Placentia Rail Project Hinges on Vote

As absentee ballots continue to be counted, the fate of a $450-million railway project that has threatened to bankrupt Placentia hangs in the balance.

The vote has swung back and forth in the last week, and if a new majority takes control of the City Council, it plans to overhaul the ambitious effort to lower five miles of railroad tracks through downtown.

To keep the OnTrac project going, Placentia leaders have cut city programs, sold parkland, issued bonds and even considered eliminating the Police Department. Records show that the city is now $31 million in debt.

One of the first things two potential victors want to consider is firing OnTrac’s team of highly paid consultants, including Christopher Becker, the executive director, who is under investigation by the Orange County district attorney’s office.

“We all agree that Becker and the private consultants need to be given their notice,” said candidate Joseph V. Aguirre, a longtime community activist and critic of OnTrac’s management.

Becker was not available for comment. In the past he has defended his work on the project and said he has become an election-year scapegoat.

Aguirre is part of a slate of three candidates, including one incumbent, that is close to taking over the five-member council.

During the campaign, they vowed to solve the city’s financial problems, rethink OnTrac and return the project’s management to the public works department as a cost-cutting move. It is now run almost exclusively by consultants.

The slate of challengers includes retired Police Chief Russell J. Rice and Councilwoman Constance Underhill. Both hold comfortable leads, according to the latest returns Tuesday. The vote returns show that Mayor Judy A. Dickinson is headed to defeat, while Councilman Scott P. Brady is locked in a seesaw battle with Aguirre.

Dickinson and Brady have been staunch supporters of OnTrac and Becker, who left his job as city public works director to take a lucrative private consulting contract to manage the project.

The other council members are Christopher Lowe and Norman Z. Eckenrode. Eckenrode has been in office for decades. Both support OnTrac.

Thus far, the county has counted roughly half the absentee ballots cast Nov. 2.

Assuming the slate wins, “we won’t have to mend fences, but Eckenrode and Lowe will have to get in step with us,” Underhill said.

Lowe said he was willing to sit down with members of a new council majority to hear their ideas and make changes if necessary.

“We don’t agree, but they have the support of the community,” Lowe said. “Our goals are the same with OnTrac. Just how we reach those goals is the question.”

Governed by a board of Placentia city officials, OnTrac is an ambitious effort to build 11 overpasses and lower five miles of railroad tracks into a concrete trench. The project is intended to help revitalize downtown Placentia and improve one of the main rail corridors that serve the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach.

So far, at least $9.2 million has been spent on consultants, including grant writers, financial advisors, administrators, lobbyists, political strategists, and on studies and public relations. Some of the consultants charge up to $300 a hour.

The project now faces a $12-million shortfall in state funds and considerable uncertainty over whether it will receive $225 million in federal assistance -- money that city officials have been banking on.

A recent audit by the city’s interim city manager has warned that Placentia might run out of money late next year if federal and state funds don’t materialize for OnTrac and major steps aren’t taken to solve the city’s worsening financial problems.

Today, Placentia is deeply in debt and owes more than $5 million to the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railway Corp. for OnTrac-related work.

In addition, the district attorney is looking into allegations made by the Placentia city attorney that Becker, when he was public works director, illegally influenced his hiring by the city to manage OnTrac as a consultant.

His original consultant’s contract guaranteed him $450,000 a year for 10 years, making him at the time one of the highest-paid transportation officials in the nation. His salary was scaled back to $300,000 more than a year ago as a controversy arose over OnTrac expenses.

Becker has refused to talk with the Los Angeles Times for months, but has denied wrongdoing. He says he is the victim of election-year attacks by Citizens for a Better Placentia, a group of activists that backed Aguirre, Rice and Underhill.

The slate members say Becker has done a woeful job of managing the project, hiring expensive consultants and pushing ahead without adequate funding and during the state budget crisis.

“We need a new management model,” Rice said. “We are going to consider replacing the consultants by bringing the project back in house.”

The city is now on the verge of hiring a new public works director, who might be in place by the time the new council is sworn in. OnTrac was originally handled by the city’s public works department, until the council decided to hand over management responsibilities to a team of consultants.

Brady, who remains a council contender, said he doubted whether the public works department can handle a project as costly and complicated as OnTrac.

Slate members said they want a complete evaluation of the project and the city’s financial condition to determine how OnTrac should proceed.

They said trenching may be abandoned in favor of a series of underpasses and overpasses that could be built over the years as money became available. The gradual approach is being used in neighboring Fullerton to improve the rail corridor and reduce traffic congestion.

The slate also wants to create a citizens oversight committee to make OnTrac more accountable to the public and City Council.

Meanwhile, they said, the city should continue to pursue government funding and complete the Melrose Avenue underpass as well as the quiet zone, a series of grade crossing improvements so trains do not have to sound their horns in town.

“Right now our biggest priority is to stop the hemorrhaging,” Underhill said. “We need to look at the organizational structure of OnTrac and the possibility of scaling down the project. There might be several different directions we can go.”