{"id":318649,"date":"2010-02-14T10:05:08","date_gmt":"2010-02-14T15:05:08","guid":{"rendered":"tag:typepad.com,2003:post-6a00d8341c630a53ef0120a89bf169970b"},"modified":"2010-02-14T10:46:53","modified_gmt":"2010-02-14T15:46:53","slug":"officials-question-mtas-spending-on-protracted-legal-battle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/318649","title":{"rendered":"Officials question MTA&#8217;s spending on protracted legal battle"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img decoding=\"async\" alt=\"http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/photos\/uncategorized\/2009\/01\/22\/subway.jpg\" src=\"http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/photos\/uncategorized\/2009\/01\/22\/subway.jpg\" style=\"margin: 7px; cursor: -moz-zoom-in; float: left; width: 223px; height: 248px;\" title=\"http:\/\/latimesblogs.latimes.com\/photos\/uncategorized\/2009\/01\/22\/subway.jpg\"><\/img>The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has spent more than $34<br \/>\nmillion in a legal battle with one of America&#8217;s largest contractors &#8212;<br \/>\neven though the most the transit agency could win in damages would be<br \/>\nabout half that sum.<\/p>\n<p>The case has dragged on for 15 years, with new hearings set to begin in coming weeks. <\/p>\n<p>With<br \/>\nthe agency now considering fare increases and service cuts, some<br \/>\nofficials are calling for an audit of the expenditures and wonder if<br \/>\nthe lawsuit represents a waste of taxpayer dollars.<\/p>\n<p>Many MTA<br \/>\nboard members disagree, saying contractor Tutor-Saliba tried to cheat<br \/>\nthe agency out of millions of dollars by submitting a low bid and then<br \/>\nasking for dozens of change orders and other requests that dramatically<br \/>\nincreased the price of constructing parts of the Red Line subway.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>They<br \/>\nargue that the lawsuit is about more than recovering money. If the MTA<br \/>\nwins, they say, it will send a message to other contractors doing work<br \/>\nfor the agency. It could also give the MTA and other public agencies<br \/>\nthe ammunition to dismiss Tutor-Saliba from future bidding processes<br \/>\neven if the company submits the lowest bid for a project.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.latimes.com\/news\/local\/la-me-mta-legal-costs14-2010feb14,0,2641077.story\">Read the full story here.<\/a><\/p>\n<p>&#8212; Ari B. Bloomekatz<\/p>\n<p><em>Photo: Red Line subway. Credit: Los Angeles Times <br \/><\/br><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The Metropolitan Transportation Authority has spent more than $34 million in a legal battle with one of America&#8217;s largest contractors &#8212; even though the most the transit agency could win in damages would be about half that sum. The case has dragged on for 15 years, with new hearings set to begin in coming weeks. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4131,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-318649","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318649","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4131"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=318649"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/318649\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=318649"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=318649"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=318649"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}