The Transit Boss

Three decades ago, ex-UCLA grad student Denny Zane took on the powers-at-be in Santa Monica over greedy landlords and made history by pushing through a rent-control ordinance that became a national model.

In the intervening years, he became mayor of the once-utopian seaside village, where in the 1980s, he oversaw the development of the pedestrian-friendly Third Street Promenade, and made sure the right-of-way was acquired for the Expo Line light rail.

Now, the former middle school math teacher, philosophy-turned-urban planning grad student and modern-day consultant, is bringing together the powerful interests and players in Southern California for a strategy-setting session January 10 in the name of public transportation and to finish the subway to the sea, among other projects.

Inspirational speeches will give way to nuts-and-bolts discussions about breaking up L.A.’s car-and-freeway love affair, but don’t expect to witness any tongue lashings of those who derailed the subway dreams of two decades ago. The arm-in-arm celebration of Congressman Henry Waxman and County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky boarding the Red Line at the Civic Center station will have to wait. Zev’s been invited, and we hope to hear his vow to lobby and campaign and fight for the subway to Santa Monica and for transit projects; Henry’s not on the guest list, but we’ll settle for an e-mail of support to be read to the crowd.

The conference next week deals with pragmatism, raising money, constituent-building, and persuading politicians to do the right thing.

“This is really focused on taking the bull by the horns in L.A. County,” says Zane. “You can’t have a first-class community and a third-class transportation system.”

The main obstacle, of course, is money: “Waiting for the state and federal government to solve our problems is just bogus. It’s just not going to happen. We have to take care of it ourselves, and frankly it’s doable.”

Last October, the 60-year-old Zane brainstormed ideas with his like-minded allies, including Environment Now President Terry O’Day, Gloria Ohland of Reconnecting America and Jamie McCormick of Coalition for Rapid Transit. They outlined a strategy centered around organizing people – the public and elected leaders – in the name of transit progress.

Getting L.A. moving will take an infusion of billions of dollars, trickling in from a special fee or tax increase, that requires voter approval. The goal of the January 10 session: figure out what funding measure makes sense for the November 8 ballot, when a high turnout in the presidential election would be expected to attract an extra 5 or 6 percent of transit-savvy voters. For an idea of how fast the money adds up from a ballot measure, consider this rough example: A $100 annual fee on every automobile would raise $25 billion to $30 billion over 25 or so years.

The sales pitch for voters will touch on more than the $5 billion extension of the Purple Line from its dead-end at Wilshire/Western to Santa Monica. “Suddenly the strategy for a subway becomes, by necessity, a strategy that requires a countywide plan. We’re kind of all in it together,” says Zane. “You have to go to voters with more than just a subway. Instead of having the San Gabriel Valley or the San Fernando Valley or north L.A. County competing with the subway for scarce dollars, the real strategy has to be how do we get all these constituencies and regions working together so there’s enough money for all of these projects.”

A successful campaign will tout projects that will please a majority of voters and include perhaps, a Red Line subway extension to Burbank Airport, a north-south line through the Sepulveda Pass connecting the valley to LAX and an express train to Ontario Airport. It also will involve L.A.’s powerful special interests. “Every part of the county has to see a major improvement and the constituencies that drive politics – the business community, the labor community, the environmental community, and the social justice community – need to be involved.”

Current law now requires that tax increases win two-thirds of the vote. Zane’s goal is to persuade lawmakers, on an urgency basis, to approve a constitutional amendment lowering that threshold to 55 percent. Such a measure would require two-thirds approval by the legislature and also approval at the ballot box. So it’s possible that voters will see the proposed constitutional amendment along with a funding measure on Nov. 8.

All of this leaves little time to waste stuck in traffic.

Hammering out the details of the campaign strategy will fill every minute of the all-day session. Called “It’s Time to Move L.A.,” or simply Move L.A., the program is broken into four segments: The first panel will explore state and federal options, where this year, signs of hope are emerging. “The federal transportation program gets revised every six years, and that will be on the plate of the new administration, almost immediately,” Zane says. “And that’s a big opportunity for reshaping where federal dollars go in a way that could be very positive for Los Angeles County.”

