Roger Snobel in a Times File Photo from 2001
Next time you’re at a cocktail party, here’s a fun trivia question you can throw out. What do Assembylman Fabian Nunez and the writers at the Bus Bench have in common? Answer: they have both called for MTA Executive Director Roger Snoble to resign.
The Times reports this morning that Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez (D-LA) is so outraged over Metro’s inability to get more money for road projects out of the California Transportation Commission that he called on Snoble to step down.
The CTC gave over 50% of its budget, over $1.65 billion, to five Southern California counties. Because it was funding freight projects, and the ports of LA and Long Beach handle 85% of the state’s freight cargo government officials from Southern California felt that local projects deserved greater funding. Snoble called for at least $2.2 billion for Southern California.
Nunez told the Times:
"Over this issue, Snoble should go. He screwed this thing up. He did so much damage to the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. This guy should step down."
Metro spokesperson Marc Littman defended Snoble noting that there are a lot of players involved in making funding decisions at the state level and the fight over how CTC dollars are divided isn’t done yet. Snoble himself was out of town on vacation yesterday.
For its part, Metro criticized the decision to limit funding to Southern California in a statement released yesterday.
On the other hand, Metro is disappointed that the CTC did not award this region the full $2.2 billion we and our partners in five counties representing 18 million residents had requested as our fair share of goods movement funding...
...Eighty-five percent of California’s containerized cargo is currently being handled by the ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach. In addition, the Los Angeles and Long Beach ports handle seven times more international cargo than ports situated in Northern California with Southern California’s road and rail system managing 75 percent of all cargo exported from the State of California annually.
