Metro votes to approve Dodger Stadium gondola project despite protests

Hundreds of community members packed a meeting room Thursday to tell Metro’s board of directors whether they were for or against Frank McCourt’s proposed gondola to Dodger Stadium. The board had already indicated that it intended to approve the project without any discussion among the directors, but then the board chairman announced that it would not listen to community members before voting.

That led to an extraordinary uprising. In an act of defiance rarely seen in the sedate and often formal halls of the bureaucracy, the crowd closed the meeting.

At the opening of the meeting, board chairman Fernando Dutra explained that the public would have its say after the vote.

He was promptly drowned out by chants of “Let us speak!” of anti-gondola forces and responses of “You’ve already spoken!” from pro-gondola fighters, as this meeting was Metro’s fourth on the gondola, and the second specifically related to the approval of a revised environmental impact report.

Dutra tried to calm the crowd by saying, “Public comments are allowed at the end of the meeting.” That instead ignited the crowd, and the chants only got louder and more repetitive, and Dutra threatened to have Metro officers clear the room.

The directors opted to retreat to a private room for 75 minutes, where they handled other business and then decided what to do with the stubborn audience.

In the conference room, chants ebbed and flowed from both sides. The anti-gondola troops went around a megaphone. The pro-gondola forces danced around the room. More than a dozen Metro and Los Angeles Police Department officers stood guard, positioning themselves between the audience and the empty stage.

The directors said they would relent. They would allow an hour for public comment before the vote.

There was peace and the directors returned. Of the 52 public speakers, 42 – including three members of the Los Angeles City Council – spoke against the gondola project.

Dutra congratulated the board for coming up with “the right process” to hear from the public.

“This is what happens when you have a democratic process,” Dutra told the crowd with a straight face.

The crowd got its say, more than an hour late, after the board tried to delay public comment until what could have been hours after the vote sparked a riot. Then the vote took place – and as expected, the gondola project was approved.

The pro-gondola forces applauded. The anti-gondola forces again chanted, “Shame on you!”

Next steps? And how much?

Now that Metro has certified the revised environmental impact report, several government agencies and the Los Angeles City Council will consider whether to approve the gondola project. The city is unlikely to start the project until late next year after it receives a study evaluating traffic around Dodger Stadium and options for relieving it.

By 2023, the environmental impact report projected construction costs of $385 million to $500 million. Construction costs are only rising, and a project spokesperson did not provide an updated cost estimate this week.

In 2024, Metro’s initial approval required Metro staff to work with the organization responsible for getting the gondola operational to “provide quarterly updates to the Metro board on the progress and financing of the project.”

Those updates “were not produced because work on the project was paused during litigation,” a Metro spokeswoman said.

Thursday’s approval means the litigation process is over, so an updated cost estimate should be available in the spring. The project has been promised to be privately financed, but no financing agreements have been made public.

Bass speaks

The City Council voted 12-1 last month to pass a resolution calling on Metro to halt the gondola project. The resolution went to Mayor Karen Bass, who neither signed nor vetoed it.

The resolution was supported by the three council members with districts closest to Dodger Stadium.

“The way the council feels is important to me,” Bass told The Times. “But if a member from that district is passionate about a project, the other members support it.

“There’s a lot more time to work things out. I just didn’t think it was appropriate to stop now.”

Councilwoman Eunisses Hernandez, whose district includes Dodger Stadium, said she has worked hard to develop support from her council colleagues and provide them with alternatives to the gondola by the time the council is expected to vote on the project next fall.

“A year from now you’ll see the fruits of that,” Hernandez said. “I hope my colleagues will see that and continue to help us move in that direction.

“I hope people take the council’s statements seriously. Getting a 12-1 vote on any issue, especially an issue like this, is not easy. It’s a big deal.”

Bass said she would like to explore how the community can use the gondola to address neighborhood priorities.

“My interest in the project is generally about the benefits to the community – the potential benefit to, in particular, the area around Homeboy Industries and Chinatown. I am very saddened by the decline of the Chinatown I knew growing up,” she said.

“There are groups pushing for more resources to be deployed there, and for Frank McCourt to contribute more to the development, redevelopment and revitalization of Chinatown.”