MTA PANEL ENDORSES NO. 1 BIDDER.

Byline: David Bloom Daily News Staff Writer

Rejecting MTA Chief Executive Officer Joseph Drew's backing of a politically connected but third-place bidder, a key agency committee Thursday voted 3-1 to award a $63 million construction management job to the No. 1 bidder.

After a stormy four-hour session marked by charges of misrepresentations and ethical violations, the MTA's Construction Committee chose to back Jacobs Engineering Group in Pasadena - an expert panel's choice for the job on the Metro Red Line's East Side Extension.

In doing so, the committee first grilled, then overrode Drew, who had said the deal should go to third-place finisher Metro East Consultants, a consortium led by O'Brien-Kreitzberg & Associates of Encino.

``I would say that while I'm very respectful of Mr. Drew and some of his staff, this was a violation of the process,'' said county Supervisor and MTA board member Gloria Molina.

The committee's recommendation to award the contract to Jacobs Engineering Group is scheduled to come before the full MTA board Wednesday for a final decision.

Metro East's two lead companies - O'Brien-Kreitzberg and Hoctief of Germany - are highly regarded engineering management firms. But critics had charged political favoritism in the decision because some members of the Metro East consortium have close ties to City Councilman and MTA board member Richard Alatorre.

Those members include TELACU (East Los Angeles Community Union), a former social service agency with ties to Alatorre that would oversee job safety, STV Inc., whose marketing manager Gerard Orosco is Alatorre's former chief of staff, and Cal Krishnan Consulting Engineers Inc. Executive Vice President Robert Gutierrez, who is a longtime Alatorre associate.

Alatorre spoke briefly at the committee meeting, but did not address his connections with some of the Metro East partners.

Alatorre, who is not a member of the committee, left before the end of the meeting and could not be reached for comment.

Drew said he backed Metro East because the top-ranked joint venture led by Jacobs Engineering Group of Pasadena already is busy overseeing the construction of the Red Line tunnels between Universal City and Hollywood.

Drew said a panel of seven outside consultants hired to rank the bidders did not give compelling reasons for ranking the second-place finisher Bechtel Infrastructure Corp.

``It is clear that after both the written and oral presentation, Metro East Consultants was rated higher than Bechtel,'' Drew told the committee. ``Clearly, MEC was superior in the process to Bechtel'' before the final discussion phase placed Bechtel second.

Unconvinced, Molina and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and Gardena Councilman Jim Cragin backed the expert panel's rankings. Opposed were Long Beach Councilwoman Jenny Oropeza and Encino real estate broker Mel Wilson, an appointee to the MTA board by Mayor Richard Riordan, abstained.

Questions about the recommendation of Metro East first arose last spring, and the MTA spent $500,000 on the outside review panel, whose recommendations were ignored in the end by Drew.

Repeated controversies over the contract's handling already have delayed the East Side extension project by a year, to 2003, and added $44 million to the total $980 million cost to extend the subway into East L.A.

``None of the evaluators ranked MEC No. 1,'' four backing the Jacobs team and three backing Bechtel, Molina said. ``All seven determined that Bechtel should get the second rank'' over Metro East.

Drew asserted that Metro East had been first in the panel's ``technical'' assessment.

But Yaroslavsky said scores by the panel's four technical experts actually put Metro East third, though only slightly. It was only when the scores by the panel's three management specialists were added that Metro East moved ahead temporarily.

CAPTION(S):

map

MAP: METRO RED LINE EAST SIDE EXTENSION PHASE I