In Sacramento, the Athletics are mired in last place, struggling to fill the minor league ballpark they call home. That does not mean our state capitol is lacking for some serious hardball.
California legislators, meet our old friend, Frank McCourt.
McCourt, the former Dodgers owner, first pitched a gondola from Union Station to Dodger Stadium in 2018. The most recent development, from May: An appellate court ordered a redo of the environmental impact report, citing two defects that needed to be remedied.
At the time, a project spokesman categorized those defects as “minor, technical matters” and said they could be “addressed quickly.”
In the event of another lawsuit challenging the gondola project on environmental grounds, McCourt and his team want to guarantee any such suit would be addressed quickly.
On Monday, state legislators are scheduled to consider a bill designed in part to put a 12-month limit on court proceedings related to environmental challenges to certain transit projects. The current challenge to the gondola project is 16 months old and counting.
The bill, in all its legislative prose, does not cite any specific project. However, a state senate analysis calls the gondola proposal “one project that would benefit.”
Sen. Scott Wiener (D-San Francisco), the bill’s author, said he had not met with any of the lobbyists from the McCourt entities registered to do so. Wiener said he included the gondola-related language in the bill at the request of legislators from the Los Angeles area.
“To me, it was a no-brainer,” Wiener told me.
The larger purpose of the bill: cutting red tape for buses, bikes, trains, ferries and any other mode of transit that might get you out of your car. If a gondola can do that, he said, bring it on.
“We need more sustainable transit options in California,” he said. “We need to make it easier for people to get around without having to drive.
“When you get cars off the road, it benefits the people who don’t have to drive, but it also benefits drivers, because it means there are fewer drivers on the road.”
The Senate analysis listed 52 organizations in support of Wiener’s bill, none opposed. Weiner told me he had not heard from anyone in opposition.
That was concerning to Jon Christensen of the L.A. Parks Alliance, one of the two groups that filed the long-running environmental lawsuit against the gondola project.
Christensen, whose coalition recently scrambled to hire its own Sacramento lobbyists, said he has no problem with expediting legal proceedings. What he has a problem with, he said, is a bill that “singles out one billionaire’s project for favoritism.”
Nathan Click, the spokesman for Zero Emissions Transit (ZET), the nonprofit charged with building and operating the gondola, said the bill simply extends a provision of previous legislation.
“The vast majority of Angelenos want and deserve zero emission transit solutions that reduce traffic and cut harmful greenhouse gas emissions,” Click said.
Click declined to say why project proponents felt compelled to pursue inclusion in this legislation if the environmental challenge already had been reduced to what he had called “minor, technical matters” two months ago. Project opponents maintain ridership estimates for the gondola are overly optimistic.
In the end, what happens in Sacramento might not matter much.
The gondola project still requires approvals from the City Council, Caltrans, Metro and the state parks agency. The latest target for a grand opening — 2028, in time for the Olympic baseball tournament at Dodger Stadium — likely would require construction to begin next spring. No financing commitment has been announced for a project estimated to cost $385 million to $500 million — and that estimate undoubtedly has risen in the two years since it was shared publicly.
There is nothing improper or unusual about lobbyists advocating for the interests of big business, but it’s not cheap. Over the past five years, according to state records, McCourt’s gondola company has spent more than $500,000 to do so.
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