City Agrees to Make Overdue $200-Million Payment to MTA

The Los Angeles City Council voted Tuesday to pay a long-overdue $200 million to the Metropolitan Transportation Authority for subway construction, adding provisions meant to ensure that the east-west line across the San Fernando Valley follows the favored Burbank-Chandler route.

That route, chosen after years of dispute, is contested by those who favor a line down the median strip of the Ventura Freeway.

Engineered by Councilman Michael Feuer in concert with county and city transit planners, the special condition requires the MTA to formally adopt the corridor between Burbank and Chandler boulevards as its preferred route before receiving any city money in 1997.

The provision also requires the MTA to obtain federal funding for the line from North Hollywood to the San Diego Freeway by 1999, and sets several additional requirements to keep the money flowing.

“It is appropriate to hold their feet to the fire to make sure that they live up to their commitments,” Feuer said in an interview after the vote.

The deal has not yet been presented with these amendments to the MTA board of directors, which could reject it.

To continue to get federal funding for the subway project, the MTA must get matching funds from the city of Los Angeles and the state of California. The city has managed to avoid making any payments to the MTA however for the past two years. It owes up to $90.5 million for the construction of subway tunnels and stations along Wilshire, Vermont and Hollywood boulevards.

In addition, the city owes the MTA $200 million for the next phase of subway construction, which includes stations and tunnels between North Hollywood and Hollywood as well as in East Los Angeles and along the Wilshire Corridor.

To entice the city to make the $200-million payment, MTA Chief Executive Joseph Drew offered to erase the $90.5-million debt.

What the council did Tuesday was offer to accept that compromise, and then added conditions of its own, including those that would freeze out the Ventura Freeway route.

That infuriated County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, an MTA board member and diehard chief sponsor of the Ventura Freeway option.

“This proves that their word is no good,” he said of the City Council members. “They’re like a spoiled child always wanting more and ignoring the needs of everyone else.”

Councilwoman Rita Walters joined Councilman Nate Holden as the lone holdouts against paying the $200-million contribution, which Councilman Richard Alatorre declared to be necessary to ensure continued federal financing of the city’s $5.9-billion subway.

Walters expressed particular concern that the council’s chief legislative analyst had determined that the payment would sap the city of a quarter of all funds earmarked for transit over the next eight years.

In a report released Tuesday, the analyst also forecast, among other elements, that the payment would leave the city with no funding for street resurfacing over that period.

Linda Bohlinger, the MTA’s deputy chief executive, said the $200-million deal was good for both the MTA and the city.

The MTA needs $58 million in the 1996-97 fiscal year to keep building and planning the subway, and under the city’s offer Tuesday the agency would receive that amount in two lump sums from the city by next June.

The council’s motion passed Tuesday provides that the city would pay the $200-million over eight years to make principal repayment on a $200-million bond issue that the MTA would float. The MTA would pay all interest--estimated at $23 million--as well as fees to the bond underwriter.

Several MTA board members contacted Tuesday said they consider that provision overly generous to the city.

“They sure put a lot of zingers in there, didn’t they?” said James Cragin, an MTA board member and Gardena city councilman.

Cragin said he was not aware of, or in agreement with, the conditions that Drew had agreed to before appearing before the City Council on Tuesday to seek the funds.

“We’re walking around in a swamp with alligators up to our armpits and it could have been avoided if we had paid attention to the funding details many years ago,” Cragin said. He said he had a “hunch” he would vote against the accord when it comes before the MTA board next month.

Larry Zarian, another representative of the county’s League of Cities on the MTA board, likewise said the city agreement “doesn’t make me happy.” But he was glad to finally get any accord with the city after waiting more than a year as Councilman Nate Holden bottled it up in the council’s transportation committee, which he chairs.

“I agree that Los Angeles should have to pay a greater portion, but it’s been held up long enough and it’s time to put it behind us.”

Added Zarian: “It doesn’t make sense to keep ourselves from going forward for the sake of a few dollars, even if it’s in the millions.”