Assembly Backs New Bidding for L.A. Green Line : Transportation: It votes 70 to 0 in calling for withdrawal of the Sumitomo contract. The action is only advisory and its effect on the county transit panel is uncertain.

SACRAMENTO —  The Assembly on Monday joined a wave of protest against the decision by Los Angeles County transportation officials to construct a high-tech, driverless rail system and to award the contract to the Japanese-owned Sumitomo Corp. of America.

Pointing to rising unemployment in California, the Assembly voted 70 to 0 to urge that the Los Angeles County Transportation Commission withdraw its approval of the $121.8-million Sumitomo contract and reopen the bidding process for the Norwalk-to-El Segundo Green Line.

The measure by Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) is advisory and has no force of law. But it leaves no doubt about a rising tide of political opposition to the commission’s plans to purchase 41 automated cars from Sumitomo for the Green Line.

The Los Angeles City Council unanimously approved a similar advisory measure last week, rebuffing Mayor Tom Bradley, the chief proponent of the driverless technology.

“The Green Line is turning into the mother of all white elephants,” Katz said. “It’s time for Los Angeles taxpayers and workers to get the LACTC’s attention and dump this green turkey.” Katz is a potential challenger to Bradley, who has not yet said whether he will run for a sixth term in 1993.

Katz’s resolution complained that the transportation commission, on which Bradley sits, “did not adequately consider or encourage domestic and local content for the rail transit equipment, and therefore, did not favor domestic job creation and economic recovery.”

The Assembly measure also voiced concern about the relatively high cost of the driverless cars--adding more than $97 million to the cost of equipping the Green Line--and called on the LACTC to reopen bidding to include conventional, non-automated vehicles.

Katz, who is chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, argued that the total value of the contract could exceed $200 million because of cost overruns and the price of an expensive control system.

“We should be using tax dollars to generate jobs for people paying the bills,” he said, adding that he is fearful that the expensive technology will prove unworkable. “This has the potential for being a very, very expensive disaster.”

Assemblywoman Bev Hansen (R-Santa Rosa), vice chairwoman of the Transportation Committee, said that the unanimous bipartisan vote represented “outrage that the contract was given to a Japanese firm in the middle of a severe recession when our people are out of work.”

In an article by Bradley published in The Times Op-Ed section today, the mayor reaffirms his support for the driverless system, but underscores his opposition to awarding the contract to a foreign firm. Bradley had voted to award the Green Line contract to Morrison-Knudsen, an Idaho firm that was the only other bidder on the driverless-car contract.

Morrison-Knudsen “offered precisely the automated system we had asked for, with more local, domestic and minority jobs, a lower price and a full performance bond,” Bradley says in the article. “I want there to be an American company with experience in building an advanced rail system--one that international customers will be willing to buy.”

Bradley says he is “hopeful” that the LACTC will withdraw its support for Sumitomo and award the contract to the American firm.

But it remained unclear whether the political outcry against the high-tech system and the Japanese firm would sway any votes on the 11-member commission. The issue is expected to be reopened at its next meeting on Jan. 22.

Commission Chairman Ray Grabinski declined to discuss the matter on Monday.

Negotiations are under way to arrange a joint venture between Sumitomo and Morrison-Knudsen that could ensure more American participation in the project.

Bradley says in his article that he supports such a joint venture, but adds that Morrison-Knudsen would need “a sizable percentage of the contract for any such venture to be meaningful to the American pocketbook.”

Bradley calls the move to restudy the driverless technology “the device of clever politicians who want to obscure their votes to send American jobs to Japan.”

“The fools and the villains in this debate claim that if we simply remove automation, a revised car contract will someday go to an American company,” Bradley writes, adding that Sumitomo, because of its technical expertise, could be the winning bidder to build a non-automated system.

Katz also has proposed a separate measure that would merge the Transportation Commission with the Southern California Rapid Transit District into a single, countywide agency.

Katz said he is amending that bill, which is now before the Senate Transportation Committee, to require the new, combined commission to give special preference in bidding to companies that guarantee local job creation.

However, the transit measure will have no effect on the Sumitomo contract once it is signed.

In a strongly worded letter to Los Angeles City Council President John Ferraro, Katz urged the City Council to help pressure the LACTC to reconsider the contract.