Owners of Mid-Wilshire businesses gripe over subway work's impact.

A few days after the Metropolitan Transportation Authority rejected in total a claim from the Radisson Wilshire Plaza Hotel for $18 million in Metro Rail-related damages, a group of some 30 Mid-Wilshire business and property owners gathered in that hotel last week to discuss with MTA officials the impacts of subway construction on their livelihoods.

Business owners complained that their businesses are failing, while MTA and bank officials fail to return phone calls and fail to process their applications for loans and damage claims.

"I have left messages with you and with the bank (East-West Federal Bank, one of the banks that writes Metro Rail mitigation loans). I'm getting ready to close up shop, and you haven't even given me a return phone call," complained Mike Begakis, owner of the Upstage Cafe, to MTA loan program administrator Joya De Foor.

Begakis added that his restaurant was flooded in 1992 because Metro Rail crews neglected to install proper drainage systems and that his claim in connection with that incident remains to be paid.

The owner of a nearby apartment building said his building suffered cracks due to construction and that he submitted a claim in October 1992 that has yet to be acted upon.

Habib Balian, special assistant to Los Angeles County Supervisor/MTA Board Member Mike Antonovich, said he was "terribly upset to see the outrage in the community over a program that's not helping anyone."

Last summer, when a controversy arose concerning a Metro Rail mitigation loan granted to developer Wayne Ratkovich, Antonovich released a statement saying MTA staff members had been "insubordinate in their lack of regard for the board's direction to get this program underway before businesses along the Metro Rail route were forced into bankruptcy."

Balian said last week that "nothing had changed" since Antonovich issued that statement.

"I don't understand why people in Hollywood are getting their loans, and we can't get it together in Mid-Wilshire," said Balian.

MTA officials made brief presentations at the meeting but were generally unable to answer questions. MTA Public Affairs Officer Benita Horn began the meeting by announcing that MTA staff "can not address specific issues at this time."

Alex Hull, manager of Wilshire Tuxedo & Bridal, complained that business owners who do apply for loans are required to sign waivers promising not to sue the MTA later -- something many are refusing to do.

"For us to get $50,000 and waive the possibility of a million-dollar lawsuit just doesn't make sense," said Hull.

De Foor said Hull will have to decide whether signing the waiver to get the loan "fits your financial plan."

Randy Case, owner of Quizno's Classic Subs, said the MTA makes it very difficult to get help using its systems.

"You've got to empathize a bit, and I don't think you're doing that," Case told De Foor.

De Foor and her fellow MTA staffers were unable to answer questions concerning the average interest rate on the mitigation loans, the loans' average debt service ratio, how the loan program is financed, or the number of damage claims that had been paid.

After Abdoul Sesay, MTA risk manager, explained the process for investigating claims through a third party administrator and insurance company adjuster, Radisson spokesman Bob Mooney said those procedures were not followed when the MTA rejected the hotel's claim this month.

Mooney asked if it was unusual for the fate of a claim to be decided without an adjuster investigation, and Sesay responded that that was a legal question he couldn't answer.

Mooney said the hotel's owners have not yet made a final decision on whether to sue the MTA.

MTA staff members also got into a couple shouting matches with MTA critic John Walsh, who claimed that the loan program is pointless because its standards are "obviously too high." In two years, only three Mid-Wilshire business owners, other than Ratkovich, have qualified for small loans.

"You require everything but an AIDS tests," groused Walsh.

Many business owners groaned and complained afterward that every meeting with MTA officials consists of the same "runaround." Several expressed interest in taking their concerns to the full MTA board of directors at an upcoming meeting, and Balian pledged to get the item on an MTA board agenda.