From: xcruz@webtv.net (Robert Chavez)
Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 18:32:16 -0600 (MDT)
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Subject: Fwd: Los Angeles: Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union Need Help (fwd)
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Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 12:45:14 -0700 (PDT)
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From: Roberto Calderon <beto@galaxy.UCR.EDU>
To: xcruz@webtv.net
Subject: Los Angeles: Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union Need Help (fwd)
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X-Comment: Discussion/Advocacy of Human, Labor & Civil Rights

Date: Wed, 30 Sep 1998 12:27:15 -0700
From: Martín Hernández <laborctr@igc.org>
To: Marta Segura <msegura@ucla.edu>
Subject: The Strategy Center and Bus Riders Union need your help

Hello, The Riders Union needs your support enclosed is a letter explaining
what help we need.  Please read ASAP.  The iformation below is same info
as in attachments, Just making sure you get this iformation. 

September 25, 1998

Dear Friend of the Strategy Center and the Bus Riders Union,

 The Labor/Community Strategy Center and the Bus Riders Union need your
support to stop a raid of over $350 million of bus eligible money for the
financing of the Pasadena Blue Line Construction Authority.  We also need
your support to challenge the backers of this raid, Speaker of the
Assembly Antonio Villaraigosa, State Senators Richard Polanco and Adam
Schiff, Assemblymember Kevin Murray and other progressive politicians, to
support the civil rights of 350,000 Los Angeles bus riders rather than
construction lobbyists and contractors.  So far our efforts to enlist the
aid of progressive elected officials – local, state and federal – in our
fight to get the MTA to comply with our Civil Rights Consent Decree have
come to a dead end.  With your help, we hope to move these officials to
“do the right thing”, to do the “progressive thing”, to do the “civil
rights thing” and support the full compliance of the Consent Decree.  And
we would like to begin by asking for your support in raising these issues
at the Saturday, October 3, 1998 “Progressive L.A.” conference at
Occidental College. 

Specifically we are asking you to write, phone, fax or e-mail
Assemblymember Villaraigosa and the other listed officials and demand that
they: 

1. Shift the $370 million earmarked for the Pasadena Blue Line
Construction Authority to the bus system and to comply with the Consent
Decree and guarantee no bus-eligible funding goes to this

2. Support halting any more MTA money going to the Alameda Corridor and
shifting those funds to the bus system and to comply with the Consent
Decree. 

3. Support a delay in completing the North Hollywood Red Line Extension
and shift the $30 million a year average savings to the bus system to
comply with the Consent Decree

 And if you are attending the “Progressive L.A.” Conference at Occidental
College on Saturday, October 3, 1998, we are asking that you present these
demands to Mr. Villaraigosa.  Our progressive elected officials must be
held accountable when their positions are contradictory to the tradition
of progressive politics that will be celebrated at the upcoming
conference. 

 Now, let’s give a little background on how we have come this unfortunate
set of circumstances.  Earlier this year the MTA Board of Directors
suspended construction on the Mid City and Eastside extensions of the
Metro Red Line subway as well as the Pasadena Blue Line light rail
project.  The agency finally realized that there was not enough money to
finish these expensive projects now or in the very future.  The suspension
of these projects could now free up current and future rail money and
fully fund one of the major provisions of the Consent Decree, reduction of
overcrowding on MTA buses which meant the purchase of more buses.  Our
estimation is $1 billion would meet the overcrowding reduction levels and
we felt we were well on our way to delivering a long awaited purchase
order to relieve the oppressive conditions of L.A. bus riders. 

 Unfortunately we have had our efforts complicated by someone the Bus
Riders Union once called our ally.  First a little bit of history. 
Assemblymember Antonio Villaraigosa was one of the few friends the Bus
Riders Union had on the MTA board when he served as Gloria Molina’s
alternate.  In the spring of 1994, Mr. Villaraigosa called on his
colleagues to reject an allocation of $124 million to the Pasadena Blue
Line since the funds were coming out of one of the last pots of bus
eligible money.  This allocation was passed and was a major impetus for
our filing the Civil Rights class action lawsuit.  Mr. Villaraigosa
himself also testified on behalf of the Bus Riders Union in our lawsuit
against the MTA saying what we are saying today; that the MTA raised bus
fares because it was raiding bus eligible funds to shift to the Pasadena
Blue Line.  During his campaign for State Assembly a some of our members
volunteered for his campaign because felt that, should he be elected, we
would have an ally in Sacramento.  This has not turned out to be the case. 

 In the summer of 1995 Assemblymember Villaraigosa, along with Senator Tom
Hayden and then SEIU Local 660 General Manager and current Assemblymember
Gilbert Cedillo, led an effort to raid $375 million of bus money make up a
funding gap for L.A. County’s public health system.  Rather than lead
progressive efforts to solve the problem, such as taxing corporations and
the wealthy or reducing funding for the Sheriffs Department, Mr.
Villaraigosa and other progressive elected officials instead used the
MTA’s unenviable reputation as a bloated and spendthrift agency to craft
legislation that would have shifted state transportation funds used for
buses into the county health system.  The Bus Riders Union launched its
“Don’t Tear Us Apart” Campaign that clearly showed other sources of
revenue for the hospitals and highlighted the contradiction of progressive
politicians taking money from the very bus system that poor people used to
get to the county hospitals.  Eventually the legislation was defeated in
court by a citizen’s lawsuit. 

