preceded it were done in private, behind closed doors, in what appeared to be a violation of the Brown Act, the state law forbidding local government agencies to meet in secret.

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Riordan and the other four committee members met in a back room at the MTA’s new headquarters building. The others were Huntington Park City Councilman Raul Perez, MTA board Chairman Larry Zarian and County Supervisors Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Deane Dana.

Dana was the nominal chairman, but Riordan, by virtue of his mayoral job and his political alliances, had all the clout. It was Riordan who was leading the move against White.

A handful of reporters waited outside the room. None objected to this closed-door phase of the session. The Brown Act permits government bodies to discuss personnel matters in private, as long as the public is given notice that the meeting will be held. The evaluation committee had followed these rules.

But the reporters soon noticed the arrival of MTA board members who were not part of the evaluation committee. Soon, by the journalists’ count, the crowd in the back room had grown to nine MTA board members. That constituted a quorum for the full board of 13. The character of the meeting had changed. It now appeared to be an MTA board meeting, being held behind closed doors and without any prior public notice. That seemed to violate the Brown Act.

The reporters sent in a protest through an MTA staff member. Word came back that the MTA lawyer ruled the meeting legal. We didn’t hear another word until MTA board member James Kragin, a Gardena city councilman, left the room and told us the committee had voted for bouncing White.

The next person to emerge was Supervisor Dana, who, half-smiling, said: “Meeting adjourned.”

“What happened?” a reporter asked. Dana refused to say. “It’s strictly a personnel matter,” he said. Another reporter told him that Kragin revealed that the vote had been 3-2 against White. “I don’t know if it was 3-2 or what,” Dana said.

Soon he left. So did the other members, including Mayor Riordan, who had led the move against White.

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If this were an isolated act, it wouldn’t be worth much of a mention. The Brown Act is full of gray areas, and lawyers disagree over how to interpret it.

What made the reporters angry was that this meeting climaxed months of behind-the-scenes maneuvering against White.

Neither Riordan nor his chief ally in the enterprise, Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre, had the guts to stand up and spell out publicly what they had against White. Instead, they worked by stealth.

When I wrote about the secret maneuvering, a mayoral aide called to complain that Riordan was the most public of men when it came to the MTA and White. What more could he do?

Hold a press conference, I said. Spell out his objections to White. Then ask for questions.

Let the others do the same. Then the public might understand why Franklin White is being fired.