When the program starts, the servos often seem to go to some random location privor to resetting to the specified value. The situation is very stranger because the second time the program is started, the unwanted servo motion may or may not happen. I would like to specify the initial value and skip the other motions. Is there some way to stop the servos from doing this unwanted random motion?

Unfortunately, the servo initialization is handled by the HiTechnic Servo Controller and there is no way for ROBOTC to prevent it from happening; however, you the pre_auton function is designed specifically for this reason; you can set your servo values to whatever you need them to be before the autonomous section starts, as long as the robot still conforms to the sizing rules (pre_auton cannot be used to move the robot outside of its legal dimensions as far as I know; you may want to double check this in the FTC rulebook).