This is the day before the Big Dance, and this morning County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas did what all conquering wartime Generals do on Battle Eve:
Assemble the faithful and rally them while confidently standing before the visible world — the media, in this case — to declare how logical and sound your plan is for cutting down the giant to handleable size in the grizzly den of the lion himself.
Since taking office 2½ years ago, Mr. Ridley-Thomas has seized upon the formerly stalled Crenshaw-to-LAX light rail transit line as a blue ribbon project, and now dawns his next big top showdown.
At 9 a.m. tomorrow inside the monster-sized downtown tower that the 13 members of the Metro Board of Directors humbly call home, the frequently feared, sometimes demonized body will vote down or up on a double-barreled dynamite motion by Mr. Ridley-Thomas:
• Should there be a train station in high-profile Leimert Park, at the densely-peopled intersection of Crenshaw and Vernon, often described as the heart of the African American community a magnetic global destination?
• For reasons of safety and future economic development, should a dozen-block stretch of the line be undergrounded, from 48th Street to 60th Street?
Armed with steeply researched data and a style made for high-pressure lobbying, Mr. Ridley-Thomas, not quite singlehandedly but close, has hefted the once lowdown Crenshaw-to-LAX light rail onto his very political shoulders and sought to convince Metro’s strongest minds that his pathway will be remunerative and logical. Supporters say his shoulders were born to lobby.
He believes he has forcefully refuted Metro’s pet arguments:
• Despite unrelieved pleas of impoverishment by Metro, ample dollars are indeed available to build underground. Says the supervisor: “The Metro staff has identified $2 billion in funding from lower priority, maintenance and system enhancement projects that can be redirected here without affecting any new transit or highway projects.”
• Putative Metro opponents claim — falsely? — that a light rail station is not needed in so-busy Leimert Park because another station, on King Boulevard, is in their backyard, a scant 0.6 miles away. Mr. Ridley-Thomas’s crack research team found that throughout the Metro rail network, a whopping 31 stations are within 0.6 miles of an identical facility.
Smiley for the Camera
At entertainer Tavis Smiley’s corporate headquarters in the Crenshaw District a little before 11 this morning, Mr. Ridley-Thomas completed his extremely influential role in greasing the path for passage with the routinely stubborn, unpredictable Metro board.
To draw the media, he formed a high-profile trio with the rather self-assured Mr. Smiley, a regular, sometimes controversial presence on PBS and National Public Radio, and Prof. Cornel West, speaking of controversy. The Princeton Prof is one of the first pundits to appear in two or three venues at one time, so ubiquitous is he.
The press conference began 15 minutes late because Prof. West was flying in from somewhere, and he was whizzing over, pre-light rail, from LAX.
His sparse endorsement pretty much was reduced to “I love this neighborhood,” and then he announced to no one’s surprise he is flying off to China this evening and won’t be available for the Metro summit.
Mr. Smiley’s endorsement was 10 to 12,000 words longer. However, all but several words were about himself.
But he did connect hammer and nail one time. He said that communities of color commonly are deprived of amenities others can take for granted when big cities mount major transportation schemes.
The three stars were flanked by the fibre of the Leimert Park community, Blair Taylor, CEO of the Los Angeles Urban League, Tunua Thrash, Executive Director of the West Angeles Community Development Corp., Gene Hale, Chair of the Greater Los Angeles African American Chamber of Commerce, Jackie Ryan, President of the 15-year-old Leimert Park Merchants Assn., and journalist/activist Damien Goodmon. At 29 years old, Mr. Goodman, who delivered the home run endorsement, was not necessarily the youngest person in the room but he was the only one who could prove it.
