Agency Won’t Yet Make Interim CEO Permanent

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Board of Directors postponed a decision Thursday on whether to appoint Julian Burke permanent chief executive officer after the acting CEO urged them to consider the issue in a more deliberative way.

Burke, the corporate turnaround expert who has run the troubled transit agency since summer, said he wanted the board to have “a reasonable opportunity” to discuss its expectations of him before he becomes the permanent CEO.

Burke’s appointment as permanent chief of the agency now will be considered by the MTA board’s Executive Management Committee and then by the full board.

“What is the big rush?” Burke asked. “I’m doing OK.”

The 70-year-old attorney was tapped by Mayor Richard Riordan in August after the MTA board’s first and second choice for the top transit job in the region turned it down.

Riordan, who is the chairman of the transit agency, expressed confidence that Burke soon would be selected as the third permanent CEO in the agency’s five-year history.

“Julian Burke has earned the confidence of the board and federal and state officials,” the mayor said. “He is somebody we desperately need.”

It was the mayor who surprised MTA board members earlier this week by putting the question of Burke’s permanent appointment on the agenda for Thursday’s closed-door discussion.

“No one even had a chance to think about it,” said county Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, who is also vice chairwoman of the MTA board. She said a normal process of consideration needs to be followed rather than a rush to act. “We just can’t kick process in the teeth all the time,” Burke said.

The supervisor and other board members said there was some concern that a new state law, which took effect this year, requires a four-year term for the MTA’s chief executive. Under the statute, a two-thirds vote of the board is required to remove the transit chief.

For his part, Burke said, he wants the permanent job and would consider it a vote of confidence to be selected. “I am quite taken with this work,” he said.

But Burke advised board members that “I wasn’t going to sign up for the four years contemplated by that law.”

Glendale Mayor Larry Zarian, an MTA board member, endorsed Burke’s desire to have the board carefully consider his appointment. “Julian has been around the block a few times. He needs to know what we expect of him.”

County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky said the majority of board members want to meet with Burke personally and listen to his long-term vision for the MTA before making a decision.

“The board has to adjust from viewing him in a turnaround position to getting comfortable with him in a permanent position,” Yaroslavsky said.

“He’s done a good job and I think most board members view him that way,” Yaroslavsky said. “When he came in, the agency was absolutely leaderless and at rock bottom. It’s still at rock bottom, but it now has a leader.”

Grasping the magnitude of the financial and construction problems besetting the MTA, Burke moved quickly to address an ongoing deficit in the agency’s operating budget and its overly ambitious plans for subway and light rail projects.

At his urging, the MTA board in January agreed to focus on completion of the Metro Rail subway to North Hollywood, while suspending work on extensions to the Eastside and Mid-City. A planned light rail link from Union Station to Pasadena also was halted while the agency tries to straighten out its tangled finances.

He also has assigned “workout teams” to examine the MTA’s spending while he formulates another restructuring plan for the agency. The first two plans, prepared before he arrived at the MTA, were rejected by federal transit officials.

Burke’s advocacy of cuts in nighttime bus service and a hike in rail fares has sparked opposition. But on Thursday, he won the backing of an important foe.

Eric Mann, head of the Bus Riders Union, praised Burke for bringing “essential continuity and integrity” to the MTA. “He’s off to a good start,” Mann said.

The activist group won a federal court order requiring the MTA to reduce overcrowding on its heavily used bus system.

With such support, Riordan joked that “I just lost the eighth vote” to make Burke the permanent CEO.

After the board returned from its private session, Burke said the MTA had fared well in having its subway projects included in a massive six-year transportation bill sent to the House floor by a key congressional committee.

However, the MTA’s request for federal funds to buy buses was not included in the bill. “All is not lost,” Burke said, saying that the agency will continue to seek funds for bus purchases.

County Supervisor Mike Antonovich said the agency needs to do everything it can to improve its bus system. “We need to get out of the ground,” he said, adding that “a $350-million-a-mile subway is bankrupting” the MTA.