White, Embattled Head of Transit Agency, Is Fired : MTA: Board’s vote comes as he warns that MTA is an out-of-control ‘money train.’ Riordan says chief executive suffered from ‘paralysis by analysis.’

Franklin E. White’s brief but tumultuous tenure as the first chief of the county’s super-transit agency came to a bitter end Wednesday, hours after White issued a scathing assessment of an operation that he characterized as an out of control “money train.”

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority board voted 9-4 to oust White after a months-long campaign by Mayor Richard Riordan and his allies, who blamed the CEO for failing to stop the hemorrhage of bad publicity and other problems with the agency’s subway construction.

But White did not go quietly. He said he was being forced out because he had dared to say no to the politicians and special interests in the construction community.

“This is a money train, and if you get between the people who want the money and the people who spend the money, you’ve got problems,” White told the board. “That explains why we’re here.”

But county supervisor and MTA board member Mike Antonovich disagreed, saying: “For the past 2 1/2 years, the MTA has been led by a General McClellan when what we needed was a General Grant.”

Riordan, repeating the phrase that has become his mantra in leading the attack on White in recent weeks, told reporters that the chief executive suffered from “paralysis by analysis,” unable to set a decisive course for the $3-billion agency at a time of “desperate” need.

“Frank is an honorable man, he’s a nice man, but he’s a poor leader,” Riordan told reporters after the vote, which followed a two-hour discussion in closed session.

All three of Riordan’s appointees joined him in voting to oust White, as did Antonovich, Supervisors Gloria Molina and Deane Dana, Huntington Park Councilman Raul Perez and Duarte Councilman John Fasana. Supporting White were board Chairman Larry Zarian, Supervisors Zev Yaroslavsky and Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Gardena Councilman Jim Cragin.

“Everyone’s mind was made up,” Yaroslavsky said of the board’s closed session. “I think honesty, integrity and professionalism were a casualty in this decision. . . . This is a terrible decision.”

Cragin also slammed the board. “The majority in its infinite wisdom just castrated the MTA,” he said.

The board named Deputy Chief Executive Officer Joseph Drew as the acting chief for up to six months and said it would begin a nationwide search for a leader to preside over the MTA’s bus system and the expansion of its rail and subway system. Drew said he was honored that the board had entrusted him with the interim job but acknowledged: “It was a difficult day.”

Yaroslavsky and Drew got into a minor dispute over an unrelated matter after the White vote, and the supervisor--in a facetious gibe--made clear that he believed times had changed.

“If you don’t do it my way,” he told Drew, “I’m going to bring a motion to fire you. That’s the way it’s being done now.”

The board--which has come under fire for a stealth approach to governing--had originally agreed Wednesday to hold the debate in public, but White changed his mind and asked that it be kept private, saying he saw no need to air the issue in the open.

As the board debated his future into the early evening, White chatted amicably with people who waited anxiously in the MTA boardroom, and he maintained his trademark low-key demeanor even after the firing was announced.

“We have seen this coming over the last several weeks and I’ve been prepared intellectually and emotionally,” he said. The first thing he wants to do, White said, is take “a long vacation” and then plan his future.

But many of his supporters, who maintain that White became a scapegoat for refusing to go along with board members’ pet projects, reacted far more angrily.

“I believe we have injured this organization for a long time,” said Zarian, one of White’s strongest backers, adding that he believes it will be difficult to attract any top candidates for the job given how White was treated.

An enraged state Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles) said the firing was part of an orchestrated effort by Riordan to get black males out of leadership positions in the city--a charge that the mayor has denied.

“My community feels that this was a lynching. We have declared war on the mayor and the MTA community” as a result of the vote, she said, adding that black leaders will escalate their efforts to oppose Riordan’s reelection in 1997. “We are going to spread the word. . . . The word on the streets is anyone else but,” she said.

White told board members before the vote that he did what he felt was right--including recommending against projects favored by his bosses--even though it cost him political support.

“What you need is a CEO--whether Frank White or somebody else--who’s going to tell board members something they may not went to hear,” he said.

After White delivered a passionate defense of his record in public, the board convened behind closed doors to decide his fate. White will receive more than $200,000 for the remaining year of his contract.

The former New York state transportation commissioner was hired in 1993 to run one of the nation’s largest public works agencies, created by the merger of the rival Southern California Rapid Transit District and Los Angeles County Transportation Commission.

Referring to the subway construction problems, White said, “Had we not experienced several serious mishaps within a very small time frame, I don’t think we’d be sitting here today.

“But I also think that everybody knows there is nothing that Frank White did or didn’t do . . . that caused the sinking or the sinkhole in Hollywood. What I am prepared to be judged by is what I did in the wake of the things that did happen.”

Earlier, an overflow crowd of more than 300 people packed the boardroom at the MTA’s new Union Station headquarters with the spillover forced to listen in a separate room.

If the audience had been deciding White’s fate Wednesday afternoon, his $178,000-a-year position would have seemed secure. More than a dozen people spoke out in support of the chief executive, arguing that he was being made a scapegoat, while two supported his firing.

The most prominent--and surprising--speaker was former Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley, who was instrumental in bringing White to the MTA in 1993.

Bradley’s appearances on political issues have been rare since he left office, but he said in an interview that he wanted to “break his silence” because he felt so strongly about White’s mistreatment.

“I could no longer sit back and be quiet,” he told the board. “I have too much of my blood, sweat and energy wrapped up in the MTA for me to ignore what is taking place in my community.”

Bradley urged the board against a “rush to judgment,” saying that White’s honesty and integrity were beyond reproach. “If you’re looking for a yes man, you don’t want Frank White.”

Bradley and other speakers maintained that the board must shoulder blame for the agency’s troubles.

“Firing Frank White will not solve the basic problems,” Watson said. “This is a recipe . . . for disaster.”

State Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) concurred. “Instead of scapegoating Franklin White, the MTA should look in the mirror. . . . He tries to be independent. Now he becomes a sacrifice to the gods of ’60 Minutes,’ ” Hayden said, referring to a recent critical report that ran on the national news show.

The public testimony, which lasted more than 90 minutes, assumed some measure of levity when a few speakers speculated on possible successors to White.

Activist John Walsh suggested that former coroner Thomas Noguchi would be the only one able to preside over an agency as near to death as the MTA, while bus riders organizer Eric Mann said, “Anybody who would want this job is probably unemployed and probably under charges of incompetence in their previous job.”

* RAIL LINE VOTE: MTA urges that a Valley rail line be removed from a list of state funding priorities. B1