STATE PANEL ENDORSES TRANSIT ZONE; MTA OPPOSING PLAN FOR VALLEY CONTROL.

Byline: Paul Hefner Daily News Sacramento Bureau

A bill to create a San Fernando Valley board to oversee area transportation spending won approval Tuesday in a key state Senate committee despite a late round of MTA lobbying against the measure.

The Senate Appropriations Committee voted 7-3 to endorse SB 1886 by state Sen. Tom Hayden, D-Los Angeles, whose district includes the Southwest Valley.

``This bill would give a representative cross-section of the Valley a determining voice in what gets built in the Valley,'' Hayden said.

After the committee vote, he accused lobbyists for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority of working behind the scenes to build opposition to the measure among lawmakers from outside the region.

MTA officials said they opposed the bill on the grounds that allowing a 20-member Valley panel to set transit priorities for the area would compromise the MTA's regional planning efforts.

``The feeling is you are Balkanizing the county,'' said Tim Egan, an MTA lobbyist. ``There's a concern about taking one area over another area. Why does the San Fernando Valley get special consideration?''

Hayden's bill, which now moves to the Senate floor, is one of two proposals by Valley legislators this year to try to improve transportation services by shifting power away from the troubled MTA.

The second measure, by Assemblyman Tony Cardenas, D-Panorama City, called for the MTA to establish a transit zone in the Valley to operate bus services.

But Cardenas' bill, AB 2189, died in committee last week. Cardenas said he abandoned the measure because he could not find a way to rewrite the bill to keep the zone from threatening the labor contracts of MTA bus drivers and mechanics.

``We kept working on it until the last minute, and we weren't able to come up with anything,'' Cardenas said.

Proponents of setting up the zone, including representatives of private bus companies, noted that the MTA already has the authority to establish transit zones even without passage of Cardenas' bill.

At the urging of Los Angeles Councilman Richard Alarcon, city officials are preparing an application for a Valley zone to submit to the MTA. Lobbyists for unions representing MTA workers said they plan to oppose those efforts as well.

And despite Tuesday's vote, Hayden said he expects he'll have to work hard to win approval of his measure in the full Senate.

``It will be another battle with the downtown headquarters of the MTA,'' Hayden said. ``I hope they will think better before going on another anti-Valley rampage.''