UPDATED: City Officials Make Show of Solidarity at Gold Line Meeting

Monrovia city officials postponed the city's regular scheduled City Council meeting and attended a special Gold Line Board meeting Tuesday in another sign that relations between the council and transit authority are shifting from contentious to cordial.

when Monrovia publicly called out the Gold Line Construction Authority and accused its members of negotiating in bad faith in a land deal necessary for the Gold Line to proceed. The GLCA to take the city's land if it refused to sell it at the right price.

But the rhetoric has since been toned down as the two sides continue to negotiate behind closed doors to reach a deal that would allow a rail maintenance yard to be built in Monrovia--.

Councilman Joe Garcia said after the meeting Tuesday that city officials' attendance was a gesture of good will.

"We just again showed a sign of allegiance to the board to basically show them we're here," Garcia said.

In an email, he clarified that the council's intent was to present a united front.

"We [the City Council] wanted to show the GLCA Board that Monrovia is united and that the GLCA is going to have to deal with us in good faith," Garcia wrote.

Garcia said that negotiations are still progressing, albeit slowly.

"We still feel optimistic. Obviously the way things are going it seems like we're always taking one step forward and two steps back but we still feel optimistic that we're going to get this negotiated."

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Nothing of substance in regards to the deal was actually accomplished Tuesday, as the agenda did not include a proposed agreement. Negotiations are being done in closed session so the distance between the two sides on an agreement remains unclear.

Attorney Robert Silverstein, who represents a Monrovia property owner who stands to lose his land via eminent domain if a deal is reached, once again voiced his objections Tuesday to the plan to place a maintenance yard in Monrovia.

Silverstein's client, George Brokate, , and the lawsuits remain the major sticking point in negotiations between the city and the construction authority.

The GLCA wants the city to join it in settling with Brokate to expedite the deal; the city contends that Brokate's suit against it is wholly without merit and not worth settling.

City Manager Scott Ochoa would not comment on where negotiations stand between the two parties but said he thinks the GLCA realizes that they're going to have to deal with Brokate if the Foothill Extension is to progress.

"The deals that they're trying to work they're going to have to negotiate with Mr. Brokate. And they're going to have to negotiate with Mr. Brokate with Monrovia, without Monrovia, with the settlement agreement, without the settlement agreement," Ochoa said. "Their issue with Brokate...is just that, their issue."

The GLCA put off a hearing Tuesday to consider condemning the city's property as its own gesture of good faith. If no agreement is reached within the next month, however, the authority could take up the matter of eminent domain again in August.