Hundreds of community members packed a meeting room Thursday to tell the Metro board of directors whether they favored or opposed Frank McCourt’s proposed gondola to Dodger Stadium. The board already signaled its intent to approve the project without any discussion among the directors, but then the board chairman announced it would not listen to any community members before voting.
That touched off an extraordinary rebellion. In an act of defiance seldom seen within the staid and often formulaic halls of bureaucracy, the public shut down the meeting.
As the meeting opened, board chairman Fernando Dutra explained that the public would get its say after the vote.
He promptly was drowned out with chants of “Let us speak!” from antigondola forces and responses of “You already spoke!” from pro-gondola forces, since this meeting was Metro’s fourth on the gondola, and its second specifically related to the adoption of a revised environmental impact report.
Dutra attempted to calm the crowd by saying, “Public comments are allowed at the end of the meeting.” That instead inflamed the public, and the chants only grew louder and more repetitive, and Dutra threatened to have Metro officers clear the room.
The directors opted to retreat to a private room for 75 minutes, dealing with other business and then deciding what to do about the persistent public.
In the meeting room, chants ebbed and flowed from both sides. The antigondola forces passed around a bullhorn. The pro-gondola forces danced around the room. More than a dozen Metro and Los Angeles Police Department officers stood guard, positioning themselves between the public and the empty dais.
The directors sent word that they would relent. They would provide one hour for public comment before the vote.
Calm prevailed, and the directors returned. Of the 52 public speakers, 42 — including three members of the Los Angeles City Council — spoke against the gondola project.
Dutra congratulated the board for coming up with “the right process” to hear from the public.
“This is what happens when you have a democratic process,” Dutra told the crowd, with a straight face.
The crowd got its say, more than an hour late, after the board’s effort to delay public comment until what might have been hours after the vote triggered an uprising. Then the vote was taken — and, as expected, the gondola project was approved.
The pro-gondola forces applauded. The antigondola forces chanted again: “Shame on you!”
Next steps? And how much?
An artist’s rendering of a potential gondola to Dodger Stadium.
(Courtesy of Aerial Rapid Transit Technologies/Kilograph)
With Metro certifying the revised environmental impact report, various state agencies and the Los Angeles City Council will consider whether to approve the gondola project. The council is unlikely to take up the project until late next year, after it receives a study evaluating traffic around Dodger Stadium and options to relieve it.
In 2023 the environmental impact report projected a construction cost of $385 million to $500 million. Construction costs only go up, and a project spokesman this week did not provide an updated cost estimate.
In 2024, Metro’s initial approval required that Metro staff work with the organization responsible for getting the gondola up and running to “provide quarterly updates to the Metro board on the project’s progress and financing.”
Those updates were “not produced because work on the project was paused during a litigation process,” a Metro spokeswoman said.
Thursday’s approval means that litigation process is over, so an updated cost estimate should be available in the spring. The project has been promised as privately financed, but no financing agreements have been publicly disclosed.
Bass speaks
The City Council last month voted 12-1 to approve a resolution urging Metro to kill the gondola project. The resolution went to Mayor Karen Bass, who neither signed it nor vetoed it.
The resolution was sponsored by the three councilmembers with districts closest to Dodger Stadium.
“The way the council feels is important to me,” Bass told The Times. “But, if a member from that district is passionate about a project, then the other members are in support of that.
“There is much more time for things to be worked out. I just did not feel that it was appropriate to stop it now.”
Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez, whose district includes Dodger Stadium, said she has worked hard to develop support from her council colleagues and provide them with alternatives to the gondola by the time the council is expected to vote on the project next fall.
“In a year from now, you will see the fruition of that,” Hernandez said. “My hope is that my colleagues will see that and keep helping us move in that direction.
“I hope that people take what the council has said seriously. To get a 12-1 vote on any issue, particularly on an issue like this, is not an easy lift. It’s a big deal.”
Bass said she would like to explore how the community can leverage the gondola to address neighborhood priorities.
“My interest in the project, overall, is in the community benefits — the potential benefit to, most notably, the area around Homeboy Industries, and Chinatown. I’ve been very saddened at the deterioration of the Chinatown that I knew growing up,” she said.
“There are groups pushing that there be more resources put there, and that Frank McCourt contribute more to Chinatown development and redevelopment and revitalization.”