ALPERN AT LARGE-Progress is hard, and being an elected or appointed official with great responsibilities means coming through with credibility and explanations that make sense to voters and taxpayers--even if the explanations don't make everyone happy. A quick comparison of two individuals who faced a host of challenges--and a lot of heat--is in order because they are polar opposites with respect to their credibility.
First is Roderick Diaz, the brand-new Director of Planning and Development at Metrolink who for several years now was in one heckuva hot seat as the team leader of Metro planners who had the awesome and complex responsibility of studying and ranking a Green Line/Crenshaw Line/LAX to Metro Rail project that would affect Mid-City, Westside and South Bay commuters.
Roderick had to make difficult decisions involving cost, efficiency and engineering, and he and his team inevitably angered many an audience (myself included, at times) as he had to navigate between self-interested politicians, neighborhood groups, LA World Airports (LAWA), and the FAA.
In the South Bay, Diaz and his team (Cory Zelmer, Fanny Pan, and others), did a great job of lighting the way towards a South Bay Green Line that would not only reach the key destination of the South Bay Galleria but a future transit center in Torrance. That project isn't getting enough funding and love from the Metro Board, but it's smart and is a long-term project worth fighting for.
In the Mid-City, the Crenshaw Line had issues involving traffic, racial equality and justice, and access to key destinations from the Expo Line to LAX. Pleasing everyone was impossible, and as the costs for this project rose the projected ridership wasn't sufficiently rising...and everyone was getting angry.
From Westchester to Leimert Park to El Segundo, issues from station placement and neighborhood access to the location of a maintenance yard raised the ire of so many communities that it's amazing how anyone would want Roderick Diaz's Crenshaw/LAX Light Rail assignment.
Yet now we're on the verge of a north-south rail line connecting the Expo to the Green Lines, and with some preliminary planning for a future Crenshaw Line north to the Purple Line Subway, to boot. It's a miserable job taking that first key step, but someone had to do it...and Roderick and his team did it.
Yet despite a Metro Board-approved Crenshaw/LAX Line, the challenges and details weren't yet finished for Diaz and his team. Two years too late, we're on the verge of a LAWA/Metro arrangement that's the ultimate betterment for this line: the LAX/Metro connection we've always wanted. Whether it's below or above ground, the focus is now on getting a solid connection of Metro Rail to LAX.
But it's Roderick and his team who heard everyone and came through as much as he could, with a sincerity that was focused on legality, cost and engineering realities. This Crenshaw/Green/LAX arrangement will also allow for a future coastal or I-405/Sepulveda northern extension to the Westside, and is the result of assigning $1-2 billion for what is truly a $4 billion series of three or more projects.
Kudos are in order for Diaz and his team, despite the unhappiness vocalized from all sides.
In contrast, CD5 Councilmember Paul Koretz, who I supported in his recent re-election, is scaring the daylights out of numerous constituents by making it increasingly clear that politically-connected developers like Casden and JMB, as well as both trade unions and chambers of commerce, are higher lifeforms than his regular constituents. As someone who is following in the footsteps of Jack Weiss, Koretz should really know better.
Never mind New Jersey Governor Chris Christie--we've got regular, daily risks of traffic stoppages by enabling variances and downright law-breaking by developers Casden and JMB (regardless of whether it's rubber-stamped by LoGrande and the LA City Planning Politburo, they're violating CEQA and City law) to save them hundreds of millions of dollars of traffic mitigation while WE are being asked to pay $3 billion to repair our roads.
I am aware of the heat Koretz is taking from Expo Line opponents (many of whom also took money from the JMB developers), but the strong leadership Mike Bonin is showing for connecting LAX to Metro (LAX Connect) could be emulated by Koretz by ironing a compromise that is in line with City law and that makes it clear what a "variance" is and what "by right" is, and which creates MORE jobs and MORE development by fast-tracking LEGAL projects.
Or even projects that do what "variances" are supposed to do, which is to twist the law, or make exceptions to it, in order to allow--and require--developers to build something yet throw in big bucks for community betterment.
At this time, the much-debated Casden Sepulveda project (in CD5) is a nebulous "envelope" of City Council-approved residential square footage in an industrially-zoned location, with the immediate freeway-adjacent land a virtual no-man's land of uncertain Planning and Land Use. There is no additional Expo Line parking (either bus-, automobile- and bicycle-oriented) to serve the needs of future Expo Line commuters to accompany this project.
At this time, the JMB Century City Center project (also in CD5) is still one that violates the Century City Community Plan to contain commercial square footage at 2.5 million square feet. There is still a City Council-approved residential/commercial project that would be less-impacting to Westside traffic that would create MORE union and other jobs because it is larger...yet legal!
At this time, the City Council (of which Paul Koretz was one) has stuck their fingers in the collective eyes of the Westside by approving a LAX expansion to the north that threatens a shutdown at Lincoln/Sepulveda and an accompanying perpetual Carmageddon.
And the narratives that "trade unions want this" and "only a few NIMBY's oppose this" keep getting stuffed down the craws of Neighborhood Council and grassroots City leaders throughout the region who've studied these projects and recognize bad Planning and/or downright law-breaking when they see it.
Furthermore, these narratives are matched with the realities of political and economies ties with Councilmember Koretz to Casden, JMB and the trade union/chambers of commerce alliance, and we've got an ugly scene that calls back to a Jack Weiss-legacy that Paul Koretz certainly doesn't want.
If another narrative--that of "never mind Chris Christie, we've got Paul Koretz"--is one that is desired by the CD5 Councilmember, that is his decision...but I wish he wouldn't go there. Particularly since the Westside will be that much less likely to vote for the Buscaino-Englander road repair initiative if Koretz and the City Council are perceived as traffic jam and street breakdown creators, not problem-solvers.
Paul Koretz could have, but didn't, have the courage to demand an overhead rail bridge at Overland Avenue for the Expo Line--infuriating dogmatic Expo Line opponents and proponents alike but pleasing the majority of his constituents. He could have, but didn't, have the courage to create compromises with variance-seeking developers while keeping the variances reasonable and ensuring significant traffic/infrastructure mitigations.
So the upshot of all this? The heat, and the fury, and the ire, from all sides that both Diaz and Koretz faced have two opposite results.
Many will view the challenges and opportunities that Roderick Diaz faced with the result of pursuing more transportation funding, but the result of the challenges and opportunities that Paul Koretz chose not to face (or, even worse, to violate the spirit of Planning and Environmental laws to create a few winners and a majority population of losers) has the result of pursuing less transportation funding, because the game appears hopelessly rigged.
Bold leadership and difficult decisions are not easy, but they're expected by the voters and taxpayers who pay for the salaries and benefits of those who've been promoted or voted into positions of power. Getting yelled at and taking heat is sometimes part of the job, but doing the right thing is still the best way to gain the respect of those doing the yelling and heat-throwing.
Anything else is just abandonment of one's post under fire.
(Ken Alpern is a Westside Village Zone Director and Boardmember of the Mar Vista Community Council (MVCC), previously co-chaired its Planning and Outreach Committees, and currently is Co-Chair of its MVCC Transportation/Infrastructure Committee. He is co-chair of the CD11 Transportation Advisory Committee and chairs the nonprofit Transit Coalition, and can be reached at [email protected] This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . He also co-chairs the grassroots Friends of the Green Line at www.fogl.us . The views expressed in this article are solely those of Mr. Alpern.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 12 Issue 6
Pub: Jan 21, 2014