With a citation book in hand, Metro Transit Community Service Officers Vy Vang and Chi Vang boarded a westbound light rail train at the downtown Union Depot station on a mission to discourage — but not detain — fare evaders. Mostly, they wanted to be seen and heard.

“Metro Transit Police,” announced Chi Vang, in a commanding voice, as at least two passengers on Tuesday morning hot-footed themselves off the Green Line train car. “Please have your fare out. We’ll be checking tickets.”

What followed was part enforcement action, part delicate dance, with compliant passengers offered a chance to dismount at the next transit station rather than take home a $35 non-criminal citation. Sleeping passengers were roused, in part for their own safety to ensure they hadn’t overdosed, explained the two student officers, who are not related.

Those cited were informed of ways they could get the tickets waived or reduced, such as by adding cash to a fare card or watching an instructional video at a downtown service center.

Administrative fines

Only recently authorized by the DFL-led state Legislature, administrative fines issued by non-sworn public safety personnel don’t go on criminal records and are aimed at reminding passengers that rides on the light rail aren’t free.

They’re also intended to remind everyone — fare evaders and paying riders alike — that Metro Transit personnel are increasingly serious about enforcing a code of conduct that even some diehard transit advocates say has been long neglected.

Metro Transit Community Service Officer Chi Vang scans a transit card during fare checks on the Green Line light rail train in St. Paul on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2023. Metro Transit has revived its Code of Conduct and expanded transit officer presence in an effort to make the riders experience more comfortable. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

Citation numbers seem to bear that out. Community service officers (CSOs) began inspecting fares and issuing administrative citations on Dec. 4.

Through Monday, they had inspected 1,989 fares and issued 193 citations. That’s more citations issued in little more than a week than in all of 2021, 2022 and the first half of 2023 combined.

In fact, the transit authority issued 1,311 citations in 2019, and just nine in 2021.

Why the stark drop?

Among likely causes, police were under pressure following the May 2020 murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis to take a lighter touch with vulnerable groups, including the homeless and communities of color. Prosecutors, as the transit authority has acknowledged, have been unwilling to press criminal charges over $2 to $2.50 in unpaid fare. The pandemic made close contact unadvisable. And police staffing ran short.

‘Presence, presence, presence’

Passengers have long complained that transit police and personnel all but disappeared from view during the pandemic, giving a general sense of free license to the most unruly riders that smoking, alcohol consumption and other behaviors could unfold without consequence on station platforms and train cars. At 9 a.m. Tuesday, with just three people on board her train car between St. Paul’s Central Station and Union Depot stops, a woman could be seen dropping her pants and urinating on a Green Line seat.

With increased visibility, Metro Transit hopes to turn perceptions of neglect around.

Mostly, it’s about “presence, presence, presence,” said Metro Transit Police Chief Ernest Morales III, speaking to reporters outside the Union Depot on Tuesday morning following the first full week of administrative citations. The goal, said Morales, is to stay visible while taking a distinctly different approach toward legitimate public safety concerns than mental health outbursts and other ridership behaviors.

As the press event unfolded, a man walked out of the Union Depot transit hub visibly disturbed, wearing socks with no shoes in 20-degree weather, and drowned out the speakers with strings of expletives and plaintives about his missing Nike sneakers.

“As we just witnessed, a mental health outbreak, right?” said Morales, moments later. “That’s a perception of safety. Obviously, he’s a peaceful individual who is expressing his point of view. That may make people feel uncomfortable. So we feel that by having our (community service officers) out there, a uniformed presence, as well as supplemental security, that people will feel safe because they’ll have a friendly face around. And that’s what we want to promote: safety.”

Help with patrols

In March, the Metropolitan Council — the regional planning agency that oversees Metro Transit – approved a $6 million contract with a private security firm, Allied Universal, to help patrol light rail stations and transit centers with the highest calls for service.

The 17-member Met Council was poised to add another $5 million to the contract on Wednesday so Allied security officers could begin riding transit, offering customer assistance, checking fares and issuing administrative citations, much like the community service officers.

