[Editor’s Note: Tomorrow’s MTA Board meeting is at 1 Gateway Plaza, behind Union Station.]
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When the discussion begins downtown tomorrow morning at the 9 o’clock MTA Board meeting about the scandal surrounding the Crenshaw-LAX light rail line award, let there be no mistake about who is in charge.
MTA CEO Art Leahy is not in charge.
Nobody voted for him.
Mr. Leahy works at the pleasure of the MTA Board, which includes the Mayor of the second largest city in the country, the Supervisors of the nation's largest county, and regional representatives of all the county's cities.
Collectively, MTA Board members have over 200 years of experience in elected office. You voted for them to represent us.
The MTA Board is where the buck stops on the Crenshaw-LAX Line.
The MTA Board is The Decider.
The MTA Board knows Art Leahy and his staff are as wrong as two left shoes.
[img]1972|right|Mr. Leahy||no_popup[/img]Art Leahy and his staff have unscrupulously kept from the public that they rejected the requests of three out of the four finalists for the Crenshaw-LAX Line contract to bid the rail line underground the entirety of Crenshaw Boulevard, including at least one request to build the Crenshaw Boulevard tunnel within project budget! (Read more here)
The contractors submitted their requests last July, 11 months ago
For 11 months Mr. Leahy and his staff have lied to the public, elected officials and the media about this project, the length of time necessary to add the tunnel, and the estimated cost of the tunnel.
For 11 months Mr. Leahy and his staff have failed to present the board with the multiple options that allow MTA to build the type of project that is underground on Crenshaw Boulevard, which would preserve and enhance L.A.’s last black business corridor, save children’s lives, and improve transportation for the region.
Now that the item is on tomorrow’s MTA agenda, the Board now has the power to take this new information, of which they are now privy, and direct Mr. Leahy and staff to comeback with multiple options that allow the contractors to bid the tunnel.
Accordingly, the question for tomorrow is not, What is the staff's recommendation?
It is, What is the MTA Board going to do to allow the contractors to bid the tunnel?
Mr. Goodmon, executive director of the Crenshaw Subway Coalition, the principal advocate for the Crenshaw Boulevard light rail tunnel, may be contacted at crenshawsubway.org and
dg@crenshawsubway.org
