Transportation Post: Who Would Want It?

There’s never enough money to satisfy everyone. A board of 13 members, each with his or her own ego and political agenda, is constantly interfering. The federal government has drastically cut funding. Subway construction problems constantly crop up. And an inspector general has several investigations underway.

So why would anyone want to run the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, a $3-billion agency with 9,000 employees dedicated to creating and running a transit network for sprawling Los Angeles County?

That’s the question that weighed on the mind of Joe Drew over the holiday weekend as he agonized about whether to resign the position he accepted only a year ago after the ugly firing of his predecessor.

And it’s a question that will weigh even more heavily on his successor--when one can be found.

Asked if he will apply for the post, one top MTA executive answered: “Please Lord, not me. Who would want it?”

A big part of the problem is the role that politics plays at the MTA. And Wednesday, as a number of board members blamed politics for helping drive Drew away, none would accept any responsibility.

Drew sometimes found himself in the middle of long-standing rivalries among board members and disputes over diminishing funds that officials wanted for transit projects in areas they represent. He also was under pressure from businesses seeking contracts worth millions of dollars. Many of the businesses have made campaign contributions to board members.

The board’s factionalism was cited by Drew on Wednesday in announcing his resignation, and by his predecessor, Franklin E. White, who characterized the agency as an out-of-control “money train” when he was fired last year after only 32 months on the job.

In fact, a recent survey of MTA employees found that board and management decisions are perceived as too politically oriented.

Still, as one transportation lobbyist said, “If anyone keeps one of these jobs more than three years, it’s a miracle.”

He said there is a revolving door at the top of most large urban transit agencies. Transportation authorities in New York, Philadelphia, San Francisco, Washington and Chicago all hired new chief executives this year.

Experts across the nation said the MTA needs a new chief executive who is a crackerjack transit expert, politically astute and strong enough to stand up to the pressures from the board. Drew was hired at the MTA without previous transit experience.

Robert Poole, head of the Reason Foundation, a Los Angeles public policy think tank that has extensively studied the agency, suggested that the board recruit an executive from a major engineering company who can ask fresh, tough questions about the financial viability of each transportation decision.

State Sen. Quentin L. Kopp (I-San Francisco), who heads the Senate’s Transportation Committee, said the board should recruit an executive from the automobile or electronics industry--not someone who has had a series of high-level transportation administration jobs in other cities.

“I’d prefer someone who hasn’t been recycled,” he said. “Transportation experience is not indispensable.”

More important, Kopp said, the agency needs to find a chief executive who won’t go along with a board that is “monkeying around all the time to secure contracts for their friends. . . . They need a CEO who will stand up, if necessary, and say, ‘Take this job and stuff it.’ ”

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan, an MTA board member, said, however, that much of the leadership crisis at the agency should be laid at the feet of his colleagues.

“We’ve got to pick CEOs who we give the power to do the job and not to try to micromanage,” Riordan said. Asked if the MTA can find such a person, Riordan answered, “I’m an optimist on everything.”

Duarte City Councilman and MTA board member John Fasana was less oblique, blaming Drew’s troubles on board colleagues Zev Yaroslavsky and Gloria Molina, who publicly blasted the chief executive after his controversial recommendation on an Eastside subway contract.

“Two of our members have created an untenable climate for the CEO by impugning his integrity. That behavior was out of line--it was innuendo and it was low. If we’re going to attract someone new, the board has got to police itself,” Fasana said.

Yaroslavsky said he thinks that the next CEO needs to be someone who can stick his neck out for his professional beliefs, politicians be damned.

“Every organization needs a son of a bitch to run it at some point--and this is the time for the MTA to find its SOB,” said Yaroslavsky. “Let this be a lesson to the next chief executive: The board respects strength and devours weakness. In the end, it was weakness that cost Drew his job.”

Even so, White sometimes took on the board for spending beyond its means before he was fired.

Molina said she would like the agency to find a chief executive who has experience running a large public or private organization such as the MTA.

“We need someone who knows how to build consensus, someone who can build credibility in Washington and Sacramento, someone who can say ‘I’m going to get this choo-choo built,’ and get the funding we need,” she said. “Drew failed miserably in Washington, and caused members of Congress to become extremely concerned about the crisis of leadership here.”

Larry Zarian, chairman of the MTA board, said he will appoint a board committee today to search nationwide for Drew’s replacement. The assignment will be difficult, since the new CEO will take over an agency that has become synonymous with crisis.

“The next leader will have to have a masochistic streak,” said James Moore, a professor of urban planning and civil engineering at USC.

Some of the agency’s antagonists were less than sanguine about finding a suitable replacement.

“The MTA will do a dog-and-pony show, a fabulous search to find the best possible CEO, then they’ll bring him in, and it’ll be more of the same because the agency will still be run by the politicians and the contractors,” said Gerald Schneiderman, who has organized more than 1,000 lawsuits against the agency for alleged damage done by tunneling in Hollywood and North Hollywood. “Whoever they hire will be told to follow the old rules, just like they told Joe Drew.”

Frank Cardenas, Drew’s chief of staff, said the agency will have a hard time finding a replacement of equal caliber.

“Joe is brilliant at empowering people and bringing out the best in them. He’s like a Vince Lombardi or Tommy Lasorda,” Cardenas said. “When you show people unwavering support, that brings a lot of trust and loyalty. A lot of people around here really care for Joe, and they are shaken to the very core.”

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A Bumpy Ride

Los Angeles transit agencies have long been plagued with troubles. Here is a partial chronology.

* August, 1986: Work begins on Los Angeles subway, but soon faces delays and massive cost overruns.

* April 1, 1993: After years of political controversy, Los Angeles’ two existing transit agencies are merged by state law into the new Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

* May 1993: Neil Peterson, former executive director of the now-defunct county Transportation Commission, receives $240,000 in salary and benefits to buy out the year remaining of his contract. He had been passed over in favor of Franklin E. White as head the MTA after disclosures that Peterson and other officials spent more than $2.9 million on such items as catered lunches, lavish dinners and a three-day retreat at a Palm Springs resort.

* July 1993-August 1994: Underground water floods subway excavation below Hollywood Boulevard. Tunneling eventually slips nine months behind schedule as a result of flooding, sinkage and alleged worker safety violations. Officials later concede that a nine-block area of Hollywood Boulevard sank by up to nine inches.

* September 1994: The Times reports that nearly a year before the Hollywood Boulevard sinkage, officials had been warned that settling would occur unless the contractor altered its tunneling technique.

* February 1995: Officials scuttle new rail lines and drastically scale back other plans to relieve gridlock in the 21st Century.

* June 1995: Sinkhole collapses a section of Hollywood Boulevard above the subway tunneling.

* December 1995: White is ousted. He asserts that he was forced out for daring to say no to politicians and construction special interests. Deputy Chief Executive Officer Joseph Drew becomes new chief.

* March-November 1996: A series of problems are reported in relation to subway tunneling in the Santa Monica Mountains. They include two occasions in which the giant tunnel-digging machine becomes immobilized for long periods, new questions about worker safety and cost overruns, and several instances of cracks in floors, walls and ceilings of properties above the tunnels.

* Dec. 4, 1996: His leadership under fire, Drew resigns.

Source: Times files