UPDATE 4/22: On Thursday, April 15, Mayor Villaraigosa introduced Motion #49 to the MTA Board, with L.A. DOT General Manger Rita Robinson and L.A. County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas. The motion proposes an informational briefing to announce the fare increase and listen to “comments”; this is not a public hearing and not a formal vote – a direct violation of the civil and democratic rights of bus riders and the public.  Stay tuned for BRU's unfolding fight for a real public hearing...

At last week's MTA board meeting, we had a huge on-the-spot breakthrough with Mayor Villaraigosa and Councilmember Huizar.

For the past few weeks, we'd been trying to move both of them to call for a public hearing on the 2010 proposed fare hikes.  We couldn't get a response from either. But in the middle of the board meeting, the mayor motioned us over to talk to him!

Mark Ridley-Thomas' letter, the mayor's silence

We worked to mobilize 60 members to this MTA Board meeting because we knew there was a possibility that MTA Chair Najarian or CEO Art Leahy could introduce a conversation calling for a public hearing on the 2010 proposed fare increase.

We knew walking into the meeting that Supervisor Mark Ridley Thomas was planning to write a letter to the CEO asking for a hearing, a critical gesture in the right direction.

Up until this point, the Mayor and Councilmember Huizar’s offices had remained silent on the question of the public hearing and it was not clear that despite getting calls into their office that they would do anything to move a public hearing process.
At this point it seemed like our strongest supporter was Supervisor Ridley Thomas.

Great turnout

At about 8:45am when I walked up to MTA headquarters there were already about 40+ members and students wearing beautiful bright yellow t-shirts (which grew to 60 later)--a sight I had not seen in a minute! So major props to organizers Rosa, Gabriel and Eric who coordinated phone-banks with key members and got through a list of over 300 people. These calls brought out good folks we hadn't seen in awhile, like Dan Dipasquo and Virgilio Salazar. It was inspiring!

As always, we had a set of prepped speakers and a handful of members ready to speak on the spot during public comment urging the Board for a public hearing...those folks were great! They kept tight and focused and of course veteran member and internationalist Maria Guardado called out the US’s prioritization of war in this country and the trickle down effect that has.

What went down???

The night before during our planning committee meeting, we had decided that we would speak during the Chair and CEO report given that a large majority of the Board members have been missing public comment entirely by not showing up and there wasn’t a specific item that we could speak into.

But there was another meeting going on so Chair Najarian pushed both reports—and our opening to speak—until the end of the meeting...a move that would prove to be a blessing in disguise.

We can’t wait 6 hours to speak

As co-tactical lead, Francisca encouraged me to ask the Board secretary if we could speak earlier...I approached the Chairs secretary and urged her to move us up because the Mayor had just gotten there and we refused to wait 6 hours to speak to an empty board room. She moved us into the item that was being discussed in the moment.

Our speakers were great! Michelle Lopez, a 20 year old latina student a CSUN, directed her comments to Councilmember Jose Huizar, Crystal McMillan shared the challenges of having been unemployed and thus not being able to afford a bus pass and I urged the board to move forward cautiously and re-do the Title VI/Equity Analysis that they had done in 2007 before they create more civil rights violations.

Mayor calls us over

Immediately after I finished speaking, the Mayor called us over to talk. He asked what we wanted. A public hearing! Stop the fare hikes, altogether. He responded that he would spearhead the effort to create a public hearing process. But he said he was not sure where he stood on stopping the increase altogether. (A side note, $115 million for operations from the State Transit Assistance program will be reinstated on July 1st of this year – a huge breakthrough at the State level that that gives us some leverage in our fight.)

Everything after that was such a blur...a lot of backroom hustling on the other side. Director Huizar’s staff finally came over and said he would introduce a motion.

Waiting for the moment

As we waited for the motion to be made, Rosa, Francisca and myself were the only ones that knew what could be taking place because we didn’t want to get members excited in case it the possibility of a motion fell through.

Rosa and I got chills at the thought that what we had been demanding could possibly become a reality! Francisca and I talked through what we would do/say if nothing got introduced and at the same time considered that we now had two more MTA board members expressing interest in a public hearing that we did at the start of the meeting...therefore we wanted to be tactically flexible and not skip any steps.

The final item discussed before the Board went into closed session was a Huizar / Villaraigosa motion that the mayor introduced verbally. The motion directed the CEO to report back to the operations committee on whether an additional public hearing on the proposed 2010 fare increase is merited at this time!!! Major advance in the right direction.

Huizar’s office explains their strategy

Clearly, this is not yet a victory (not until we have the public hearing).  BUT it is a huge breakthrough given that just that morning, we had only verbal support from some Directors and no sign of support from the Mayor or Councilmember Huizar.

In my conversation this morning with Councilmember Huizar’s office they explained that they worded the motion carefully-- using the word "merit" versus calling directly for a hearing--because they were concerned about having an all out debate on the Board and that they could lose, something that Francisca and I had thought.

If the motion goes through committee it gives us all more time to build support among a friendlier set of forces whom can make a recommendation to the Board on a hearing.

Now the fun part of building broader support continues!!

So Thursday was a big day for the BRU! None of it would have been possible without the political leadership of both Manuel and Francisca, which clearly is rooted in Eric's leadership and the tireless work and energy of our members and our organizers like Rosa, Eric R. and Gabriel along with a strong tier of newer members that have taken on a tremendous amount of leadership.

The next few weeks will present a lot of work to do. We need to build a broader united front that can help us put outside pressure on the other board members, strengthen our legal arguments, elevate the fare increase to a mass question vis a vis agit-props and media work as well as continuing to grow and strengthen our base! Our work at last week’s MTA committee meeting helped us get some bounce [LINK TO BLOG] and now every week we have to continue to unlock something that will give us even more exposure and bounce.

Clearly, there is much more that went down but I will save all the other little details. This was a quick update to let y’all know that I feel proud to be a part of an incredible team.