At the February 26 quarterly Meet & Confer we presented to the Governance Councils a list of operational issues that we believe deserves their attention. In a similar fashion we are requesting that the Metro Board show leadership on some key larger concerns (structural and policy) that in our view are being unfairly neglected. Our goal is not necessarily the budgetary concerns that are the main purpose motivating this meeting but useful improvements that would improve service quality or begin reform of the policy responsibilities this Board often does not pay sufficient attention to versus a persistant habit of micro-management. By bringing these to the fore at this time we allow Metro to shape its ongoing contract negotiations to seek Union concurrence with these items, especially as it pertains to the final bullet point on contracted service overhauling. (http://socata.net/metrosectors0210.html)

• It is time for the Supervisors to use their clout to aid the city of L.A. to find a solution to its disagreement with the County Office of the Assessor regarding the possessory use tax and bus shelters per the August 16, 2006 presentation to the Metro San Fernando Valley Service Governance Council. (http://www.metro.net/board/Items/2006/08_August/20060816OtherSectorSFV_Item8.pdf).
• We hope L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa will monitor the progress of the implementation of the Wilshire bus lanes to ensure it is done expeditious and does not get bogged down in LADOT’s lamentable foot dragging that had un-necessarily delayed this project for nearly half a decade.
• The MTA Board under the authority granted it by Public Utility Code section 130051.9(d) should evaluate the potential advantages of procuring legal services by a competitive process versus the current contracting with L.A. County Counsel. (http://leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/displaycode?section=puc&group=130001-131000&file=130050-130059)
• The Board needs to become pro-active in determining if TAP can be salvaged and whether the gating should be reconsidered.
• The Board needs to request an audit of the performance of the contracted bus lines--complaints, schedule adherence, accident rate, condition of equipment and preventive maintenance as compared to services operated in-house to see if the contracting is cost effective AND equivalent in quality.
• Further in regards to contracting, consideration should be given to overhauling the current scheme of contracted services. We suggest to facilitate better connectivity, dispatching and more efficient fleet utilization having the contracted services targeted to a core regional area (for example the South Bay).