Burke

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By HOWARD FINE

Staff Reporter

L.A. Mayor Richard Riordan has been credited with up-righting the Metropolitan Transportation Authority by moving the board away from subway construction and bringing in Julian Burke to stabilize the agency’s sorry financial condition.

But despite being chairman of the board, and controlling four of the 13 board votes, Riordan has not really brought the panel any closer to a consensus on whether the MTA should focus on buses, rail or some sort of combination. He also has alienated certain Eastside officials, both on and off the board, who wanted a subway system of their own.

Now it’s Yvonne Brathwaite Burke’s turn to find common ground. Last month the L.A. County Supervisor became MTA chairman for a two-year term, and the question is whether she can form a wider, more politically diverse consensus than the mayor.

“I will try to bring all the members of the board together,” Burke said last week. “I don’t have the votes like Mayor Riordan did to control everything, so I’m going to have to work harder to form the coalitions At this point in the MTA’s life, we have some problems that must be solved. And to do that, everyone is not going to get all that they want.”

Can Burke pull off what none of her four predecessors Riordan, Glendale City Councilman Larry Zarian, fellow county Supervisor Michael Antonovich, and former L.A. City Councilman Richard Alatorre could do?

MTA chief executive Julian Burke no relation thinks she might. “Supervisor Burke is better at coalition building than Riordan was,” he said. “She’s more willing to compromise.”

He also noted that the supervisor pays more attention to detail than Riordan and that she makes meetings run more smoothly.

Brathwaite Burke’s ability to craft compromises has been tested on the Board of Supervisors, which often pits conservatives Don Knabe and Antonovich against the more liberal Gloria Molina.

One recent example of compromise was the county’s living wage ordinance, passed by the board in June. Realizing she probably couldn’t get a measure through the conservative members that was as generous as a similar law in the city of L.A., Burke pushed ahead on a watered-down version, which, among other things, exempted part-time workers.

But reaching consensus on the larger and more politically fragmented MTA could be another thing.

“No board head at the MTA has ever been able to forge a majority consensus on the big issues, and I see little reason to assume Burke will do any better,” said Tom Rubin, who was chief financial officer of the MTA’s predecessor agency, the Southern California Rapid Transit District. He is now a transportation consultant in Oakland.

Rubin said board members from smaller outlying cities long have resented the fact that the panel is so dominated by downtown interests. Between them, the mayor and the five county supervisors account for nine of the 13 board votes.

More recently, though, it’s been the Latino caucus mostly from the Eastside that has felt marginalized. Eastside representatives, both on and off the board, feel they were shortchanged by last year’s suspension of new subway construction and want more rail options for their neighborhoods.

But at least two members of that caucus think Burke can make progress on coalition-building.

“Unlike (Riordan) or some of the other members, Burke is not vested in any single mode of transportation,” said fellow supervisor and MTA board member Gloria Molina. “There is a window of opportunity now to build a consensus, and Burke is suited to that role.”

U.S. Rep. Xavier Becerra, D-Los Angeles, who has long pushed for more transit options for Eastside residents, also described Burke as a consensus-builder. “She has a good rapport with the various levels of government,” Becerra said.

But he also pointed out that Burke is operating in a new environment of fiscal constraint. “Her job is not going to be at all easy,” he said. “It remains to be seen whether she can lead the agency to make the most of what little it has.”

Burke herself said she wants more frequent financial updates from MTA staff and for those updates to be provided to the entire board. (Riordan, she said, had the financial updates, but the information did not always reach all the board members.)

“Who knows? There may even be funds available that we need to look at,” she said.

Burke, 66, has served on the Board of Supervisors since 1992. She broke into politics back in 1966, serving three terms in the California state Assembly. In 1972, Burke became the first African-American Congressional representative from California; that same year, she served as vice chair of the Democratic National Convention.

After three terms in Congress, Burke won a two-year term on the Board of Supervisors. But in 1980, she lost a re-election bid to Deane Dana. She waited another 12 years before running for the Supervisors again in 1992. Most of that time she spent in the private sector, with brief stints as chair of the L.A. Federal Reserve Bank and vice chair 1984 U.S. Olympics Organizing Committee.

As head of the MTA board, Burke’s most immediate challenge is with the bus system. The MTA has agreed to a consent decree by a federal judicial appointee to reduce bus overcrowding. The decree requires the agency to have enough buses in service so that no more than 15 people are standing at any one time.

While the MTA promised to buy more than 2,100 buses, judicial Special Master Donald Bliss has ordered the agency to buy an additional 480 buses. The MTA board has challenged that order as unfeasible.

Bus Riders Union organizer Rita Burgos noted that Burke voted along with the board majority to challenge the order by Bliss.

“Since both Riordan and Burke voted to appeal the special master’s decision, I don’t see any particular difference between them,” Burgos said. “In fact, Riordan, with his four votes, still has a lot of power on that board.”

Burgos also noted that the board voted to provide $350 million to fund the Pasadena Blue Line extension. That money could have been used to buy more buses, she said.

Burke said she wants to end the dispute with the Bus Riders Union. “I would really like to work something out outside the courtroom,” she said. However, she added that the solution must be financially feasible.

“There’s no question that our buses need a lot of help. Someone needs to look at reality and come up with a solution. I think it can be done,” she said.

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