MTA hires inspectors who oversaw work on woeful Red Line.

The Metropolitan Transportation Authority is hiring 33 employees of Parsons-Dillingham -- the construction management firm that supervised construction on the botched Hollywood leg of the Red Line subway -- as inspectors.

The Parsons inspectors will be brought under the supervision of MTA staff immediately as part of Chief Executive Franklin White's construction reorganization plan. White now plans to resume construction under Hollywood Boulevard in December.

After about three months working for the MTA, the inspectors' performance will be reviewed, and if their work is deemed acceptable, they will be offered permanent MTA jobs, said MTA spokesmen.

"Our primary goal here is to replace the leadership," said spokesman Bill Heard. "We don't want to throw out the baby with the bath water."

White has replaced now-former Rail Construction Corp. President Ed McSpedon and has a plan to phase out Parsons-Dillingham as construction manager on future subway phases. The plan is designed to convince the Federal Transit Administration to allow subway tunneling to resume.

Tunneling in Hollywood was halted in August when Hollywood Boulevard (above the construction project) began to sink and crack. Inadequate construction materials and procedures have been blamed. The FTA later announced that it was withholding funds and requesting the tunneling not resume until the federal government could be reassured that it was safe.

White's plan criticized

MTA board alternate Nick Patsaouras said White's planned changes are "cosmetic and superficial."

"Unless you correct who is accountable for supervision, you're going to have problems," said Patsaouras. "Changing their employer ... is not going to make one iota of difference."

County Supervisors/MTA board members Mike Antonovich and Gloria Molina agreed that the plan lacks depth and accountability.

Other MTA critics called White's plan "shiny new flow charts signifying nothing" and "rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic."

White himself has openly criticized the job Parsons-Dillingham did managing the Red Line contractor. And the L.A. Times reported last week that eight of 10 "resident engineers" employed by Parsons-Dillingham in Metro Rail construction management positions do not hold state engineering licenses.

"MTA anticipates that the candidates for these (inspector) positions will come primarily from the consultant staff currently filling these positions," says White's plan, which he originally sent Oct. 17 to the FTA. The permanent MTA staff inspectors would be hired by February 1995.

MTA spokesman Heard said that since not all of Parsons' inspectors will want to work for the MTA, and the job performance of some may be found unacceptable, a recruiting service also will be retained to search for additional people.

In the section on hiring, White's plan adds that, "if required, MTA is prepared to recruit outside qualified candidates." The FTA's position on such a requirement could not be ascertained last week.

Top fed visits L.A.

But the federal government apparently is not totally satisfied with White's plan to re-organize the construction program.

MTA Board Vice Chairman Larry Zarian, a Glendale city councilman, said Federal Transit Administrator Gordon Linton is "requesting additional things" before the FTA will allow the resumption of subway tunneling and the release of additional federal funds.

However, Linton was quoted in the Daily News as saying that a decision to resume funding could come any day.

Zarian was one of five board members who met with Linton in Los Angeles last week.

"I think he came into town to reassure himself that the board members take this seriously, understand what the (FTA) is looking for and what White is being asked to do," said Zarian. "They (FTA) are not too concerned about finger pointing; they're interested in progress."

After meeting with Linton on Oct. 24, White updated his plan and resubmitted it on Oct. 26.

It was unclear last week why Linton chose to meet with Zarian, outgoing MTA Board Chairman Ed Edelman, L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan (second vice chairman of the MTA board), former MTA Board Chairman/L.A. City Councilman Richard Alatorre and MTA board member/County Supervisor Gloria Molina -- but not with incoming MTA Board Chairman Mike Antonovich.

County Supervisor Antonovich will take over the job of chairman in January and will hold it for six months; then Zarian will take over for a full year.

An FTA spokesman said Linton chose the five because they have "status as officers of the agency." A source said tension between Edelman and Antonovich could be at the root of the apparent "snub."

City has its own plan

Meanwhile, the L.A. City Council has come up with its own plan for improving subway construction, based on a weeklong study of the problems by city engineers. Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, who represents the Hollywood area, said last week that she will "press very hard" for the recommendations in the report to be adopted.

She said she also wants the MTA to pay for daily inspections of tunnel construction by a city engineer.