Legislators Oppose Firm for MTA Job

Three members of Congress from the Eastside have urged the MTA’s chief executive not to proceed with his recommendation of a business team ranked last by a panel of experts to supervise subway tunneling in their community, warning that the agency could lose credibility in Washington.

To ensure that the project continues to receive federal funding, the Metropolitan Transportation Authority should quickly award the $65-million contract to the firm ranked first by the experts, according to a letter from the representatives.

Reps. Esteban Torres, Lucille Roybal-Allard and Xavier Becerra, all Democrats, said a criminal investigation by the agency’s inspector general of the selection has “unnecessarily delayed” the decision-making process.

In the letter, the representatives said they fear that millions of dollars they battled to secure in Washington for the Eastside could be swiped by other municipalities outside California whose transit projects are “on schedule and unhampered by investigation.”

“There are vultures just waiting for the MTA to take another fall so they can pick apart its funding,” Becerra said Monday.

MTA chief Joseph E. Drew’s recommendation of construction consortium Metro East Consultants has been the center of controversy for two months.

Some MTA board members, including County Supervisor Gloria Molina, called his decision politically motivated because several Metro East executives have worked or raised money for board member Richard Alatorre.

In picking Metro East, Drew overrode a panel of seven experts hired at a cost of $375,000 to keep politics out of the decision. The agency’s inspector general has launched an investigation of the selection process. It was later disclosed that one of the consortium’s partners failed to disclose that it was the subject of a civil suit charging it with overbilling the MTA by millions of dollars. Another partner failed to disclose that one of its senior officers had made a $1,000 contribution to an MTA board member in the prior 12 months.

The representatives urged the MTA to pick JMA, a North Hollywood-based consortium, to supervise Eastside subway tunneling through difficult soil and under dozens of homes and businesses.

Alatorre, who is a Los Angeles city councilman, blasted the letter.

“Although I respect the Congress members’ opinion I do not agree with it,” he said in a statement released by his staff. “If they were to review JMA’s record with MTA here in Los Angeles they would realize that it is riddled with major and very expensive errors.” When he passed over JMA, Drew said the firm had its hands full overseeing tunneling in the Santa Monica Mountains, where a giant digging machine was stuck for six weeks over the summer.

Drew, who was not available for comment Monday, said Friday that he was not backing away from his recommendation of Metro East but would put the matter before the board for a vote Dec. 18.

Neil Papiano, an attorney representing Metro East, dismissed the letter as being more about a rivalry between Molina and Alatorre than about transit construction.

“It appears that these are Molina supporters who are responding to support her,” he said. “They’re trying to help in a political process rather than in a practical or technical one.”