Rail Panel Expected to Select Construction Chief

The five directors of a new transportation agency created to complete construction of a light-rail line between Union Station and Pasadena will go behind closed doors tonight to choose a chief executive for the rail project.

The field of finalists has been narrowed to only a few candidates with Charles Stark, head of construction for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, one of the contenders, according to sources familiar with the selection process.

The choice of a chief executive is the most important decision faced by the board since the Pasadena Metro Blue Line Construction Authority was established in January to take over the 13.7-mile project. State lawmakers created the Pasadena authority last year out of frustration with the MTA’s track record on Los Angeles rail projects.

Another of the candidates interviewed for the top job, Louis Moret, a longtime friend and associate of former Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre, said Tuesday that he had been advised by an executive search firm that he was no longer in contention for the post. “I’m no longer in the mix,” Moret said. “They called and thanked me for interviewing.”

The chief operating officer for the Southern California Assn. of Governments said he had sought the position. “It was an opportunity to start something from the ground up and build something,” he said.

Moret said the Pasadena board seems to be wrestling with what kind of skills it wants in a chief executive. “Do they want somebody with transit building experience or a general manager to make sure systems are in place?”

If the board had selected Moret, it was certain to generate controversy because of his long association with Alatorre as well as the East Los Angeles Community Union, better known as TELACU.

Federal investigators have been probing Alatorre’s personal finances and actions while a member of the City Council and the MTA board. TELACU paid $13,200 for installation of a tile roof on Alatorre’s Eagle Rock home at a time when the councilman was backing the organization for government loans and contracts.

Alatorre and TELACU executive David Lizarraga invoked their 5th Amendment protection against self-incrimination when questioned last March about the roof and other matters in a civil court case involving a former MTA official.

Moret’s wife, Kathy, was paid $24,000 as a City Hall lobbyist for TELACU between July 1990 and March 1992, according to reports filed with the city Ethics Commission. TELACU was part of a group called Metro East Consultants that sought a $65-million construction management contract with MTA to oversee construction of a subway extension to the Eastside. But the subway project, along with a Mid-City extension and the Pasadena light-rail line, were halted by the MTA board early last year because of financial problems.

Los Angeles County voters last fall also outlawed use of county transit sales tax to build any more subway lines after Metro Rail reaches the San Fernando Valley next year. Once finished, the MTA will be out of the rail construction business for the near future.

Stark, who has been the MTA’s executive officer for construction since January 1997, said he now wants to be the chief executive on the Pasadena project.

“It’s a very exciting project that will run through a very high-density corridor from Los Angeles to Pasadena and South Pasadena,” he said. “It would be a very exciting job with a short timetable and very intense work to get the job done.”

Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan said the choice of a chief executive for the Pasadena line is “very important to future of the MTA” and public transportation in Southern California.