Panel Rejects Transit Chief’s Choice for Job

A key Metropolitan Transportation Authority committee on Thursday voted to give a subway contract on the Eastside to a business team ranked first by a panel of experts, rejecting the controversial recommendation of the agency’s chief executive that the job go to a team that the experts ranked last.

The choice came after a heated four-hour meeting that sometimes appeared more like an episode of “Perry Mason” than a government hearing, with a fired MTA contract administrator called out of the audience to give testimony that committee members said they believed refuted statements made by the chief executive a few moments before.

Committee member Zev Yaroslavsky, a Los Angeles County supervisor, used that testimony, and research of the contract evaluation process by his own staff, to declare that he believed MTA Chief Executive Joseph E. Drew had not been truthful with the board about how he came to reverse the experts’ ranking.

“Every time you give a rationale, it turns out to be false,” Yaroslavsky said to Drew. “You’ve left a paper trail, and it doesn’t add up.”

Drew had told MTA board members in a memorandum last week that he chose a consortium called Metro East Consultants for the $65-million job because he considered them to be the most technically qualified for the job.

The chief executive stated that he put aside the expert panel’s ranking of a North Hollywood-based business team called JMA because he wanted it to concentrate on a current contract to manage tunneling in the Hollywood Hills. His memo also said he rejected the panel’s decision to choose Bechtel Infrastructure Corp. second because he found the experts’ reasoning “somewhat inexplicable.”

The MTA construction committee voted 3 to 1, with one abstention, to recommend that the full board hire JMA. Voting for JMA were Yaroslavsky, Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina and Gardena City Councilman James Cragin. The full board, which meets Wednesday, can accept the committee recommendation or choose one of the other two bidders for the contract.

An MTA spokesman said the agency’s inspector general, who reports to the board, is investigating how Drew reached his decision.

The choice of a construction management firm is being watched closely in East Los Angeles because the tunnel will be dug beneath 250 homes and businesses, more than any other in the system.

Drew elaborated on his decision, declaring that he believed the agency’s director of construction contracts at the time, Leroy Graw, had attempted to sway the panelists away from Metro East with a “political” remark during their final deliberations that he considered JMA or Bechtel an “easier sell” to the board.

Yaroslavsky then presented Drew with a transcript of a tape recording of the panel’s deliberations, and told the chief executive that it showed Graw’s remark was made long after the panel had made its decision.

“How could they be swayed by a statement that took place after the selection?” Yaroslavsky snapped at Drew.

Drew admitted that Yaroslavsky appeared to be correct--but noted that he was not aware at the time of his decision that a tape of the panel discussion existed.

Yaroslavsky then added: “It was a patently false statement, Joe. It makes you wonder what else is wrong with your report, and what motivated your decision to make this choice.”

Molina also questioned Drew’s decision. Erecting a chart before board members, she led them through the expert panel’s rankings. She said a review of their deliberations showed that JMA had been ranked No. 1 by five of the seven panelists, and Bechtel by two panelists.

None ranked Metro East No. 1 or No. 2, she said.

Drew’s subsequent decision to rank Metro East first, she said, was a “violation of the process,” and called the agency’s integrity into question.

A few moments after Molina spoke, committee members discovered that Graw, the fired contracts chief who managed the evaluation process, was in the room. Graw declared that he and his boss, MTA construction chief Stanley Phernambucq, originally prepared a staff recommendation for Drew’s signature that the board choose JMA.

Graw said he was fired soon after he made that recommendation in late September. He condemned Drew’s calculations that resulted in a new memo giving a top ranking for Metro East purely on technical merits, calling them “bad mathematics.”

Calling Graw’s remarks a “bombshell,” Yaroslavsky told Drew of his surprise that the chief executive had reversed not only the panel but his own staff. “You’re flying solo on this one,” he said to the former Army helicopter pilot.

Drew declined to discuss in public why Graw was fired.

Molina also called Drew’s ethics into question, asking a series of questions that led the chief executive to concede that he, two top aides and the agency’s chief counsel had played in a charity golf tournament that was sponsored in part by Metro East while the contract award process was going on.

In an interview, Drew said he had paid to play but would not have participated had he known about Metro East’s involvement.