By Jorge Casuso

April 10 -- In an effort to assure a proposed light rail line to the coast ends in Santa Monica, City, County and regional transportation officials reached out Monday to some of the beachside city’s biggest stakeholders.

With representatives from more than a dozen large businesses -- including Fox,Yahoo, Time Warner and RAND -- in attendance, officials quickly seized the chance to turn the informational meeting into a rallying cry.

“Let federal officials know there is support,” said County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who represents the Westside. “It makes it easier for people like me if they know they have an army behind them.”

“We’re at a critical juncture,” Mayor Richard Bloom told the crowd gathered at Yahoo Center. “We all need to work together to make this happen.”

Just how seriously Santa Monica officials are taking the effort to bring light rail to their city was evidenced by the top officials who attended Monday morning’s meeting hosted by Equity Properties. They included City Manager Lamont Ewell, Planning Director Eileen Fogarty and Police Chief Tim Jackman.

As regional officials lobby the federal government for the $800 million needed to build the second phase of the Exposition Light Rail line from Culver City to Santa Monica, Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) officials must weigh at least three alternative routes. (see story)

While two of the proposed alternatives on the table would bring the new light rail line to Santa Monica, a third, pushed by a group of residents from Cheviot Hills, would take the line down Venice Boulevard to the sea.

Yaroslavsky -- who said it has taken him an hour and 41 minutes to travel from Santa Monica to his home near La Brea Avenue -- quickly let the crowd know where he stood on the issue.

“Venice is a tourist attraction for four months of the year, but it’s not a job base for twelve months of the year,” the supervisor said. “It’s not an option.”

“Things that are obvious to us aren’t always obvious” to others, said Council member Pam O’Connor, the first vice chair of the MTA Board.

If the decision is a no-brainer for Yaroslavsky and local officials, the decision will likely rest with Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa, who controls four of the 13 seats on the MTA board, which will ultimately choose the route.

And that, said Yaroslavsky, makes him the swing vote on the issue.

“The mayor’s four votes determines what happens on the MTA board,” Yaroslavsky said. “You need to let him know the people in this part of town care.”

Vallaraigosa, the supervisor added, “doesn’t see himself as the mayor of LA. He sees himself as the representative of the region, and he is. Santa Monica is part of that sphere of influence for him.”

If Santa Monica is to end up as the terminus for the Expo line, local officials will have to fend off a” very emotional” and sometimes “ugly” battle with some homeowners in Cheviot Hills who don’t want the line to go through their neighborhood.

They also must contend with a highly motivated and organized contingency in the Valley vying for federal dollars to extend the suburban Metro Gold Line from Pasadena to Montclair.

Local officials must make the case that light rail is most needed to connect Downtown to the Westside, two areas that account for one million jobs, Yaroslavsky said.

“The traffic in this part of town is the most acute in the region,” he said. “The investment has to be here… We have to make sure that the momentum we build keeps going.”

MTA officials will take the information gathered at a series of scoping meetings on the Westside last month and come up with alternative routes that will undergo environmental impact reports.

The reports will analyze such factors as “noise, vibrations, crossings, safety impacts, ridership, costs, intersections, stations and parking at the stations,” said Rick Thorpe, who heads construction for the MTA.

The Exposition Construction Board will weight the alternatives and make a recommendation to the MTA board in spring of 2008. The federal government, which could fund the project, must then sign off on the plan.

“We need to start now,” said Thorpe, who helped build rail systems in San Diego and Salt Lake City. “The sooner we get it done, the sooner we get some relief.”