MTA Gives 2 Pacts to Firm Under Scrutiny : Transportation: The agency creates an escape clause on the $28.2-million and $44.9-million contracts, pending an inspection of the contractor’s work on twin tunnels already completed.

After voicing concerns about their ability to control the cost and quality of the Los Angeles subway project, transit commissioners on Wednesday voted in an unusual compromise to award two major construction contracts to a firm whose work is under scrutiny.

The votes by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority board authorized the contractor, Tutor-Saliba Corp., to start work immediately on two stations along the route of the Red Line. However, the commissioners voted for the two contracts, worth $28.2 million and $44.9 million, only after crafting this special condition:

If an independent panel of experts now examining the durability and safety of tunnels between Union Station and Pershing Square finds there are structural problems, the MTA commissioners may terminate Tutor-Saliba from either of the new station contracts.

After first voting Wednesday not to approve the contracts for stations along Wilshire and Vermont boulevards, the commissioners reversed themselves. The final votes followed advice from the agency’s staff, which warned that the opening of the next phase of the Red Line could otherwise be delayed beyond 1996 and that construction costs could grow by $2 million a month.

The compromise was approved with the agreement of Ronald N. Tutor, president of Tutor-Saliba, who said his company has performed responsibly.

“We’re not guilty before we’re proven innocent,” Tutor told the board. “Yes, there are allegations; that (independent) panel, I believe, will give us the clean bill of health we’re entitled to.”

Edward McSpedon, president of the MTA’s rail-construction subsidiary, said that although Tutor-Saliba has at times been a difficult contractor, the firm has been performing satisfactorily on the second segment of the subway.

The outside panel of three specialists in tunneling was named in response to a Times report that numerous segments of the 1.1-mile twin tunnels between Union Station and Pershing Square were built with concrete thinner than the design-specified thickness of 12 inches.

The panel also is expected to examine the effect on the steel-reinforced concrete of potentially corrosive water that has flowed through tunnel walls as well as the significance of cracks in the concrete. Some of the cracks, observed by a Times reporter and photographer during a tour last week between Union Station and Civic Center Station, are horizontal and are approximately 30 to 90 feet in length.

Franklin E. White, the MTA’s chief executive officer, said he expected that the tunnel panel and a related group of recently hired engineering consultants will report their findings by the end of the year or mid-January. The second group is examining the quality of inspections and overall building supervision of the affected tunnels provided by the MTA’s construction management firm, Parsons-Dillingham.

Before the votes, MTA board members expressed frustration, sprinkled with self-criticism, at problems of construction quality and cost overruns on the first segment of the subway. Some commissioners spoke of the difficulty of trying to adequately oversee what is the nation’s most expensive public works project--when the board meets just once a month.

“We need to take some responsibility ourselves,” said MTA board member Antonio Villaraigosa, an appointee of county Supervisor Gloria Molina. “We are part of the problem.”

County Supervisor Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, also an MTA board member, called for an immediate review of why, as reported in a Times series this week, the agency is not able to seek remuneration from Parsons-Dillingham for potential shortcomings in its supervision of the 4.4 miles of subway now open to passengers.

Said Commissioner James Cragin, a Gardena city councilman: “We’ve got to start looking at some procedures that make this agency more accountable to the public. . . . In the mind of everyone out there, we’re just completely out of control.”