Re “After Leahy Flap, Goodmon Seeks Records from Metro”
[Editor’s Note: Mr. Goodmon is Executive Director of the Crenshaw Subway Coalition.]
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Folks –
This is just another reason to cancel your L.A. Times subscription if you still have one.
We are doing everything short of writing the story and putting it on their printing presses ourselves to expose a scandal of massive proportions that surrounds the Crenshaw light rail Line contract award decision.
The contract to build the Crenshaw Line just so happens to be the largest single construction contract awarded in the history of the MTA (other more expensive projects were broken down into smaller contacts).
So no one can claim that this is not newsworthy. This is front page above the fold news. This is the type of development that leads to legislative branch investigations and legitimate calls for resignations.
Instead of diving into this as The Wave and OurWeekly did last week, the Times has completely punted. Despite being given everything short of the documents themselves, the publication not only chose to not mention it (and fails to mention the fact that the community has requested both underground in Park Mesa Heights and Leimert Park Village station since Day One), it simply regurgitates the MTA's talking points.
This is the equivalent of everyone else reporting a break-in at the Watergate while the Times reports on the hotel's new security system.
As we first announced at our May community meeting, we have confirmed that at least one of the four contractors seeking the Crenshaw-LAX Line contract, requested that MTA allow them to bid both the Leimert Park Village station and the Park Mesa Heights tunnel. The contractor said he could do so within the project's budget.
There is a lengthy technical explanation.
But basically building cut-and-cover construction (cut an open trench in the ground then cover it) from 67th to 60th and street-level from 59th to 48th streets on a congested street without many detour routes like Crenshaw is extremely time-consuming, disruptive and requires a lot of underground utility relocation work.
It costs a lot of money, an amount that at least one of the bidders for the contract states is comparatively not as much cheaper as just building them three-mile section of the line completely underground with a tunnel boring machine (a mining machine that operates underground without disrupting the surface). Boring the tunnel on Crenshaw is a much less disruptive, simpler design. And it takes considerably less time. The Crenshaw Subway Coalition, along with a team of experienced engineers, has been saying this since 2011. One bidder looked at it and came to the same conclusions.
Inexplicably, MTA staff refused to allow the reputable contractor (who has built projects throughout the Southland and the world) to submit the bid that had a tunnel going all the way down Crenshaw Boulevard and a station at Leimert Park Village.
The staff is preventing qualified, competent engineers from building the project the community wants – entirely underground on Crenshaw Boulevard. Instead, the MTA staff wants to proceed, as is, to destroy the last black business corridor in Los Angeles.
A responsible publication might be inclined to ask, “Why?”
Or they would require the agency to disclose the information and respond to it substantively, as we have: http://www.scribd.com/doc/146158904/Public-Records-Act-Request-to-MTA-for-Crenshaw-LAX-Line-Bidders-Alternatives
A responsible publications might find this newsworthy.
Not the L.A. Times.
In May we celebrated the victory of the Leimert Park station.
But our fight for the 11-block tunnel continues.
We will not waiver, especially given information like this.
This will be an epic war with MTA.
Soon we will announce our efforts to mobilize for the Thursday, June 27, MTA Board meeting, the Showdown at MTA. We need you there.
Stay tuned for more information.
Hello, Mr. Chairman
[Editor’s Note: On Saturday, Mr. Goodmon addressed the following message to Art Leahy <leahya@metro.net>, Chairman of the MTA Board.]
Mr. Leahy –
Last night the MTA public relations blog announced a staff report recommending a contractor for the Crenshaw/LAX Line, a matter to be voted on at the June 27 MTA Board meeting. The announcement itself is perplexing for a variety of reasons, primarily because it does not provide the staff report. Outside of matters of national security, I don't think have I ever seen a public agency announce the findings of a report without releasing the report itself.
More the point of this communication, I am even more perplexed that the agency would choose to reference the contractor's submitted Alternative Technical Concepts, without actually making them public, along with the responses of your agency and other contractors, as we requested on Thursday.
Question: Is it because at least one ATC thoroughly rebuts two of your most strongly asserted claims – cost increase and time delay – from implementing the 11-block tunnel on Crenshaw Boulevard in Park Mesa Heights?
If your agency's objective was simply to expect some less responsible media outlets to recklessly regurgitate your talking points without substantiation, in spite of being informed by the Crenshaw Subway Coalition of the presence of documentation that you refuse to disclose, which thoroughly rebuts your claims about the largest single construction contract awarded by the public agency, today's L.A. Times indicates that you have succeeded.
However, if the objective of the agency was to better inform the public about this project so that they may comment to decision-makers, you have quite a bit of work to do, beginning with the release of the report, the ATCs and the documents associated with them.
Sincerely,
Damien Goodmon
Mr. Goodmon may be contacted at dg@crenshawsubway.org
