Re ‘Ugly Story Behind the Resignation of Metrolink’s Front Person,’ Sept. 15.
I appreciate your candor in reporting about the resignation of Metrolink's Denise Tyrell.
My take on the whole thing is that Metrolink wanted to separate themselves from the engineer’s sub- contractor, Violia Transportation, maybe for liability reasons?
I had heard that CEO David Solow had given her the okay to go with the story, and County Supervisor Mike Antonovich was first to fire back at her.
Since he is a Metrolink board member, I could see the resignation coming.
Was she sacrificed in order to get the story out? Now Violia has been fleshed out as the engineer’s employee, and forced to make a statement.
Was that the desired result?
Ari Noonan’s comment: I believe you have correctly identified accountability — unsurprisingly — as the key touchstone. Four days after Friday’s fatal Chatsworth train crash, three of the least courageous men in Los Angeles have been banging into each other, desperately scrambling to escape their shared responsibility — Metrolink board chair Ron Roberts, Metrolink CEO David Solow and Frankie Wilner of the United Transportation Union.
As The Boss of Metrolink, Mr. Solow originally did the right thing — temporarily — on the day after the accident. According to Ms. Tyrell’s account, Mr. Solow allowed her to talk him into going public to salvage Metrolink’s badly damaged credibility — after the latest of numerous fatal accidents — by citing the engineer’s gross carelessness, running red lights, as the cause of the tragedy.
Board chairmen seldom have been known for their moral courage, and Mr. Roberts, sadly, appears to fit that profile. Hours after Ms. Tyrell bravely, boldly clawed through the obligatory red tape to state what had happened, the more cautious, perhaps even wimpy , Mr. Roberts sandbagged Ms. Tyrell and his rival Mr. Solow. Assuming a retreating pose, Mr. Roberts, sounding touchy, said that the lady had committed an ill-advised rush to judgment. It was not Metrolink’s responsibility, he said, to determine why the frequently criticized communter train company, , was in the middle of another fatal mess.
Virtually in tandem with Mr. Roberts, the union spokesperson Mr. Wilner, without any supporting evidence, made three wild guesses at the cause in an undisguised attempt to deflect accountability and to protect his brother unionist, the carefully guarded engineer. Mr. Wilner guessed stroke. Mr. Wilner guessed heart attack. Mr. Wilner guessed glare of the late afternoon sun.
By yesterday, Mr. Solow, the CEO, had joined Mr. Roberts in full retreat mode. He said that he was rash on Saturday morning in giving Ms. Tyrell permission to go public with the cause.
Meanwhile, the Los Angeles Times reported this morning that image-sensitive Mayor Villaraigosa of Los Angeles, on advice of staff, purposely stood out of the picture on Saturday while Ms. Tyrell was revealing the cause to reporters. Cynically, the mayor’s staff did not want him associated with the fault statement since the engineer had an Hispanic surname and also had been killed in the crash. How would it look to his supporters? they asked.
Up to here, despite yeoman attempts to seemingly throw investigators off the scent, it looks as if the engineer, Robert Sanchez, was the single guilty party. The evidence, according to Ms. Tyrell, shows that the much-liked Mr. Sanchez, whose identity was only reluctantly revealed days after the crash, ignored warning signs and ran through stoplights. So far, his error has caused 26 deaths.
As for Supervisor Antonovich, contrary to what you said, Mr. Story, he seems to be on Ms. Tyrell’s side. His office said he wants Ms. Tyrell’s quickly accepted resignation to be reconsidered.
