Dig Up an Explanation or Two : MTA official’s action on a subway contract raises propriety questions

The choice of a construction manager for the extension of the Red Line subway into East Los Angeles is being watched closely, and rightly so. That’s in part because the tunnel will be dug through loosely packed gravel and sand, below more homes and businesses than any other section of the Red Line system. But Joseph E. Drew, chief executive officer of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, must learn that the people of East Los Angeles aren’t the only ones keenly, and properly, focused on this process.

This is not a case involving the kind of micro-management by the MTA’s board of directors that has long been criticized. This is about the old smell test. It’s about a $65-million contract for the East Los Angeles subway extension. It involves a recommendation from a panel of seven national experts (achieved at a cost of $375,000) on who should get that contract. This is about Drew, on his own, blatantly trying to throw that recommendation out the window and settle on the business team that finished dead last in the eyes of those experts. This is about the fact that said business was politically connected, with a corporate partner who has had ties to influential MTA board member Richard Alatorre and with a subcontracting firm headed by a man who once managed Alatorre’s political campaigns.

Alatorre has defended Drew’s choice. MTA board member Zev Yaroslavsky best explained the situation. Drew’s reversal of the panel’s choice, Yaroslavsky said, has added to a public perception that “it’s not what you know but who you know that gets a contract here.” And that is the crux of it.

Yaroslavsky and fellow MTA board members Gloria Molina (who has clashed with Alatorre on a number of issues) and James Cragin took part in a 3-to-1 committee vote Thursday to reverse Drew’s decision and go with the business team ranked first by the panel of outside experts.

The MTA’s full board of directors takes up the issue on Wednesday. But, as stated earlier, there are a lot of eyes on this. One pair belongs to Rep. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City), who has said he will ask for a federal investigation if the full board does not endorse the expert panel’s choice. In the meantime, it looks like Drew has more explaining to do.