Pasadena Rail Agency Picks 2 Acting Chiefs

A pair of experts with experience in the trenches of Los Angeles transit projects were selected Wednesday night as acting chief executives of a new agency created to finish building a light rail line to Pasadena.

After meeting for more than an hour behind closed doors at Pasadena City Hall, the authority’s board unanimously selected battle-hardened veteran John A. Dyer, former general manager of the Southern California Rapid Transit District, and Larry E. Miller, an engineering company vice president and technical expert.

The addition of Dyer to the team satisfied concerns expressed last week by Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Hernandez about the absence of a field of candidates for the interim post.

Neither Dyer nor Miller will be a candidate for the permanent job of running the Pasadena Metro Blue Line Construction Authority, which was established by state lawmakers frustrated with the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s track record on Los Angeles rail projects.

The new agency faces extremely tight deadlines to complete a detailed financial plan showing that the 13.6-mile-long rail line can be built with the funds available.

By the end of March, the Pasadena authority must balance the project’s $818-million budget through a combination of spending cuts and new revenues.

“It is very clear we don’t have any wiggle room,” said authority Chairman Paul Little, a Pasadena city councilman. “This is a hit-the-ground-running proposition, which is part of the reason we went with experience.”

But the choice was obvious because no other transit firms chose to seek a contract for the temporary executive director’s position, fearing that it would prevent them from bidding for much more lucrative construction contracts.

Little said the deal was sealed in a telephone conference call between the board members and the Dyer-Miller team in San Antonio. Financial terms are being finalized.

“We both have an extensive knowledge of the planned Blue Line system, as well as historic background, and firmly believe in its need and future,” Miller said in a letter.

As an executive at the engineering firm of Gannett Fleming, Miller is very familiar with the light rail project that would follow a twisting route from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles through Chinatown, Lincoln Heights, Highland Park, South Pasadena and Pasadena. The engineering firm has done work on the project for the MTA and the city of Pasadena.

Dyer was head of the RTD from 1980 to 1988 when the region’s bus system faced myriad problems and construction of the Metro Rail subway was getting underway.

He resigned in October 1987 after struggling to defend the RTD against a litany of waste and mismanagement charges.

According to his resume, Dyer, a long-time transportation consultant, is working on plans to build a high-speed rail line linking Los Angeles and San Francisco, expand the Foothill Transit zone into more of the MTA’s territory, and evaluate a possible light rail line in Orange County.

But Hernandez said Dyer understands the workings of the city of Los Angeles, something he said was lacking last week when Miller was the lone choice.

“I thought that it enhanced the proposal having both of them come in for us.”

Dyer is intimately aware of the politics of transit in the nation’s second-largest city. From 1994 to 1998, he was a senior vice president for Cordoba Corp., a prominent Latino firm that has long had close ties with the MTA. Cordoba’s connections to Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre also have generated controversy as the MTA board member’s finances came under scrutiny from the FBI and IRS. Alatorre announced last week he will not seek reelection to the council.

Dyer’s resume says he was working on Cordoba’s plans for a subway extension to the Eastside, but the MTA halted the project. Cordoba also was a subcontractor on the light rail cars to be used on the Pasadena line.

Gannett Fleming had an MTA contract, now canceled, to monitor the production of trolley-like trains and the progress on the Pasadena project, which experienced major cost overruns, particularly in design.