Numbers Crunch at the MTA

Where does five equal seven?

Only at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, of course.

The 13-member MTA board--unable to act at times because so many of its members have conflicts of interest--is considering delegating major decisions to as few as five of its directors.

Five board members would be permitted to approve multimillion-dollar contracts that now require seven votes.

Confused?

Even the MTA board was befuddled last week, so much so that it sent the matter to a committee--of five members, naturally--for further thought.

Although the rule-of-five idea might seem like another case of the MTA being, well, the MTA, it is a study in the real-life problems of representative democracy--the kind that never are touched upon in Civics 101.

Or as county Supervisor and MTA board member Mike Antonovich, a former high school government teacher, lectured his colleagues: “At our local, state and federal levels, the policy of this nation is to have a majority vote.”

But maybe not at the MTA. There, officials proposed creating a smaller “Directors Committee” because of a new state conflict-of-interest law prohibiting directors from voting on matters affecting any political donor who contributed more than $10 to the board member’s campaigns in the previous four years.

The proposed rule-of-five might seem peculiar, but MTA officials point out that the state law is a peculiarity, applicable only to the MTA.

State Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles), who authored the law, said it was designed “to end the gravy train of campaign contributions” at the transit agency, which awards hundreds of millions of dollars in contracts. “I’m very concerned that the MTA is attempting to circumvent the law in order to continue business as usual,” he said.

But MTA officials say the law is so severe that it has caused political gridlock, holding up contracts and threatening to delay work on its subway project. At times, seven of 13 directors have declared conflicts of interest, leaving the board short of the seven votes required to take action.

“We do have a problem,” MTA Chief Executive Julian Burke told the panel. “The board wants the Red Line to be completed, reasonably on time and reasonably within budget. If we let some of these issues slide indefinitely . . . we surely will waste a lot of money.”

Since the law went into effect on Jan. 1 of last year, the agency has been drawing the names of directors out of a bucket to decide who would vote, notwithstanding their conflicts, to bring the number of votes up to seven.

But the lottery can only be conducted if all board members without conflicts are present, and sometimes they are not.

The MTA’s legal advisor, assistant county counsel Steven J. Carnevale, recommended creating the Directors Committee to act on matters when there are insufficient votes because of absences or conflicts of interest.

An earlier proposal to delegate decisions to a committee of as few as three board members was dropped.

The Directors Committee would consist of those directors in attendance without conflicts, but never could number fewer than five. Five votes would be required to approve matters. Items would be delegated to the smaller body only if a postponement would increase the MTA’s costs or delay a critical project.

“Our normal democratic process doesn’t spring rules after the fact on people,” Carnevale said, noting that the state law applied to contributions received by MTA board members even before the law was written. “You can’t tell people something’s a crime after they’ve done it and then punish them for it when they didn’t have any knowledge at the time they did it that it was a crime,” he said.

Far from the American tradition of majority rule, MTA officials say the state law has created a situation where a single MTA board member can hold sway over the entire board, if only seven members are eligible to vote.

By creating the Directors Committee, “you don’t have one or two members having veto power over the rest,” Carnevale said.

During last week’s MTA board meeting, board members offered other solutions for dealing with the conflict-of-interest law. To regular observers of the MTA, the members’ suggestions were fully in character:

Los Angeles City Councilman and MTA board member Hal Bernson urged that the transit authority challenge the conflict-of-interest law in court, claiming it is discriminatory.

Mayor Richard Riordan, the MTA board chairman, offered to talk with Hayden about relaxing the law.

County Supervisor and MTA board member Zev Yaroslavsky suggested: “Return the money to the contributor.”

But the MTA’s lawyer said he was unsure whether returning contributions would solve the problem.

MTA chief Burke offered another suggestion:

“You could delegate all this authority to me.”