Antonovich, Hayden Laud Probe of MTA

Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich and state Sen. Tom Hayden on Friday celebrated the success of their campaign to get a congressional investigation of charges that Los Angeles’ $5.8-billion subway construction project is riddled with fraud and mismanagement.

The unlikely pair--a very conservative Republican and a very liberal Democrat--have lobbied Washington lawmakers for years to look into whistle-blowers’ allegations of widespread problems in the Red Line subway project.

Before a bank of television cameras in Antonovich’s office, they beamed broadly as they expressed admiration for the sagacity of a U.S. senator from Delaware whom most people in Los Angeles had never heard of, while a glum pack of detractors frowned in a back row.

The senator, Republican William V. Roth, had announced Thursday that he had handed them the prize they sought: a full-scale probe by the permanent subcommittee on investigations, a panel made famous in the 1950s by Sen. Joseph McCarthy’s attempt to root out Communists in the State Department, and later by former general counsel Robert Kennedy’s impassioned investigation of organized crime.

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Asked why he had requested such an examination rather than let the court system or the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s own inspector general root out trouble at the agency, Antonovich answered:

“When you turn on the lights, the cockroaches run away. We want to know who is making payoffs, why are property owners along tunnel alignments going bankrupt with no redress, why are freeway bridges sinking, why are the concrete walls too thin? The day of telling the truth under oath is almost upon us.

“All is going to be revealed, and then we are going to get a rail transportation system that we can afford.”

Added Hayden, of Santa Monica: “The courts are becoming defunct as a remedy, because they are reluctant to intervene. That is why it is important for Sen. Roth to step to the plate.”

Proponents of the Metro Rail system on Friday sent four representatives to the Hayden-Antonovich news conference in an attempt to cast the bad news in a better light.

“Previous audits and reviews have produced suggestions for improvements [in Metro Rail management oversight], and we continue to aggressively implement them,” said Joseph E. Drew, MTA chief executive, in a prepared statement handed out by a spokeswoman.

“Should the U.S. Senate probe lead to other refinements, the public can rest assured we will incorporate them into our program,” he said.

Los Angeles County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke--who like Antonovich sits on the MTA board of directors--picked up the theme.

“Every review of Metro Rail has found improprieties, but not anything different from any project anywhere else,” she said. “I hope this investigation will put it all to bed.”

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Burke accused Antonovich of seeking the inquiry because he was unable to persuade the MTA board to adopt his pet project--a train in the Ventura Freeway median in the San Fernando Valley.

“We have some sour grapes here,” she said. “His attitude is that: ‘If I can’t have my way, then I’m going to spoil everything.’ ”

Metro Rail proponents fear that the 75 other cities around the nation who want federal money for major transit projects will take advantage of dissension among MTA board members to persuade Congress not to fully fund Los Angeles’ subway system.

Already last week, the House transportation appropriations subcommittee slashed the MTA’s request for $158 million next year to $90 million--an amount that still must clear several more hurdles in the House and Senate before it can buy more concrete and track for the North Hollywood and Eastside extensions of the Red Line.

At City Hall, a high-level source said Metro Rail proponents were discouraged that Antonovich had derailed what he regards as Drew’s sincere attempt to fix the MTA since he was hired in March.

“The MTA has been improving daily over the past three months, and this is going to set it back,” said the source, who works closely with the agency.

“Mike has been writing to Congress three or four times a month, shooting spit wads until something sticks. This time, someone bit. It is partisan and it’s wrong.”