Metro Transit Community Service Officer Vy Vang writes a citation for an unticketed rider on the Green Line in St. Paul on Tuesday, Dec. 12, 2023. Metro Transit has revived its Code of Conduct and expanded transit officer presence in an effort to make riders experience more comfortable. (John Autey / Pioneer Press)

In addition, Morales said Metro Transit has inked contracts with a dozen street outreach and social service agencies, whose members ride the Blue and Green lines from 7 a.m. to 10 p.m. to offer services to passengers in distress, including referrals to homeless shelters run by Catholic Charities. Reported crimes, which increased as more officers and transit personnel have ridden the system, dropped 33% over the course of the first nine months of the year.

Some passengers have already noticed a difference.

“I’ve generally seen less smoking and disruptive behavior on the Blue Line, at least in my personal experience,” said Katie Nicholson, a Highland Park resident who has ridden Metro Transit for the past five years. “It felt cleaner to me.”

More changes coming

Metro Transit General Manager Lesley Kandaras, who took the reins in July, said more changes are on the horizon. The Met Council this week is poised to approve a new passenger Code of Conduct that emphasizes orderly behavior.

Morales, who took over as police chief in February, said recruitment continues for both community service officers and sworn staff, some of which work part-time during their days off with other departments.

And the administrative citations issued by non-sworn personnel will also continue, if not increase.

“We’ll continue to look for ways to really grow that program moving forward, because we do feel a lot of urgency around addressing the issues we’re seeing,” Kandaras said.

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Bassist Leland Sklar says there was no hesitation when drummer Russ Kunkel, guitarists Danny Kortchmar and Waddy Wachtel and himself were approached to do a documentary about their lives as four of the greatest Los Angeles session musicians of the past 50 years.

He was a little surprised, though.

“Never in a million years did it ever occur enter my mind that there would ever be anything like this done,” Sklar says on a recent video call with Kunkel, Wachtel, and director Denny Tedesco. “I mean, we just kind of loved playing and went to work and did what we did.

“Never really thought about it moving to the level that it’s done,” he says.

“Immediate Family” opens in theaters on Friday, Dec. 15. It’s a warm-hearted documentary that illustrates how these four players played a major part of many of the greatest singles, albums and tours of the last five decades. Artists such as James Taylor, Carole King, Jackson Browne, Stevie Nicks, Keith Richards, Linda Ronstadt, and Phil Collins are among the stars in the film who testify to their greatness.

But it’s also a story of friendship, which in recent years, with the addition of singer-guitarist Steve Postell, led to the formation of their own band, the name of which provides the movie’s title.

“My expectation certainly was never that a documentary would be done about me or my partners in crime here,” Sklar says. “But the first time I saw it, it was a profoundly moving experience.”

Despite a half-century playing music together, Sklar said he heard stories he’d never known before.

“It’s a remarkable journey, and I’m just thrilled that it’s finally going to see the light of day.”

After ‘The Wrecking Crew!’

That director Denny Tedesco came to the project by accident is surprising, given his documentary “The Wrecking Crew!” was about the acclaimed L.A. session musicians – including his father, guitarist Tommy Tedesco – known by that name.

But it was only when a different project fell through that his producers asked him if he might be interested in the story that became “Immediate Family.”

“They asked me and I said, ‘Oh, I’m totally into that,’” Tedesco says. “It was more in my wheelhouse, as they say. I totally understood this world. I understand where these guys are coming from, and instantly thought, ‘OK, well, maybe this is the follow up to ‘The Wrecking Crew!’”

Not surprisingly, his new subjects were fans of “The Wrecking Crew!” having known and played with many of the musicians in that loose collective responsible for hits from artists that included most of producer Phil Spector’s acts, the Beach Boys, the Mamas &  the Papas, Frank Sinatra, and the 5th Dimension.

