Transit Police Merger Plan Stalled

Fearing a lawsuit by 43 Metropolitan Transportation Authority police officers who failed LAPD background checks, the Los Angeles City Council on Tuesday delayed action on a proposed merger between the two law enforcement agencies, and voted instead to pursue having the city police MTA buses and trains on a contractual basis.

The difference in the two approaches is largely technical: Whether it is called a merger or a contract, the MTA would pay the Los Angeles Police Department to handle law enforcement on the transit system and would hire current MTA officers to fill the 200 jobs created in the process.

But the 43 LAPD rejects contend that the City Charter guarantees that all officers would be hired in a merger, and lawmakers are worried about the prospect of a court challenge. A contract, on the other hand, would allow the LAPD to pick and choose whom it hires, using a process already in place for lateral transfers of officers working in other departments.

“The city’s intent is, very much, to proceed with LAPD taking over transit policing, and to do it in a way that is truly in the best interest of the city and the taxpayers,” said Councilwoman Laura Chick, head of the Public Safety Committee and a leading critic of the merger approach. “There’s really been less debate about should we take over transit policing than how should we take over transit policing.”

Although Chick clearly favors the contract approach, sources who attended the council’s 90-minute closed-door discussion of the matter Tuesday said other key lawmakers, Mayor Richard Riordan--who is also chairman of the MTA board--and LAPD Chief Bernard C. Parks still want the merger. This is partly because such a move better fulfills Riordan’s goal of having just one police department patrol the entire city.

Another option discussed in closed session, sources said, was persuading the MTA to either hire the 43 rejects for other jobs, or offer them a financial buyout, then pursue the merger with just the LAPD-approved officers.

“I think it’s an outstanding deal, for both the short and long term,” Parks said after emerging from the executive session. Despite the weeklong delay on a deal that was originally supposed to be in place by July 1, Parks promised swift resolution. “It’s not going to be a lifetime project,” he said.

But MTA Police Chief Sharon Papa lambasted the contract approach, noting that it is not what her agency’s board approved last October and would not be as good a deal for MTA officers.

“That’s totally unacceptable,” Papa said when she heard what the council had done. “I’d be amazed if the board bought off on that.”

Papa said the main problems with the contract approach is that the MTA officers who join the LAPD--including her--would automatically become P2s, the lowest rank other than rookies, and would lose the seniority benefits they have built up at the MTA.

“I would never do it. That’s totally ridiculous. You’ve got a chief executive officer and they’re going to offer a police officer position? I don’t think so,” she said. “It’s insulting to each and every one of my staff.”

But Chick said that pleasing Papa and other MTA officers is not the goal. Rather, Chick said she is trying to protect the city’s purse and make sure that the LAPD’s higher standards for employment are not challenged in court.

“I’m not saying what we’re proposing is going to make everybody happy,” she said. “This is not necessarily going to avoid lawsuits, but it lowers our liability in lawsuits.”