MTA subway work comes under new fire.

State Senate holds hearing; CalOSHA levies fine

The California Occupational Safety and Health Administration issued a new citation against fired Metro Rail subway contractor Shea Kiewit Kenny last week, fining the firm $62,000 in connection with the now-infamous Hollywood sinkhole incident earlier this summer.

And a CalOS HA engineer told the Senate Transportation Committee that Metropolitan Transportation Authority inspectors on the troubled Red Line project have been told by their superiors not to cooperate with CalOSHA personnel, "not to call us or talk to us." Safety inspectors on the construction project should have more authority, and their orders should be heeded, advised CalOSHA Associate Safety Engineer Joe Doyle.

All told, CalOSHA has fined SKK about $1 million, but most of those citations have been appealed.

Meanwhile, the entire financial future of the MTA was on the line last week as the Senate Transportation Committee came to L.A. for a special hearing on allegations of corruption and mismanagement in the nation's largest public works project - the Metro Rail construction program. In the end, committee Chairman Quentin Kopp, I-South San Francisco, suggested that the state auditor perform an audit of the MTA.

Some senators accused the MTA of knowingly destroying Hollywood businesses in the hope of building a "better tomorrow" for Los Angeles.

Damage predicted

Sen. Tom Hayden, D-Santa Monica, pulled out a copy of an engineering study that was completed before Hollywood Boulevard sank 10 inches in the summer of 1994. The report predicted widescale damage to buildings along the boulevard but advised that it would be more economically feasible to fix the damage later than to take precautions to prevent it. Hayden said the report "seems to have prophesied what happened."

"We view(ed) it (the report) as a warning of what can happen," said MTA Project Manager Charles Stark. "I am not aware of any policy of the MTA, past or present, to permit damage to private property."

But Hayden insisted that the MTA was destroying businesses and putting workers' lives in danger to achieve some long-range mass transit goal.

"In the short ran, there's corruption, fraud, damage, lawsuits ... but in the end, we have a better Los Angeles?" Hayden asked sarcastically.

When MTA Chief Executive Franklin White accused Hayden of grandstanding for press coverage, Hayden shot back by insisting that White had told him privately "that the destruction of a few businesses is necessary to build a better Hollywood."

"I said that in any public works project, there are going to be business impacts," White retorted.

South Bay trip

Hayden said the MTA proved that it is impossible to accurately predict future transit needs and build accordingly when it built the Green Line rail system in the South Bay. Metro Rail officials admitted that their original ridership estimates on the line have been cut to a mere fraction of earlier hopes, largely because of the declining aerospace job base in the area.

"We were apparently planning that in the era of our grandchildren' s children, the Cold War would still be going on and the defense industry would be booming," said Hayden. "Now we have to come up with a new excuse for the line - the airport. Any idiot could tell you that a bus will get you from downtown to the airport faster than taking the Red Line, the Blue Line, the Green Line, and then walking the last two miles."

The Senate Transportation Committee subpoenaed a number of witnesses to testify about the MTA's financial viability and about construction disasters in Hollywood. Three other people had been subpoenaed to testify about allegations that auditors inflated billings as part of a kickback/cover-up scheme, but that testimony was delayed until a heating next month in Sacramento.

The day-long hearing, which also was attended by several members of the state Assembly, began with testimony about MTA finances and discussion about whether the MTA should continue trying to build a subway system at all - something the MTA is itself studying.

A letter was read from County Supervisor Mike Antonovich, former chairman of the MTA Board of Directors, who wrote that the MTA should "not continue to throw good money after bad" and should stop building subways. Antonovicb favors above-ground light rail systems.

Bus service cited

Tom Rubin, former controller/treasurer of the Southern California Rapid Transit District (which merged with the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission to form the MTA), testified that the MTA is decimating bus service and exhausting its financial resources to build rail projects that are "at best, extremely questionable." Rubin called the MTA's new 20-year plan "a piece of trash that should be ignored."

White denied charges from senators that the MTA is facing bankruptcy and insisted the agency has "not advanced any project without having the revenues identified."

Afternoon testimony turned toward the sinkhole, which appeared near Vermont Avenue when Red Line workers were realigning a previously dug tunnel.

Senators were visibly upset that Norm Hutchins, job superintendent with Shea Kiewit Kenny, didn't show up to testify. Hayden claimed that John Shea had promised to bring Hutchins with him, so that the Senate would not need to issue a separate subpoena, but Shea denied this.

Hutchins warned

"Playing games is not a way to avoid being subpoenaed," said Hayden. "It will be worse for him."

CalOSHA's Doyle testified that SKK had been cited last week for subjecting workers to unsafe conditions by failing to get everyone out of the tunnel in a timely fashion on the morning of the sinkhole incident. Doyle said it was he who ordered the final tunnel evacuation.

"This keeps getting worse and worse as we uncover more evidence," commented Sen. Hilda Solis, D-El Monte.

Shea continued to blame the sinkhole on uncharted underground rivers, while Don Minor, deputy construction manager with construction management firm Parsons-Dillingham Corp., maintained that a broken water main caused the tunnel to flood and the street to collapse.