“I was a huge fan of the Wrecking Crew,” Sklar says. “I was really fortunate that my career started as theirs started to diminish, so I worked with all of those people on many, many projects. They were all friends of mine.

“So when we were approached about this, and I knew Denny was going to be doing it, it was a totally comfortable thing because I was so proud of what he accomplished with that movie,” he says.

Roll cameras

Kunkel laughs when asked what he remembers of the start of filming in 2019. Neither he nor the other guys were actually there.

“Once we decided to go ahead and make the documentary, I think within a week, Denny found out that Carole King was ready to do an interview, and it could happen right away,” he says. “All of a sudden, we’re off and running.

“I think he got Carole and James (Taylor) and somebody else in like the first three weeks,” Kunkel says.

“What’s weird is you guys weren’t even in the film,” Tedesco says. “We started filming the stars instantly because they were available. It was rapid fire, boom, boom, boom. Then we got to October and you guys were doing an album. I shot some footage of you doing that.”

Early on, he also filmed the scenes that are among the most affecting in the film, showing each of the four playing solo along to a classic song on which they’d originally performed.

To see and hear Kunkel play the brushed rhythms of Taylor’s “Fire and Rain” and Sklar the loping bassline of Collins’ “Don’t Lose My Number” is to understand how important their contributions were. To do the same with Kortchmar and his lilting solo on King’s “It’s Too Late,” or Wachtel and his chucka-chucka riff for Nicks’ “Edge of Seventeen” is to witness their greatness.

As Jackson Browne says at one point in the film, “Not only did they give birth to this music, they’re as much the author of these songs as the artist they did it with.”

When COVID hit, Tedesco realized he had a film that included people like Don Henley, David Crosby, Neil Young, Steve Jordan, and Lyle Lovett talking about the four musicians, but nothing actually from them yet.

“Yeah, I’ve got a bunch of people talking about these guys; I have no idea who they’re talking about. It was like panic set in,” he says, laughing.

The ‘Family’ tree

The complicated family tree of the Immediate Family begins in the early ’60s when Kortchmar and James Taylor became close friends as teens. As their families summered together on Martha’s Vineyard, they played music there and then later in New York City, where they formed a group called the Flying Machine.

As Taylor’s solo star rose, he brought Kortchmar into the studio and on the road with him for the “Sweet Baby James” album and tour, in a band that included Kunkel on drums and Carole King on piano.

“Shortly after that record was done, James went by a rehearsal that Leland was playing in,” Kunkel says. “He saw Lee play and pretty much hired him on the spot.

“So that was the beginning of the nucleus there,” he says. “And then Waddy came along a little bit later, playing on one of Carole’s records, and his charming personality just got him in all the doors he needed to get into.”

Wachtel laughs: “That had to be it.” He’d arrived in Los Angeles from New York City a year or two after the others and had immediately noticed the high profile that Kortchmar, Kunkel and Sklar had in the music scene.

In the film, Peter Asher, who managed stars including James Taylor and Linda Ronstadt (and had once been part of the 1960’s hit-making duo, Peter & Gordon), and regularly hired these guys for his artists, is cited as the first producer to regularly credit all the session musicians in the album notes, which raised their profile in ways that the Wrecking Crew players seldom knew.

“I would be sitting at home, looking at these records that had Russell and Leland and Danny on ’em, thinking, ‘When am I gonna meet these guys’? How am I going to meet these guys and get into the group?’” Wachtel says.

He met Sklar on a session for Bobby Womack and Kunkel not long after that, he says. He first played with Sklar, Kunkel and Kortchmar on a Lou Adler session for Tim Curry.

“All of a sudden, I realized I’m with these guys who are going to be my brothers for life,” he says. “I’d be doing a session with Russell in the morning or Leland in the afternoon. It was just astounding. All of a sudden I was in this group of these names that I was seeing on all these records, and now my name was there with them.”

