EDITORIAL : DERAIL THIS ONE MTA OFFICIAL PUSHES A SUBWAY CONTRACT OPPOSED BY THE AGENCY'S EXPERTS.Leaders of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority continue to do things that only breed public distrust of the agency. The latest incident involves an attempt by MTA (1) (Message Transfer Agent or Mail Transfer Agent) The store and forward part of a messaging system. See messaging system. (2) See M Technology Association. 1. (messaging) MTA - Message Transfer Agent. Chief Executive Officer Joseph Drew to explain why MTA officials overrode o·ver·rode v. Past tense of override. their own panel of experts by recommending that a $63 million subway job go to a group of companies - Metro East Consultants - that was ranked at the bottom of the pile of bidders. It was the second attempt by MTA officials to award a contract to Metro East Consultants to manage the Eastside extension of the Metro Red Line subway. Metro East is a consortium led by O'Brien-Kreitzberg & Associates of Encino. Some members of the consortium have close ties to City Councilman Richard Alatorre Richard Alatorre is a politician, and a member of the Democratic Party. Alatorre has served as a member of the Los Angeles City Council. He was the first Latino to serve on the council in 23 years. . Questions of political favoritism regarding Metro East first arose last spring, and the MTA spent $500,000 on an outside review panel, which ranked Metro East well below Jacobs Engineering Group Jacobs Engineering Group Inc. (NYSE: JEC), a publicly traded company with annual revenues approaching $7 billion, provides professional technical services. Headquartered in Pasadena, CA, Jacobs offers support to industrial, commercial, and government clients across multiple in Pasadena and Bechtel Infrastructure Corp. But that didn't stop Drew. He chose to reject a panel of seven outside consultants and continued to push Metro East, even though Jacobs Engineering had presented a plan that would save the agency $78 million by combining many of the overhead costs overhead costs see fixed costs. from running the North Hollywood and Eastside contracts. Drew discounted those savings as ``insignificant.'' He has a point. When MTA routinely wastes billions, what's a few million in savings? County Supervisors and MTA board members Gloria Molina Gloria Molina is a member of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, and the current chairwoman of the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority.[1] Molina grew up as one of ten children in the Los Angeles suburb of Pico Rivera, California, U.S. and Zev Yaroslavsky, as members of the MTA's Construction Committee, blew the whistle on Drew on Thursday. The full MTA board should pay attention to what they said and reject Metro East Consultants' bid. |
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