Firm Proposed for Subway Job Faces Questions

There is mounting concern among some Metropolitan Transportation Authority board members that a politically connected business team recommended by the agency’s chief executive to supervise subway construction on the Eastside lacks necessary expertise and could dilute public support for an already troubled project.

Three of the five members on a key MTA board committee that will consider the $65-million contract Thursday say they may oppose the choice of the business team, depending on how their questions are answered.

The choice of a construction manager for tunneling through loosely packed gravel and sand in East Los Angeles is being watched closely in the community because the tunnel will be dug below more homes and businesses than any other in the Red Line system. The seven-year project is to begin in February.

MTA Chief Executive Joseph E. Drew told board members in a memorandum last week that he had overturned the opinion of a panel of seven independent experts assembled to evaluate three bidders for the work, moving their last-ranked candidate to the top of his list. In the memo, Drew said he chose a consortium called Metro East Consultants because he considered the panel’s decision-making process “somewhat inexplicable.”

Three members of the MTA committee, Zev Yaroslavsky, Gloria Molina and James Cragin, criticized Drew for circumventing an evaluation process in which the review panel’s recommendation was supposed to play the critical role.

“This is a crucial turning point for Drew and the agency,” said Yaroslavsky, a county supervisor.

“This was his decision and his alone, and it flies in the face of every expert we paid good money to bring in.”

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Metro East had previously been chosen first for the job by the MTA staff in March. That selection was thrown out after an investigation by the agency’s inspector general found serious irregularities in staff members’ examination of the firm’s qualifications.

To ensure a cleaner selection process, board members decided in April to spend $375,000 to bring in seven senior tunneling and construction management experts from around the country to evaluate the job candidates.

After the construction committee makes its recommendation Thursday, the full board of directors will consider the matter Oct. 23.

The board can either accept Drew’s choice, choose another contractor, or reopen the bid solicitation process.

In interviews, the three construction committee members noted that one corporate partner in Metro East’s team, TELACU, an East Los Angeles-based community development corporation, has had ties to influential MTA board member Richard Alatorre.

One of the subcontractors for TELACU is Cordoba Corp., which is headed by George Pla, who once managed political campaigns for Alatorre.

Molina, a county supervisor whose district includes the future Eastside extension of the subway, condemned Drew for intervening in a “very precise process” with a “unilateral, arbitrary action that looks politically corrupt on its face.” Molina and Alatorre have clashed on a number of issues.

Yaroslavsky expressed frustration that the reversal of the review panel’s recommendation had added to a public perception that “it’s not what you know, but who you know that gets you a contract here.”

Cragin, a Gardena City Council member who is also a member of the construction committee, said Drew’s explanation for his decision “doesn’t hold water.”

Alatorre, a Los Angeles City Council member, defended the decision by Drew to pick Metro East.

He called JMA--the expert panel’s top-ranked business team--an “inept” outfit that has poorly managed MTA tunneling in the Santa Monica Mountains and would make the agency look “ridiculous.”

Drew said that Metro East, led by the Los Angeles-based engineering firm O’Brien-Kreitzberg, would produce “the best outcome for the community.”

Metro East was originally the new panel’s top choice, Drew said, purely on the technical merits of its written proposal, even though the firm fell to third in the final rankings after an oral presentation of its ideas.

Drew said he disqualified JMA, which is led by Pasadena-based engineering behemoth Jacobs Engineering, because he believed it had its hands full with a current contract to manage tunneling in the Santa Monica Mountains.

He said he passed over Bechtel, the panel’s second-ranked team, because one ardent supporter of that firm on the expert panel had “unduly influenced” the others to advance it in the rankings during a discussion of the candidates.

The board members questioning the decision to pick Metro East said their fears are buttressed by a confidential report, made available to The Times, in which the independent review panel blasted the consortium for having an “incomplete understanding” of the subway job.

In addition, several members of the panel expressed concerns in written evaluations that the recommended group’s team of German-based tunnel experts would have a hard time working and communicating with the American workers whose efforts they would supervise.

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Some of the panelists also expressed reservations about whether Metro East had genuinely integrated minority-owned businesses into its joint venture, a key requirement in federally financed projects. Several of the experts gave the consortium project manager low marks for verbal clarity.

The review panel expressed some reservations about all three bidders.

Top-ranked JMA was criticized repeatedly by panelists over its proposal to save the MTA millions of dollars by using some of its Santa Monica Mountains project personnel on the Eastside.

One panelist wrote: “JMA proposes to use 53 of 82 personnel from the existing Red Line project. Projects this will save $16 million. Either the existing 53 people do not have enough to do or JMA is not accurate with their projection.”

Second-ranked Bechtel was criticized for appearing to barely tolerate its minority-owned partners and having the potential to “become dictatorial instead of cooperative.”