Brothers for life

Kunkel, Kortchmar, Wachtel and Sklar also became better known than almost any session musicians of their era, largely because they were able to take their work beyond the recording studios. They often toured with the artists they recorded with, whether that was James Taylor and Phil Collins or Linda Ronstadt and the late Warren Zevon.

As the singer-songwriter era waned at the end of the ’70s, they all expanded beyond recording sessions and tours to add songwriting and production gigs, too. Kortchmar, Kunkel, Sklar, and keyboardist Craig Doerge formed a band called the Section, which released three albums before it ended.

Wachtel was invited to join that too, but says he declined because the instrumental fusion of that group didn’t feel like the right fit for his rock and roll sensibilities. More than four decades later, he said yes to the Immediate Family, which has a new album coming in February.

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Asked about their favorite moments in the film, each points to a different anecdote. For Sklar, it’s the interview he did with Collins at the end of Collins’ final tour, and the emotion of knowing that their long collaboration was over. For Kunkel, the roundtable conversation that Tedesco filmed, with all of them sharing stories, many of them long forgotten or unknown to some.

For Wachtel, it’s a moment near the start of the film, when the Immediate Family is about to go onstage for a show, and Kortchmar and Sklar are waiting for Wachtel to show up. Where’s Waddy? they ask. He’s changing into a different shirt.

“I show up and Danny goes, ‘That’s what we’ve been waiting for?’” says the guitarist who plays almost every show in a T-shirt with the sleeves cut off. “And I just go, ‘(Bleep) you.’”

That’s usually the first laugh of the film, Kunkel says. And like many of the stories in the movie, it speaks to the bond these musical brothers share, Sklar adds.

“One of the joys of the relationship we have is when we sit and talk,” he says. “Everybody’s story triggers a story from somebody else. And it just keeps rolling and rolling and rolling. Because it’s a shared common experience that we’ve all had.”

The loudest noise at the 2023 MLB winter meetings came on Day 1 when a Japanese reporter fell asleep on his laptop in the media room and snored at a decibel level rivaling a heavy metal band in a small club.

With no blockbuster trades or mega signings to announce during the meetings — the Juan Soto deal came to light late Wednesday night — baseball had to resort to other news, including the Hall of Fame election of manager Jim Leyland, to keep the annual three-day meetings from being a complete snoozefest.

Even an incident of Cubs President Jed Hoyer snapping at USA Today reporter Bob Nightengale over a social media post drew media attention back in Chicago, showing how times have changed. Executives snapping at reporters is a story as old as the game itself. Only in this age is it considered newsworthy enough to be dissected on sports-talk radio.

So nothing much happened, and a ton of media had to have something to write and talk about after spending money to come to the Gaylord Opryland Resort for baseball’s traditional offseason infomercial.

If MLB Network had aired the raucous BBWAA meeting instead of having its talking heads let general managers and managers drone on about how great their teams will be in 2024, the ratings would’ve been much higher.

As the teams, agents and media made their way out of town Wednesday, here are three other things we learned.

1. The White Sox are moving. Eventually. But probably not to Nashville.

The Sox confirmed Chairman Jerry Reinsdorf’s stealth meeting with the mayor of Nashville after Politico reported the big news. The Sox have not denied their interest in finding a new home, and it seems only natural for Reinsdorf to meet with the mayor of the most logical city for MLB expansion to talk about a future partnership.

The Sox don’t want anyone to read too much into the meeting, of course, even as it riled up an already angry fan base. It seems more likely Nashville would prefer to hold out for an expansion team instead of one that’s in teardown mode and looking at a long rebuild, but who knows?

There’s little doubt the Sox hope to find a new ballpark away from the South Side, whether it’s downtown, on the West Side or elsewhere. With six years left on the lease of their taxpayer-funded park and Reinsdorf turning 88 in a couple of months, time is of the essence.

2. ShoTime the Circus is getting weak reviews.

Cubs manager Craig Counsell has been around long enough to know that interest in Shohei Ohtani’s landing spot would dominate the winter meetings, just as other free-agent superstars have in the past.

