Molina Assails MTA Chief as ‘Manipulative’

Moving to counter efforts to derail a subway extension to the Eastside, Los Angeles County Supervisor and Metropolitan Transportation Authority board member Gloria Molina has unleashed a scathing written attack on acting MTA chief Julian Burke, accusing him of manipulative management.

In a letter sent to her fellow directors, the outspoken lawmaker said her frustration led her to weigh the possibility of resignation from the MTA board, but she was told by the county counsel that she is legally obliged to continue serving on the transit agency.

“If management is going to continue to dictate to board members without their consultation, then this agency should call it what it is, a complete receivership and let dictatorship take its course,” Molina said in the blistering letter to her MTA colleagues.

Molina’s remarks came on the eve of a special MTA board meeting today to consider a new recovery plan, the third one drafted to satisfy federal demands that the agency end its long-running financial and political turmoil.

But Molina said she was outraged that Burke’s 200-page plan, delivered just days before this afternoon’s meeting, offers no options for restarting the three mothballed rail projects--a light-rail line from downtown to Pasadena and long-promised subway extensions to the Mid-City area and her Eastside district.

Burke refused to comment on Molina’s letter, gesturing as if he was zipping his lips shut.

A spokesman for Mayor Richard Riordan, who is chairman of the MTA board and brought Burke to the transit authority, said the mayor had not seen Molina’s letter and would have no comment.

Burke has said that he is unsure when--or if--work will proceed on the subway extensions to the Eastside and Mid-City and on the light-rail line to Pasadena. The transit boss has said that there is insufficient money to build the lines as now planned.

Even as the MTA searches for a way out of its financial troubles, new figures obtained Tuesday show that the projected cost of the Eastside extension has increased by about $50 million, to $1.1 billion, while the forecast for the Mid-City subway extension has soared by nearly $200 million over its budget, to $693 million.

Transit planners have looked at building a shorter line from Union Station to the Eastside with fewer stations, but still concluded that the agency needs more money just to maintain the existing bus and rail operations.

The depth of the MTA’s financial problems was apparent Tuesday. MTA officials have delayed a $250-million bond issue, saying that they may need to borrow up to $100 million more to cover shortfalls for existing bus and train operations.

On Tuesday, MTA officials appealed to the California Transportation Commission for $21 million to help prevent a cash shortage on the Hollywood to North Hollywood subway project.

The commission previously agreed to give the MTA until December to devise a plan for resuming the stalled rail lines or risk losing $388 million in state funds to other transportation projects.

During Tuesday’s commission meeting held at MTA’s high-rise headquarters, state Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles) urged the commission to “bring some discipline to this agency unable to discipline itself” and not wait until December to free up the money for other projects, such as a busway across the San Fernando Valley.

In the draft recovery plan, which Burke has renamed a restructuring plan, the chief assures federal officials that the MTA can complete subway construction to North Hollywood and fund court-ordered bus improvements. The MTA needs to approve a recovery plan to unlock funds from Washington.

But Molina complained that Burke did not make the report available sooner. “This document addresses a multibillion-dollar, six-year plan for the region’s transportation needs. Yet we are expected to review it and be prepared to make an informed decision in two days,” she wrote.

Molina noted that the MTA board has not been presented with a report from Burke detailing options for restarting the Eastside, Mid-City and Pasadena projects that were suspended in January.

She implored her colleagues to insist that management leave the decision-making to the MTA board. “To continue to pretend that we are in charge of this sinking organization with a manipulative management operation is totally disrespecting the important responsibility we have to taxpayers,” Molina wrote.

The supervisor said that if she and her colleagues cannot turn the MTA around, “then we must all abdicate this responsibility, place this organization in receivership and call for a full reorganization by the state Legislature.”

Molina’s letter adds to the friction on the MTA board, already heightened by county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky’s announcement last week of an initiative drive to stop any further sales tax funding for subway tunneling, once Metro Rail reaches North Hollywood.