The second panel will explore possible roles by the business community, including public-private partnerships often touted by Councilmember Jack Weiss and Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and a fee assessed from business owners along a transit route. “One of the things we want to do is not just have one funding stream, but have several funding streams,” Zane says. “It’s a way to create greater equity.”

The third panel will focus on how the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and Los Angeles and other cities can raise money. Ideas include parking surcharges or dedicating a portion of traffic fines to transit projects. Congestion pricing, charging drivers by annual miles traveled, or a surcharge on car registrations also will be considered.

The fourth panel will come up with a game plan and set out details on “Where do we go from here,” Zane says. “I might draft a straw man proposal to serve as a point of departure.”

Putting together a conference around the holidays proved a tough task, and the lineup remains in flux. As it turns out, the day of the conference will be a busy one around the state: The governor will deliver the state budget to the legislature, Sen. Barbara Boxer is holding a hearing in Los Angeles on the EPA’s interfering with California’s efforts to crack down on greenhouse emissions, and the Expo Line Rail Authority and California Transportation Commission meet.

Villaraigosa is planning to speak at the conference, and two county supervisors, Yvonne Burke and Yaroslavsky, have been invited. Zane didn’t invite Waxman because the focus of the one-day conference is on local and state initiatives. Perhaps a transcript of the conference will move Waxman to take a lead role in fighting for federal approval – and money – for the subway and other projects. If he plays his cards right, we’ll propose naming any future Wilshire/Fairfax station in Henry’s honor, but he needs to lobby and advocate for the project. At this point, it’s unclear whether he’d even show up for the dedication ceremony.

Panelists could include assorted Metro staffers and board members and Mary Nichols, head of the California Air Resources Board; Mike Feuer, chair of the Assembly 8 Transportation Committee; John Fairbank, Fairbank, Maslin & Maulin; Maria Elena Durazo, secretary-treasurer of the County Federation of Labor; Marty Wachs, the transit guru from the Rand Corp; Manuel Pastor Jr., director of USC’s Program for Environmental and Regional Equity; and David Fleming, president, L.A. Area Chamber of Commerce.

While the exact funding measure that may go to the voters remains up in the air, Zane says he’s not sold on a sales tax increase. Nor does he necessarily think it would be a good idea to repeal Measure A, the 1998 voter-approved measure championed by Yaroslavsky that banned the use of sales-tax revenues for subway projects. The money generated from two such sales tax increases is tied up in decades’ worth of projects, so repealing the measure might mislead voters into believing they had just liberated a pot of money; in fact, abandoning Measure A would make the most sense if another sales tax increase was in the works.

Nothing quite puts the power of a democracy on display than when people join together to take their cause to elected officials. To Zane, however, it’s business as usual. “What’s surprising to me is that it should be surprising to anybody that constituency groups need to be pushing the agenda forward. And that we imagine we should be relying on elected officials to do all of that for us so the rest of us can go home and just take it easy and let them do the work. Really that’s not how things get done. Officials need to be responsive and show a willingness to take some risks to move the agenda forward, but they are responsive to constituency involvement. We expect them to be the creators of it all of the time. Obviously there’s an interplay. But you need to have constituency politics, especially if you’re looking at the ballot box.”

Councilmember Tom LaBonge, for one, welcomes Zane’s role. LaBonge’s proposal for a $52 a year parcel tax to fund transit projects is one idea that will be discussed at the conference. (By the way, the idea came to him one day while filling his wife’s car with that amount of gas.) LaBonge, who spouts off about public transit with the zeal of a subway-platform preacher, welcomes passionate advocates for public transit. “A poll doesn’t win or lose it. You’ve got to educate the public and fight for it.”

It’s been some 30 years since Zane took on city hall – and won in Santa Monica. He’s learned a few things along the way.

“The No. 1 thing is that organized constituencies are the most important drivers and that’s what we need to try to accelerate. That’s what rent control was. It wasn’t just wise elected officials saw a problem and addressed it. On the contrary, the wise elected officials didn’t want to address it. The renter constituencies had to organize and make it happen.

“And that’s key lesson here: You can’t wait for elected officials to solve problems.”

Sends ammo and insults to BigAl@lasniper.com.

Moving L.A.

Thursday, Jan. 10

The Center at Cathedral Plaza

555 W. Temple St.

For details and to register, go to www.subwaytothesea.org