Also the letter laments the ICAOC Board is one member short since "Unfortunately the seat for the appointee from Mayor Hahn's office remains vacant. the Board would appreciate having this position filled before our next meeting in January 2004". I wouldn't hold my breath on that deadline being met. But when and if the Mayor's office gets around to dealing with this, perhaps they could at the same time finally produce the names of L.A.'s nominees for the MTA Westside/Central Sector Governance Council? No one seems to know why months after the other councils have begun meeting the Westside/Central one continues to be left in limbo by inaction on the part of the city of Los Angeles (the westsidel cities settled on their list of nominees last January!). In fact the lack of such a Council is why proposed changes to MTA lines 58 and 218 were voted on by the MTA Board while the other proposals went before the existing Councils. Why must residents of the Westside/Central Sector continued to be disenfranchised? My already rather tepid opinion of Mayor Hahn has nosedived as his inaction in producing a list of nominees has stretched on for month after month. This dereliction of duty is unconscionable!
I couldn't believe my eyes--bona fide NIMBYs expressing satisfaction with the response to their complaints (albeit with small side comments that further actions were still needed). This love fest occurred at the Sept. 24 MTA Citizens' Advisory Council as several folks from Mt. Washington who have long and loudly been critics of the Gold Line attended and expressed general satisfaction at actions taken by MTA to address noise and other concerns. Also present was Gerald Francis, General Manager of MTA Rail Operations, plus several of his subordinates. Francis and his team forthrightly dealt with some of the shortcomings experienced since the Gold Line became operational and what they are doing to address them. Other issues were also discussed--Neil Bjornsen quizzed what actions were being taken to make sure the new order of Breda light rail cars avoided the travails experienced with the Siemens P-2000 L.A. Standard Cars. Turns out a Project Team has been created to closely monitor compliance with contract specifications. This isn't a trivial action to undertake but reflects a truly grim example of (to use MTA speak) lessons learned. The generally light atmosphere of the proceedings became noticeably tense when I posed the simple question has MTA yet accepted delivery of the P2000 cars (and I specified not conditional delivery)? Mr. Francis' reactions was interesting as his lips visibly pressed tight and the silence lingered for seconds; finally underling Dave Kubicek (Director of Rail Services) ventured the terse response that "a few" vehicles had been accepted. The stillness after this admission spoke volumes for what a touchy subject this is. To be fair Francis and his crew are simply cleaning up the mistakes of folks who have long since departed the MTA. And I don't envy the thankless task Francis et al have taken on.
Per the Sept. Metro Investment Report there is a split in the ranks among the airlines serving LAX regarding Mayor Hahn's LAX modernization proposal (known as Alternative D). United is supportive while the other major carriers through the Los Angeles Airlines Airport Affairs Committee (a trade group) have expressed concerns.
Mystery of the month:;; Quail package `chinese-ctlaub' generated by the command `titdic-convert'
;; Date: Wed Feb 7 12:04:10 2001
;; Original TIT dictionary file: CTLauB.tit
;;; Comment:
;; Byte-compile this file again after any modification.
;;; Start of the header of original TIT dictionary.
;; # HANZI input table for cxterm
;; # To be used by cxterm, convert me to .cit format first
;; # .cit version 1
;; ENCODE: BIG5
;; MULTICHOICE: YES
;; PROMPT: $(0KH)tTT&,!(N,Tg>A*#Gn5x!((B
;; #
;; COMMENT $(0N,Tg>A*#GnM$0D5x'J7{(B
;; COMMENT Sidney Lau's Cantonese transcription scheme as described in his book
;; COMMENT "Elementary Cantonese", The Government Printer, Hong Kong, 1972.
;; COMMENT This file was prepared by Fung Fung Lee ($(0,XFS76(B).
;; COMMENT Originally converted from CTCPS3.tit
;; COMMENT Last modified: June 2, 1993.
;; COMMENT
;; COMMENT Some infrequent GB characters are accessed by typing \, followed by
;; COMMENT the Cantonese romanization of the respective radical ($(0?f5}(B).
;; #
;; # define keys
;; VALIDINPUTKEY: abcdefghijklmnopstuwy\\
;; SELECTKEY: 1\040
;; SELECTKEY: 2
;; SELECTKEY: 3
;; SELECTKEY: 4
;; SELECTKEY: 5
;; SELECTKEY: 6
;; SELECTKEY: 7
;; SELECTKEY: 8
;; SELECTKEY: 9
;; SELECTKEY: 0
;; BACKSPACE: \010\177
;; DELETEALL: \015\025
;; MOVERIGHT: .>
;; MOVELEFT: ,<
;; # the following line must not be removed
;; BEGINDICTIONARY
;;; End of the header of original TIT dictionary.
;;; Code:
(require 'quail)
(quail-define-package "chinese-ctlaub" "Chinese-BIG5" "$(0N,Gn(B"
t
"$(0KH)tTT&,!(N,Tg>A*#Gn5x!((B
$(0N,Tg>A*#GnM$0D5x'J7{(B
Sidney Lau's Cantonese transcription scheme as described in his book
\"Elementary Cantonese\", The Government Printer, Hong Kong, 1972.
This file was prepared by Fung Fung Lee ($(0,XFS76(B).
Originally converted from CTCPS3.tit
Last modified: June 2, 1993.
Some infrequent GB characters are accessed by typing \\, followed by
the Cantonese romanization of the respective radical ($(0?f5}(B)."
'(("\C-?" . quail-delete-last-char)
("." . quail-next-translation)
(">" . quail-next-translation)
("," . quail-prev-translation)
("<" . quail-prev-translation))
nil nil nil nil)
(quail-define-rules
("a" "$(01`;@R*+U&:;=-j!{B+$(1[5(B")
("aai" "$(06n7e$(1Ar$(02:6aIRRF(B")
("aan" "$(07o62(B")
("aang" "$(0\.(B")
("aap" "$(0U:(B")
("aat" "$(0UM/f(B")
("aau" "$(0/p(B")
("ak" "$(0AJ,F'._!(B")
("am" "$(0F=TE]S(B")
("ang" "$(0]N(B")
("au" "$(0OD^0OHJ,$(1KB(B")
("ba" "$(0,E'<1A(=+D9>4QI_^_]>PH0jH<$(1A21m(B")
("baai" "$(0BCXH