If county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky gets his way we won't have any money to extend the gold line through Azusa. It sounds as if the passing of AB 712 would give the San Gabriel Valley more control over the gold line extension project and federal funds.
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Battle brewing over rail funds
By Mary Bender , Staff Writer
LOS ANGELES -- The MTA and San Gabriel Valley cities are wrestling for control over the Gold Line extension to Montclair, which the powerful transportation agency says should wait its turn behind a proposed light rail to Santa Monica.
The battle lines are centered on transportation funding from the federal government who wants it, who deserves it and who is in the best position to get it. The opposing sides argued their cases Wednesday during a meeting of a committee that advises MTA's 13- member board of directors.
The Metro Gold Line Foothill Extension would run 24 miles, from Pasadena to Montclair in San Bernardino County. Plans call for the $1.3 billion light rail to reach Irwindale by 2009 and Montclair by 2014.
"There's a time for negotiation, and there's a time to say 'This is our position take it or leave it,' ' said county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, chairman of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board of directors.
At issue for the committee is AB 712, proposed state legislation authored by Assemblywoman Carol Liu, D-Pasadena. One provision of the bill would expand the Gold Line's governing board from five members to seven splitting four seats among the San Gabriel Valley cities along the route and giving two seats to MTA and one to the city of Los Angeles.
That balance of power did not sit well with Yaroslavsky or Supervisor Yvonne B. Burke, who argued that MTA's bigger priority is to build the Expo Line, a 17.3-mile light rail from downtown Los Angeles to Santa Monica.
Why does the San Gabriel Valley, including "the metropolis of Claremont' need another rail line right away since it is already served by Metrolink, Yaroslavsky asked.
"I don't have anything in my part of town,' said Yaroslavsky, whose Westside district the Expo Line would run through.
The San Gabriel Valley also has the Los Angeles-to-Pasadena Gold Line, the 13.7-mile first segment that opened in July. "I won't have the problem of opening the Expo Line and having (only) 11,000 people riding it,' Yaroslavsky said, a jab at the Pasadena rail system's lower-than-predicted usage.
If the cities along the Gold Line's Foothill extension Arcadia, Monrovia, Duarte, Irwindale, Azusa, Glendora, San Dimas, La Verne, Pomona, Claremont and Montclair want better representation, he said, the Gold Line Construction Authority's five-member board should be juggled, not enlarged.
Keep the seats for MTA, the San Gabriel Valley Council of Governments and the cities of Los Angeles and Pasadena, drop South Pasadena's representation and substitute another seat for the Foothill Extension cities, Yaroslavsky said during the meeting of the Executive Management and Audit Committee.
The MTA board of directors will consider the committee's recommendation during its June 24 meeting. The committee also decided that MTA will become the "designated recipient' of any federal funding the Montclair project receives, since the agency ultimately will be the extension's owner and operator.
The power struggle came to a head this month because AB 712 was to be heard Tuesday before the state Senate Transportation Committee. The Gold Line board of directors called a special meeting last Saturday to weigh in on Liu's bill.
The board adopted a resolution that the MTA should have no more than 20-percent representation the agency's current membership and that the Construction Authority retain the same power and autonomy to build the Montclair extension that it had to build the Pasadena Gold Line.
The Gold Line board also agreed Saturday that it be enlarged to seven members, giving full voting rights to two current nonvoting members.
Meanwhile, Tuesday's Senate hearing was postponed until June 29 because the chairman state Sen. Kevin Murray, D- Culver City wanted assurances that Gold Line advocates would not undermine efforts to secure federal funding for the Expo Line.
Murray is a staunch supporter of the Expo Line, which would travel through his district.
Mary Bender can be reached at (626) 578-6300, Ext. 4456, or by e-mail at mary.schubert@sgvn.com .
