Bus Riders to Antonio: Time to back up your talk

The dead-end Purple Line subway station at Wilshire/Western, on the busiest bus corridor in L.A. County, saw back-to-back news conferences Wednesday morning that, with some luck, could speed up two of the city’s lumbering bureaucracies.

First off, the Bus Riders Union called on Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa to come up with $10 million to jump-start the rush-hour bus-only lanes for the nine-mile span along Wilshire to Santa Monica. The city and the Metropolitan Transportation Authority received word this month that a $27 million federal grant will be coming this way in October for the project. But the bus advocates want work to start right now and for the project to be finished long before the target date of 2011.

“You have been a verbal ally, Antonio. We know when you have a political will, you can find a way,” challenged Francisca Porchas, lead organizer.

With the banner, “Mr. Mayor, fund bus-only lanes now!” draped in the background, the mayor took the podium 30 minutes later to talk about the wonders of traffic light synchronization along Wilshire. Reality check, Antonio: Until the bus lanes are up and running, commuters at 5 p.m. will often sit in gridlock and have a chance to memorize every detail of the new signs you unveiled. They will only annoy and remind commuters in buses and cars alike that, yes, indeed, if only they were moving, the wizardry of synchronized signals would help restore their sanity.

To his credit, the mayor didn’t blow off the Bus Riders Union, even though the city is looking at a deficit of $400 million and growing. He agreed to see if there are any innovative ways that the city could front the money and be repaid by the federal government in eight months. We’re thinking maybe moneybags Nick Patsouras, a former Metro bigwig and developer with his hand in a few Metro projects around town, could make an interest-free loan. Or, Eli Broad might consider such a good civic deed, seeing how some passengers will be taking the bus to his museum.

But even if the mayor can’t find the dough, he can do more to move the Wilshire bus lanes project into full gear. You might think the project has already been studied to death, but since it won federal money, yet another environmental impact report is needed. Metro’s Rex Gephart said it’s his job to coordinate that report with the city’s Department of Transportation. Gephart also is working on a presentation for the city of Beverly Hills, and will ask that city to agree to bus lanes along its three-mile span of Wilshire. Last fall, Metro approached the city of Beverly Hills, but engineers there said they wanted to wait and see how the bus lanes worked for Los Angeles. Now that the grant has come through, Metro will try again and could amend the federal grant to include money for Beverly Hills’s portion. Too bad the good people of Beverly Hills didn’t have the vision to sign on to the project when it was first proposed to them months ago.

But there’s no reason to wait for L.A.’s two agencies to get together and make their plans and allow months – or a year – to go by before all the paperwork is in. As an October 29, 2007 report from DoT’s General Manager Rita Robinson to the City Council put it, with the bureaucratese deleted: “Authorization … to begin work before October 2008 may be obtained … but the project will need to be environmentally cleared … first.”

So, why doesn’t the mayor wave his wand and order his transportation department to jump through hoops the same way he did two weeks ago to jump-start the Pico-Olympic mostly one-way project? We asked the mayor what he could do to speed up the environmental review, seeing how the feds will be cutting a check in October anyways.

Said the mayor: “I don’t see anyone from Metro out here today. I can ask them that question and I will. It is one of our top priorities.”

Well, we already asked Metro. But we bet we might get a different answer if we were the mayor of Los Angeles and called our very own transportation department; you’re the boss over there and should be issuing orders on the bus-lane project. You might even find some residual objections to the bus-lanes that are festering over there. Just a hunch.

We were told that Metro and DoT have one year, from the time the money arrives in October, to start construction on the project. The environmental reports, which might end up being an update of a 2003 report on the rapid bus lines along Wilshire, will be finished sometime after October of this year.

All of those are acceptable answers, in times of peace. But it’s war out there during rush hour, Antonio. It’s time for you to get those lanes open sooner rather than later. Start with fast-tracking the environmental reports and putting out feelers to your rich pals. Even Ron Burkle, if you explain to him what a bus is, could write the check by the start of the afternoon commute.