“As a baseball fan, we all want to know where the great players are going to play,” Counsell said Tuesday.

Unfortunately for baseball fans, Ohtani wants to stem any news of negotiations, forcing some teams to stonewall questions about their interest.

It makes no sense for baseball’s biggest star to want the news of his negotiations kept secret when MLB Network aired wall-to-wall coverage of the meetings that his name dominated.

When NBA free agency begins in the summer, every superstar’s potential landing spots become big news, talked about incessantly by media and fans. Both the NBA and the players get free publicity that benefits the league and the players’ individual brands.

Not so with “ShoTime.” For a sport that just had the lowest-rated World Series in history, this is not a good look.

Ohtani reportedly has not spoken to the media since early August, even after winning the American League MVP award. He’s a megatalent who seemingly has no interest in helping to promote interest in the game. What a lost opportunity for MLB.

3. Christopher Morel can be a valuable asset in 2024.

Whether it’s with the Cubs is the key question.

“Positional versatility creates a good floor‚” Counsell said when discussing Morel’s lack of a position, “so when things inevitably happen to your team during a season, you’re choosing from better options than just one option.”

Morel hit 11 home runs in a month at Triple-A Iowa last season and 26 with the Cubs. At 24, he still can get better, and the power obviously is there. Can the Cubs keep him without a real position, or would they be better off trading one of their most electric players?

Counsell sounded like he hoped to find a place for Morel, who played 61 games as the designated hitter in 2023.

“Yeah, Mookie Betts was a versatile piece for a pretty good team,” Counsell said of the Dodgers star moving between right field, second base and shortstop. “I think (Morel) has kind of forced his way into lineups … and that’s a really good thing. The positional part, we’re going to have to figure that out.”

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By JOHN RABY (AP Sports Writers)

CHARLESTON, W.Va. (AP) — College athletes who were denied the chance to play immediately after transferring a second time can return to competition, for now, after a federal judge issued a 14-day temporary restraining order Wednesday against the NCAA.

U.S. District Judge John Preston Bailey in northern West Virginia issued the order against the NCAA from enforcing the transfer rule. A lawsuit filed by West Virginia and six other states alleged the rule’s waiver process violated federal antitrust law.

A hearing on the restraining order is scheduled for Dec. 27, Bailey said.

The NCAA didn’t immediately indicate whether it would appeal the ruling.

NCAA rules allow underclassmen to transfer once without having to sit out a year. But an additional transfer as an undergraduate generally requires the NCAA to grant a waiver allowing the athlete to compete immediately. Without it, the athlete would have to sit out for a year at the new school.

Last January, the NCAA implemented stricter guidelines for granting those waivers on a case-by-case basis.

The states involved in seeking the restraining order were Colorado, Illinois, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Tennessee and West Virginia.

It wasn’t immediately clear whether any of the affected players would try to compete during the 14-day window and what ramifications they could face if the NCAA would prevail in the lawsuit.

West Virginia basketball player RaeQuan Battle transferred this season from Montana State after previously playing at Washington and has been sitting out.

“I’m in the gym every single day with the team, with the blood, sweat and tears with them,” Battle said. “When the ball is thrown up and that tipoff starts, I’m not suited up. That’s what hurts me the most.”

Battle, who grew up on the Tulalip Indian Reservation in the state of Washington, has said his mental health is a big reason why he came to West Virginia. Battle said he has lost “countless people” to drugs, alcohol and COVID-19.

After Battle visited West Virginia, he learned that now-coach Josh Eilert had lived on the Pine Ridge Indian Reservation in South Dakota with his mother following his parents’ divorce and felt a connection.

West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey said in a statement the ruling “paves the way for student athletes, like RaeQuan Battle, to play in the sport they love and continue improving themselves.”

“We are looking forward to proving definitively that the NCAA has violated the Sherman Act by failing to maintain a consistent and defensible transfer rule and by denying these student athletes the chance to play,” Morrisey said.

___

AP sports: https://apnews.com/sports