An open letter to Bernard C. Parks, candidate for the County Board of Supervisors, on Nov. 4:
At the Cherrywood/Leimert Block Club meeting on Saturday, you spoke about the history of the Expo Line. This email should address the inaccuracies that I can recall you stated. There were so many distortions and misrepresentations, it was difficult to keep count.
1) A history of public comments on the Expo Line Corridor:
It's 100 percent wrong to suggest that the South L.A. community did not express concerns about the safety hazards of the street-level crossings until recently.
Bernard C. Parks, when the idea of running 225-ton trains 35 mph and 55 mph within feet of schools and at street-level across intersections was brought up, people advocated for underground or elevated trains, as they do in every single community that becomes informed about the hazards of light rail — particularly in Los Angeles. Of course people recognized the safety hazard. We know it leads to accidents and deaths that would be prevented with underground/trench or elevated structures.
The people spoke out in every single environmental review process conducted. You and your staff members were at many of those meetings. The following link is a post with 4 pages of excerpts from MTA's own environmental review documents for the projects where people state request for grade separation, concern about safety/child safety: http://fixexpo.blogspot.com/2008/10/
The people spoke. You failed to listen. You failed to lead.
2) Tunneling money.
There is not now, and there has not ever been, a ban on using federal money to build tunnels on the Expo Line. The prohibition on using federal money to tunnel was specific to only a small portion of Wilshire Boulevard because of the methane gas issue that exploded the Ross Dress 4 Less. How do you think MTA was able to construct the 2 miles of tunnel in East L.A. on Eastside Extension with federal funds? Incidentally, this ban on using federal funding for tunnels under Wilshire has been repealed.
The only existing subway prohibition is on using local sales tax Prop. C money on subways. But even that ban doesn't apply to trenches, trench stations or elevated structures — none of which you advocate for in your district. You support street-level crossings including right in front of Foshay Learning Center, and you have since the day you were elected to office in 2003.
Furthermore, 97 percent of the Expo Line budget is money that can be spent on tunnels ($837 million of the $862 million budget). It's only that 3 percent ($25 million) that can't be spent on tunnels. The other 97 percent can.
3) Expo Line Project Budget
When stating why you believe our community must accept less than others as you were discussing the Expo Line project budget, you conveniently neglected to mention that you voted several times on the project budget, including several votes to increase the budget for improvements for everything and everywhere — except in South L.A.
Just last year and this April (well into construction), you and the other Expo Authority and MTA board members voted to:
• Increase the project budget for an optional USC station
• Add $145 million to the budget for cost overruns. (If you were so short on cash why didn't you just scale back the project?)
• Add $54 million to the budget to add an elevated station in Culver City (all while telling us there's no money for grade separations at Dorsey and Foshay)
And the $218 million of the $222 million tax dollars that have been added to the project were allocated from the same source your constituents and neighborhood City Council leaders requested you and your fellow politicians go after for grade separation in our community: State Prop. 1B.
The people spoke. You failed to listen. You failed to lead.
Furthermore, you and the other Expo Authority and MTA board members voted for an Expo Line budget and a project that spends more money constructing in the one mile from La Cienega to the Culver City terminus than in the 4.5 miles in South L.A. from Vermont to Clyde (one block east of La Cienega). We pay taxes, too, in South L.A.
Bernard C. Parks: Why are you against spending the same amount per mile in your district as in the community west of La Cienega to Culver City?
Additionally:
a) You voted to remove the Expo Line Phase 1 from the federal matching program that would have provided a 50 percent match for the project: $320-430 million in federal dollars, money that could have gone to put the Expo Line underground in South LA.
b) In the $ 40 billion measure MTA put on the November ballot (Measure R), not once did you or Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke use your seat on the MTA board to push for a single additional penny for additional grade separations on the Expo Line in South L.A. or even on the Blue Line, the deadliest rail line in the country.
c) You, Burke and Councilperson Jan Perry proudly advocate for a $6 billion Wilshire subway, but won't advocate for a tiny fraction of that amount ($300-400 million) be added to the Expo Line project so the project can be safe, and equitable across residential communities.
I understand your campaign donations come from the companies and people along Wilshire, but you are in office to represent those of us south of the 10 Freeway.
The bottom line, Bernard C. Parks, is, you have never been in office to serve the community. You've been in office to serve yourself.
You have tremendous influence being the only person in the county that sits on the MTA, Expo Authority and L.A. City Council Transportation Committee. But instead of using your board seats to respond to the concerns of constituents who simply want the Expo Line built right —built safe — built equitably across all Phase 1 residential communities, you've used your seat to fill your campaign chests for the three offices you've run for in just three years. You've used the MTA as your ATM when you could have and should have been using it to make the Expo Line a project we all can embrace.
Sincerely,
Damien Goodmon. Mr. Damien may be contacted at
dg@fixexpo.org