And, if you want another reason to get moving on the bus-lane project, consider this: It would be an impressive project to be online by the time you find yourself in the gridlock of a very contentious reelection campaign in a few short months.

Antonio’s Puppy Love

OK. OK. OK, this can’t really be true, can it? But from our vantage point in the mayor’s press conference room on the third floor of City Hall, where Antonio had gathered two dozen animal-control officers and animal activists for a law-signing ceremony, it sure looked like the city’s Top Dog was having trouble sharing his attention with the puppies. Every time one of the puppies moved, the mayor stopped talking.

“That was just too cute,” said the mayor, as two German shepherd-mix puppies touched noses. “Everybody loves a puppy.”

What’s ironic is that the mutt in Antonio’s arms, whom we’ll call “Hahn,” will be one of the last ever born in the city of Los Angeles, if the law signed by the mayor really forces people to spay and neuter their dogs and cats. Exempt from the life-altering procedures, of course, are the legions of boring, often over-bred purebreds, guide dogs, and police dogs.

Joining the mayor were Councilmembers Richard Alarcón and Tony Cardenas, who pushed the proposal through City Hall. Last year, Los Angeles city animal shelters took in 50,000 cats and dogs, 15,000 of whom were eventually killed.

“It is the animal-rights activist community that educated me and it is time that normal, average people who have cats and dogs and other animals understand how to be responsible owners,” said Alarcón. “You don’t have to be an animal-rights activist to be humane.”

Now, if only Assemblyman Lloyd Levine could tame the rabid foes who are trying to defeat his similar measure in the state Legislature.

Cooking the numbers

L.A.’s chief legislative analyst busted the mayor this week for spinning wild yarns about how he could save millions of dollars by ordering city employees to turn in their cell phones, a handful of the city-issued cars, and take a day off – at their own expense.

You’ll recall the mayor called a news conference one week before voters decided in favor of Proposition S, the $237 million communications tax. It was to the mayor’s advantage to paint a bleak picture of the city’s finances so that voters wouldn’t have a second thought about approving the money.

But Antonio got a little loose with the numbers as he proposed $35 million in cuts that January day. He suggested, for example, that he could save a pile of money if employees turned in their cell phones.

But Gerry Miller, who cut a mean, bulldog figure as he testified in front of the City Council on Tuesday, said it would be impossible to save anywhere near that kind of coin. The city enters into contracts for two years or more, and to back out of the deals now would cost the city the same as if they paid the monthly service fees for the remainder of the contract. Sound like the Verizon salesperson right before you started screaming into the phone about the need for a real PUC?

The mayor proposed saving $1.2 million by ordering more than 200 city staffers to turn in their cars. But that’s not feasible because of financing issues. Instead, reducing the fleet by 46 seems doable.

Miller uncovered some interesting city history in his pursuits. His understated tone can best be enjoyed by reading a line like this aloud: “Also included on the list of 236 home-garaged executive-fleet vehicles are ones that we cannot or would unlikely sell (e.g., vehicles on loan from the manufacturer, the 1952 Chrysler ‘parade car’).”

Miller, who works for the City Council, seemed to enjoy getting his digs in on the mayor. He couched most of his analysis in suggestions and proposals, but when it comes to the cars, he seemed intent on making sure that one Antonio Villaraigosa follows through on turning in the keys for “the 26 that the mayor has already asked his staff to return.”

Trying to get 7,000 city employees – the non-emergency workforce – to take 10 days off without pay by the end of the year to save $20 million is another mathematical impossibility. So far, 131 employees have signed up for a total of 133 days. The average daily wage: $290.

Yet more evidence that the January press conference was a ploy to get voters to approve Prop. S is the silence that Miller met when he tried to get the mayor’s response to his findings. “We requested, but did not receive, information from the Mayor’s Office, on how these savings could be realized.”

Maybe the mayor’s tied up at the police academy, making sure none of the new recruits get cold feet worrying about whether they’ll still have a job come graduation day.

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