Antonovich to Blame for Loss of Rail Line

Gee! How appropriate it is that Mayor Riordan, as a member of the MTA board, would be surprised that the request for funding for the Valley east-west rail line has been dropped by the MTA Construction Planning Committee (“Metro Rail in the Valley May Lose Funding Priority,” Dec. 16.)

In its place, the request to the State Transportation Improvement Program asks for $500 million for the completion of rail lines to Pasadena and start-up for the Eastside subway, in addition to funding the fat cats (Spielberg, Katzenberg, and Geffen’s DreamWorks SKG) access project in Marina del Rey. Sounds like politics as usual for the likes of MTA board members, City Councilman Richard Alatorre, Mayor Riordan and County Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

Antonovich, the lead proponent and the catalyst behind the four-year delay for this project with his insistence on pushing the “pie-in-the-sky” monorail idea along the Ventura Freeway median, deftly stuck it to the Valley residents and thereby got the needed funding for the Pasadena line ahead of the Valley, which is exactly what his intentions were all along. He must be laughing at the other numbskulls on the MTA board. And although MTA board member and County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky may wish to lay blame on the “years of squabbling among Valley residents and lawmakers,” in all reality Yaroslavsky knows well enough it was none other than Antonovich’s action with the monorail deal that led to this snub of Valley residents.

ROBERT L. LOVERIDGE

North Hollywood