Mayor Eric Garcetti paid his councilman a visit last Thursday as part of his commitment to spend one day in each council district, allowing him a first-hand look at the districts’ respective affairs.

Mayor Eric Garcetti (left) speaks with LACMA director Michael Govan and Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge, 4th District, during the event last week. (photo by Aaron Blevins)

Garcetti visited with Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge, 4th District, who is actually the mayor’s representative on the council due to the location of the mayor’s home, the Getty House. They toured the Purple Line Extension project’s exploratory shaft, LACMA and Pan Pacific Park.

“I think it’s very special because Mr. Garcetti is a back-to-basics, get-the-job-done mayor,” LaBonge said, “and we worked together when he was councilman in the 13th [District]. …I’m very excited about it. We’ll see some great things happening in the Miracle Mile. It’s great to see the mayor come out.”

At the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transportation Authority (Metro) exploratory shaft at Wilshire Boulevard and Ogden Drive, Metro staffers provided the two city officials with additional information on the $6.5 million project. In all, the subway extension will cost $2.8 billion.

Construction on the exploratory shaft began in 2013 and was completed by the end of April this year. Located on the southeast corner of the intersection, it is approximately 18 feet wide, 36 feet long and 75 feet deep.

The exploratory shaft serves several purposes for Metro. For one, it gives officials a better understanding of the soil conditions that they will encounter when extending the Purple Line.

Construction will come very close to the La Brea Tar Pits, and the shaft has provided Metro an opportunity to learn more about handling fossils. The agency has partnered with a paleontologist, Kim Scott, who has unearthed fossils that date back as far as 300,000 years ago.

Additionally, the exploratory shaft will allow Metro to pass along soil and gas information to the future design builder.

“We do have unique ground conditions, so everything’s going to be built very, very safely,” Metro staffer Dennis Mori told Garcetti and LaBonge. Mori is the executive officer and project director for the extension project.

On site, Metro has plenty of technology at its disposal, such as gas monitoring equipment, software that continuously provides soil and gas information in real time, and solar-powered geotechnical instrumentation.

The exploratory shaft will continue to be utilized through the end of the year. When the design builder joins the project, the company may opt to do additional testing at the site, Metro representatives said. It will eventually be backfilled and is designed to serve as a staging area.

The first section of the project will be 3.9 miles, with stations at Wilshire/La Brea, Wilshire/Fairfax and Wilshire/La Cienega. Construction is expected to last until 2023, with operations beginning that year, according to Metro documents.

LaBonge asked if the Los Angeles Fire Department had held a drill at the Metro site, and when the agency’s staffers said no, he asked members of his office to begin the process of establishing one.

Garcetti recently returned from a trip to Washington, D.C., to participate in the official signing ceremony of a $2.1 billion federal funding agreement for the project. He asked how much the exploratory shaft cost.

“Fortunately, it was done within budget [$6.5 million],” Mori said, adding that Metro is now in the monitoring stage and does not anticipate any future changes.

Mori said the site is actually owned by LACMA, which is leasing the property to Metro for the project.

LaBonge mentioned the utility relocation aspect of the project. Utility work will be done near the Wilshire/Western station, as well as the three new stations. That element of the project has received the necessary approvals, and Metro will continue to relocate utility lines until construction begins this year.

“We’re working very, very closely with the city,” Mori said.

He said the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power worked with the agency on Mother’s Day weekend. Nearby businesses requested that the work be delayed until after the holiday, so the two entities worked the day after Mother’s Day and got the job done safely and on time, he said.

“Coordination is so key,” LaBonge added.

Mori said the collaboration has “been great so far.” He referenced the last major project that Metro and the city partnered together to complete: the Gold Line extension.

“That project was federally-funded. It was finished on time and on budget. We really couldn’t have done it without the city’s help,” Mori said.

Prior to leaving the site, Garcetti, LaBonge and Metro CEO Art Leahy dropped coins into the exploratory shaft.

“People said this is a money pit. It really is,” Garcetti joked.

From the Metro site, the representatives headed to LACMA, where Garcetti and LaBonge spoke with the museum’s director and CEO, Michael Govan. They also took photos with two tourists — Judith Benz, of Pennsylvania, and her mother, Wilfriede Benz, of Frankfort, Germany — before getting a sneak peek at LACMA’s new exhibit, “Expressionism in Germany and France: From Van Gogh to Kandinsky”.

Later in the day, LaBonge and the mayor toured Pan Pacific Park and dined at Pink’s Hot Dogs.