And now as the Bus Riders Union finds itself close to winning a court
decision for a substantial number of buses, we are being threatened again
by another measure that has the support of now Speaker of the Assembly
Villaraigosa.  The Speaker has been a powerful driving force for State
Senator Adam Schiff’s recent legislation to create a Pasadena Blue Line
Construction Authority.  This authority would take over construction of
the Pasadena Line and raid $370-plus million (approximately $270 million
in state money and $103.5 million in local money) that was earmarked for
that project -- $370 plus million that could also go a long way in
complying with the Civil Rights Consent Decree.  This Authority will also
be in competition with the bus system for any future state transportation
funds. This is our money, the BRU’s and the L.A. bus riders money. The bus
riders of Los Angeles are 81% people of color, 50% Latino and 60% women. 
But they are poor, immigrant, disabled and apparently their Civil Rights
don’t count. 

When the Federal Courts ordered desegregation of southern schools, the
white majority found ways of gerrymandering districts that prevented any
such desegregation.  That is what the Pasadena Blue Line Construction
Authority legislation is reminiscent of.  The MTA suspends the
construction of the rail line and could be in a position to use funds set
aside for that line to relieve the deplorable conditions the bus riders,
the majority of them people of color and low income people.  Then along
comes the “rail industrial” complex, with a major assist from Democratic
Party elected officials, and it creates a new “authority” that will take
money from efforts to halt racist policies in transportation.  We are used
to fighting powerful corporations and developers and that is what the
Democratic Party has become so it must be challenged as well.  Besides,
how can one be a progressive in party that has abandoned its progressive
agenda and taken up the banner for industry and big business? 

We want our progressive elected officials to stop the continuation of bus
centered apartheid.  We want them to fight for the Civil Rights of low
income bus riders of color. Instead of rail lobbyists and contractors.  We
want this debate raised now and as we go into the November elections.  We
want you to send letters asking them to support the Bus Riders Union “No
Seat? No Fare!” campaign for 1,600 buses.  We want you to send letters to
them telling them it’s fine they created a new construction authority but
that if they want to fund it they will have to have bake sales and car
washes because we don’t want any more money going to build any more rail
lines.  We want you to raise these demands with them at the October 3,
1998 “Progressive L.A.” Conference at Occidental College.  And we want you
to demand of them and help us get them moving in the right direction by
supporting the full funding Civil Rights Consent Decree. 

We have included a sample letter and a list of the officials we would like
you to contact. We will be calling you this week to confirm your receiving
the letter and how you can support our ongoing campaign.  Or you can reach
any of us at (213) 387-2800.  Thank you for your consideration in this
matter and we will be talking to you soon. 

Hasta La Victoria Siempre

Martín Hernández
Oraganizer

SAMPLE LETTER
(Please send on your organization’s letterhead and fax us a copy of the
letter(s) you send and to whom you have sent them) 

Date__________________

Dear ______________________

As a progressive organization (please describe your mission, the community
you serve, and the number of members belonging to or receiving services
from your organization) concerned with Civil Rights, we are joining with
the Bus Riders Union and the Labor/Community Strategy Center in calling on
you to support the Civil Rights of 350,000 L.A. bus riders.  We are also
calling on you to support the Bus Riders Union Consent Decree by doing the
following things: 

1. Shift the $370 million earmarked for the Pasadena Blue Line
Construction Authority to the bus system and to comply with the Consent
Decree and guarantee no bus-eligible funding goes to this

2. Support halting any more MTA money going to the Alameda Corridor and
shifting those funds to the bus system and to comply with the Consent
Decree. 

3. Support a delay in completing the North Hollywood Red Line Extension
and shift the $30 million a year average savings to the bus system to
comply with the Consent Decree

For too long the bus riders of Los Angeles have suffered deplorable
conditions of the MTA’s deteriorating bus system while billions have been
wasted on boondoggle rail projects.  Now you have the opportunity to show
your true progressive colors and side with the Civil Rights of people of
color, low income people, women, immigrants, students, disabled, senior
citizens and others who depend on the bus system as their means of
transportation. 

We are asking you to stop the continuation of bus-centered apartheid work
and to with the Bus Riders Union to support the “No Seat? No Fare!”
Campaign for 1600 Compressed Natural Gas buses, to fully implement the
Civil Rights Consent Decree and to create a just, affordable, clean and
reliable bus based transportation system that serves the majority of
public transit passengers. 

Sincerely,


Assemblymember Antonio Villaraigosa
Capitol Bldg. #219
Sacramento CA 95814
Phone (916) 445-0703
Fax (916) 445-0764
e-mail: antonio.villaraigosa@assembly.ca.gov

State Senator Adam Schiff
Capitol Bldg. # 4032
Sacramento CA 95814
Phone (916) 445-5976
Fax (916) 324-7543
e-mail: senator.schiff@sen.ca.gov

Assemblymember Kevin Murray
Capitol Bldg. #4126
Sacramento CA 95814
Phone (916) 445-8800
Fax (916) 445-8899
e-mail: kevin.murray@assembly.ca.gov

State Senator Richard Polanco
Capitol Bldg. #313
Sacramento CA 95814
Phone (916) 445-3456
Fax (916) 445-0413


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