When community members crowd into a Metro conference room next Thursday to speak for and against the proposed Dodger Stadium gondola, the board will listen before voting on whether to move forward with the project.
Will the directors speak?
At public meetings, officials often explain their position on a high-profile issue. At Metro's meeting next week, the board will be able to vote on the gondola without any board members saying a word about it.
Metro released meeting agenda late Tuesday evening. The agenda includes a gondola vote as part of what government officials call a consent calendar — that is, a package of items that can be approved by a single vote and without any discussion among voting officials.
The items on any consent calendar are usually routine. Based on the staff report, Metro also believes approval of the gondola is business as usual: Metro approved the gondola last year, a judge ordered corrections to the environmental impact report, and all Metro needs to do now is approve the corrections. The gondola project will still need approval from the Los Angeles City Council and various government agencies.
At a committee meeting last week – a week after council called on Metro to kill the project —Los Angeles Mayor and Metro Board Member Karen Bass put it this way:: “I just wanted to reiterate or clarify that the vote today is on the certification of the EIR, the certification of the project's environmental documents under CEQA, nothing more.”
Two other board members — county supervisors Janice Hahn and Hilda Solis — addressed the concerns raised by the speakers. Khan voted against the gondola; Solis voted yes.
It remains to be seen whether Khan, Solis or any of the other 11 members of the voting panel will decide to speak out next Thursday. All it takes is one participant to remove an item from the consent calendar and request a discussion about the issue.
The gondola, first built by former Dodgers owner Frank McCourt in 2018, will transport fans from Union Station to Dodger Stadium. Proponents of the gondola have not announced any financial commitments for the project, which has an estimated construction cost of $500 million and is proposed to be privately financed.
