MTA FIRES INFORMER; AGENCY'S TOP INSPECTOR PRAISES WOMAN.

Byline: David Bloom Daily News Staff Writer

Amelia Earnest more than lived up to her name while working as a contract overseer at the MTA for nearly a decade. She claims it got her fired.

Metropolitan Transportation Authority officials rejected her formal claim, but now the agency's inspector general says he is investigating whether she should have been laid off after she repeatedly turned over information to his office in cases of waste, fraud and underperforming contractors.

``Amelia Earnest is an honest person who came to the inspector general's office with some real concerns as to the integrity of the MTA, and I consider her a whistle-blower,'' said MTA Inspector General Arthur Sinai.

Sinai did not know Earnest had been laid off until he learned it from the Daily News this week.

The MTA rejected a 64-page legal claim that Earnest filed in December, about a month after she was laid off as part of a larger reduction in force at the financially troubled transit agency.

Marvin Rudnick, her Pasadena-based attorney, claims Earnest was laid off because she blew the whistle on politically connected contractors, climaxing last summer when she turned over documents that could help an ongoing federal investigation of influential board member and Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre, as well as others at the agency.

``The whole case boils down to her being punished because she cooperated in internal investigations,'' said Rudnick.

Sinai released a scathing report this week saying the agency has virtually no controls in place to prevent fraud and waste. The agency had not conducted standard audits to track spending during the past two years and is vulnerable to losing millions of dollars, Sinai found.

Citing several cases

Earnest's claim involves several cases she turned over to the inspector general, including one in which the agency spent tens of thousands of dollars for a five-year supply of industrial cleaner with a shelf life of only one year.

Perhaps the most notable case involved Petra Building Maintenance Co. of Santa Ana.

Earnest had hired the company to provide janitorial services at the Metro Rail Red Line and Blue Line stations but got complaints about the filthy conditions at the stations, MTA records show.

MTA Transit Police and others told her the stations were seldom cleaned, trash was dumped in nearby alleys and Petra workers were seldom around.

An Oct. 12, 1994, memo to the inspector general shows that when Earnest pressured Petra, the president of the company, Raul Nunez, complained to her boss.

Paul Como, then the MTA's director of contracts, procurement and materials, reassigned management of the contract to Earnest's immediate supervisor, Jesse Bowie III.

Bowie subsequently complained to Sinai in the Oct. 12 memo that Como had said he was ``fed up with Amelia Earnest'' for ``harassing'' Petra and essentially wanted Bowie to ``find a reason, and to fire her.''

Bowie then toured the stations, found them ``filthy'' and met with Nunez.

``After a short time, Nunez interrupted me to tell me that he was a friend of Mr. Richard Alatorre,'' Bowie wrote. ``When I attempted to continue, he interrupted me a second time and made sure I understood that Mr. Alatorre was (chairman) of the MTA's board of directors.''

Inspecting stations

Bowie said in the memo that he told Nunez he would be inspecting the stations on a daily basis.

``He was visibly shocked that after revealing his friendship with the (chairman) of the MTA's board, I would still have the audacity to demand that the stations be cleaned.''

The complaints by Earnest and Bowie led to an inspector general's investigation that showed Petra was given special treatment by some MTA officials and might have overcharged the agency as much as $500,000.

Petra was never forced to pay back the money because MTA attorneys found the contracts were too vague to be enforced, one MTA source said.

Sinai would not discuss particulars of investigations his office conducted.

Luisa Campano, deputy chief of staff for Alatorre, said the councilman has no recollection of Nunez or Petra.

``Everybody and their mother says they are our friend,'' Campano said. ``It's not his fault people go around mouthing off his name. When he finds out people are using his name, it's one of his pet peeves; he gets really angry.''

Neither Bowie nor Como is with the agency any longer. Como could not be reached for comment.

The MTA's interim chief executive officer, Julian Burke, declined through a spokesman to reply to Earnest's claims.

``The MTA declines to discuss her case because she was part of a reduction in force that affected 52 people last November, and the reasons for all persons included in that reduction are considered personnel matters,'' said MTA spokesman Ed Scannell.

Earnest worked at the agency 11 years, had a top degree in her profession and was one of the few in the unit with a certified purchasing manager designation.

``It was a conspiracy,'' she said. ``There's a pit of vipers there that is just vicious. I can't believe the decisions people there are making.''

Sinai said state and federal laws protect government employees who cooperate in internal investigations from reprisals such as losing their jobs.

Reprisals banned

The MTA's own policies forbid threatening reprisals against employees who cooperate with the inspector general.

Earnest said she was moved to new jobs several times after alerting her superiors to problems. Last summer, she turned over documents to an investigator in Sinai's office that she had gleaned from the computerized contract tracking systems.

Within a day, Rudnick said, Earnest was put on paid leave for nearly a month. She was told she was being investigated for unauthorized use of the MTA computer system and for her refusal to say which employee gave her a password to access the system and find the documents given to the inspector general.

Then she was put on probation and transferred, her lawyer said.

``They didn't want me looking because I'd find things and give them to the inspector general,'' Earnest said.

As part of what was called a performance improvement plan, Earnest was required to get authorization from her bosses before performing any more work on behalf of any investigation by the inspector general's staff.

``I never have tried to pretend I was one of the driving forces behind cleaning up the MTA,'' she said. ``I was just one of the casualties.''

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Photo

PHOTO (color) Amelia Earnest, an MTA employee for 11 years, was laid off recently after she helped in an internal investigation of agency waste.

David R. Crane/Daily News