The Los Angeles City Council challenged Mayor Karen Bass last week, overwhelmingly passing a resolution urging Metro to kill the proposed Dodger Stadium gondola and urging Bass to lend her support.
A Metro committee considered the gondola project Thursday, and Bass just happened to be one of the five voting members of the committee. In front of the hundreds of community members that turned out for the hearing, Bass would have a public opportunity to make her case for whatever position she might choose to take.
Bass whiffed.
To rewind: Metro approved the gondola project last year, but a court ordered a second look at whether the environmental impact report truly had evaluated all that could be done to mitigate construction noise. Upon further review, Metro staff said such “acoustic retrofitting” would not be feasible and might not even be effective, because it would depend on “case-by-case consent” for retrofitting structures and could involve “invasive construction … possibly requiring relocation of occupants.”
However, Metro reported, LA Aerial Rapid Transit — the gondola outfit founded by former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt — had agreed to provide “personal hearing protection devices.”
On Thursday, the Metro committee approved the revised environmental impact report. The full Metro board of directors is expected to do the same next month, which would advance the gondola project to city and state consideration.
That’s enough bureaucracy talk. Nothing that happened Thursday was unexpected, aside from the mayor’s remarks, or lack of them.
After the committee had received hundreds of public comments and had heard from pro-gondola and anti-gondola voices during an hour of passionate public testimony — almost none of which mentioned noise mitigation — the chairman invited committee members to speak to the public.
Bass went first.
“Thank you,” she said. “Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you for your leadership in guiding us through this.
“Just real quickly, I just wanted to reiterate or clarify that what the vote is about today is about certifying the EIR, certifying the project’s environmental documents under CEQA, nothing more.”
That’s it, Los Angeles. Your mayor just gave you 21 seconds of “nothing to see here.”
Technically, Bass was correct. Nothing about the gondola project has significantly changed since Metro approved it last year.
If you thought the gondola was an innovative way to cut traffic and pollution around Dodger Stadium, you probably still think that. And, if you thought the gondola was less of a transit option and more of an inevitable first step toward McCourt’s development of the Dodger Stadium parking lots, then you probably still think that.
But, if Bass did not want to discuss those larger issues, the community members in attendance Thursday did, and the City Council sure does.
The two committee members who followed Bass to the microphone Thursday understood that. Los Angeles County Supervisor Hilda Solis spoke in favor of the project, walking the public through the community benefits agreement she negotiated with project sponsors in exchange for her yes vote last year.
The benefits include funding to reimburse small businesses along the gondola route for losses during construction; guarantees of reimbursement to Metro for bus service to Dodger Stadium during the 2028 Olympics in the likely event the gondola is not up and running by then; the expansion of Dodger Stadium express buses and the addition of Hollywood Bowl-style park-and-ride routes to Dodger Stadium; and termination of the agreement if any eventual development of stadium parking lots does not include 25% affordable housing.
“I can only see myself supporting this because of the attachment of the community benefits,” Solis said.
Los Angeles County Supervisor Janice Hahn, the only no vote Thursday, said the congestion and pollution issues can be addressed without a still-unfunded gondola projected to cost $500 million.
“There is a better solution already in place to take cars off the streets and to ease traffic,” Hahn said, “and that’s our Dodger Stadium Express.”
She called for the Dodgers to support expanding the program and electrifying the buses. Metro and the Dodgers have been in talks over Metro’s request for the team to help pay for the Dodger Stadium Express.
As committee chairman Fernando Dutra told the crowd Thursday, citing land use restrictions: “The city will ultimately decide on the actual project.”
When it does, here’s hoping that whatever Bass has to say will take more than 21 seconds.
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