Flores Puts Record to Test in Reelection Bid : Councilwoman Faces Write-In Opposition in Problem District

By all accounts, Joan Milke Flores has been tested during her first term on the Los Angeles City Council. Her district, the southernmost in the city, has faced problems on every front: toxic-waste issues in Wilmington, high crime rates in Watts, cannery closures in San Pedro.

Homes stand next to garbage dumps, and streets are crumbling under industrial truck traffic. The charm of old neighborhoods and port-side restaurants has only led to heighten the outcry over proposed new treatment plants for raw sewage and toxic wastes.

The situation has reached a point where other council members even joke about what will be next, Flores said. “If somebody is saying, ‘Where can we put something undesirable?’ somebody else will say, ‘San Pedro, Wilmington. . . .’ And it’s a joke,” she said.

“I hope it’s a joke.”

Alone on Ballot

So now, as Flores bids to defend her seat in Tuesday’s city elections, she is facing her first public report card on four years of grappling with community problems. According to her supporters, it is a review Flores will pass with ease. The 48-year-old incumbent will be the only candidate on the 15th-District ballot--a testimony, supporters say, to her popular and effective leadership.

“We are not only satisfied, but extremely pleased with the job she has done,” said Leron Gubler, executive director of the San Pedro Peninsula Chamber of Commerce, which has worked with Flores to try to revive dying commercial areas. “I think her main concern has been with the district. She is well-respected in the community and has proven herself in her first term of office.”

But others hold a different view. Advocates of write-in candidate Joe E. Collins Jr., a 21-year-old computer operator, charge that Flores has not gone far enough to address tough toxic-waste issues and to aid troubled areas like Wilmington and Watts. Although Collins faces overwhelming odds with a write-in campaign--he missed the Feb. 2 filing deadline for being placed on the ballot--his followers say he should not be overlooked.

They say a vote for Collins will be a vote for change.

‘Not Everybody’s Pleased’

“I think if he would come out with 400 or 500 votes, that would be quite significant,” said Lilio E. (Leo) Gattoni, a Collins supporter and president of the San Pedro-based Progressive Democratic Club, a 40-member group that has not taken an official position in the race. “It would . . . tell the councilwoman she should be more vigorous in certain areas, take more definite stands in the future. It would show that not everybody’s pleased.”

Collins, who vows to “run to win,” in spite of Flores’ edge on the ballot, also acknowledges sizable disadvantages in political experience and campaign financing. A high school graduate who lives with his wife and 9-month-old daughter west of Watts, Collins said he is making his first bid for elected office and has never worked in city government. He said his cash donations for the campaign will total about $1,100--”nowhere near what she has.”

Flores spent the first 25 years of her career--eight of them before Collins was born--as a City Council aide. She worked for 13 years as chief deputy to former 15th-District Councilman John Gibson. Her campaign fund exceeds $330,000.

But Collins has managed to draw support among opponents of a hazardous-waste treatment plant being planned for Wilmington, where chaotic growth has placed many residential areas side by side with heavy industrial zones.

Attitude Criticized

Critics say Flores has done little to fight the plant and that she voted against it only because of heavy pressure from community residents. They say her attitude has illustrated a greater concern for developers and big business than for the interests of the community.

“She has totally accepted the fact that Wilmington is . . . on a path to becoming non-existent,” said Ernesto Nevarez, owner of a Wilmington insurance agency. “She is not out to represent the voters. She is out to secure her position, which is guaranteed by who you know and who gives you (campaign) money.”

Flores, who is an acknowledged supporter of business and property-development rights, responded by calling herself the first elected official at any level to oppose the plant. “I believe I represent the citizens,” she said. “I believe I need to hear from them before I make decisions.” She held community hearings to study the issue, Flores said, adding: “There will always be people who feel you didn’t do enough.”

The toxic-waste plant, proposed by the BKK Corp. of Torrance, would be one of the largest such facilities in Southern California, occupying a 4.5-acre site on I Street between the Terminal Island Freeway and the Long Beach city boundary. The multimillion-dollar facility would handle 70% to 80% of the industrial wastes produced in the South Bay area, BKK president Ken Kazarian said last week.

Issue Taken to Court

Plans for the plant have been a focal point of community activism since 1983, when residents formed the Harbor Coalition Against Toxic Waste and began a lengthy fight to block the plant’s construction. A year ago, the 600-member coalition carried the battle through a series of city land-use hearings, ultimately filing a lawsuit over environmental-impact studies for the project. That lawsuit, which is now before the state Court of Appeal, still clouds the future of the facility, which may not be built, Kazarian said.

Flores did not announce her opposition to the project until the day before its first city hearing, coalition president Jo Ann Wysocki said. In addition, she said, Flores was slow in voicing the community’s fears to other City Council members.

Residents have expressed concern that waste-carrying trucks would create a danger on residential streets and that Wilmington would continue to be used as a dumping ground for the rest of the city.

“What nobody else wants, Wilmington seems to get,” Wysocki said, adding of Flores: “We came away with the feeling that we could expect no help from her office.”

Most Difficult Issue

Flores, who has earned praise from her council colleagues for making careful decisions, described the toxic-waste proposal as one of the most difficult issues she has faced during her first term in office. She said there are good arguments for building plants to detoxify hazardous wastes, which are dangerous to the environment and difficult to transport to approved toxic landfills.

“If everything else were equal, that place would not be bad,” she said of the Wilmington site. “It’s surrounded by freeways, it’s in an industrial area . . . (and) it’s relatively far from inhabited areas.” (The site is separated from residential areas of Wilmington by the Terminal Island Freeway.)

But she decided to oppose the project largely because of community opposition to it and because the city would have no authority to control the plant’s operation, Flores said. Although BKK volunteered to keep its trucks from using nearby residential streets, the operating license for the plant would be issued by the state. The city would have no power to say whose trucks could transport waste to the site and from how large a region those trucks could come.

“I don’t mind taking care of our own waste,” Flores said. “(But) I don’t feel my district should . . . (solve) problems for the whole city.”

Returned $5,000

Critics charged that Flores has received heavy campaign contributions from BKK in recent years. But Flores said that since the plant was proposed she has returned at least $5,000 that the company has tried to give her. She said it is her policy to refuse contributions from donors with projects before the city.

In recent months, her office has examined toxic-waste issues in Wilmington, where the problems have turned out to be much more complex than expected, Flores said. Her staff has reviewed state-granted operating licenses and found that, in at least some cases, toxic-waste handlers received temporary operating permits even though they were not located within the proper heavy-industrial sections of Wilmington.

In January, Flores introduced three City Council motions that would tighten city zoning laws, assign inspectors to monitor hazardous-waste operators, and ask for tougher scrutiny of hazardous-waste handlers by the state. (In the same month, a Times investigation identified at least nine companies treating or storing toxic wastes in Wilmington and San Pedro.) Those motions are expected to come up for council action this month or next, an aide to Flores said.

“We’re finding out that a lot of stuff has been going on that nobody knew about,” Flores said.

Pro-Growth Philosophies

Critics of Flores often compare her stance on development issues to the pro-growth philosophies of her predecessor, John Gibson, who spent a record 30 years on the City Council and a record 16 years as the council president. Critics say Flores has carried on policies that have brought too much industry and apartment construction into the district, adding to some of the area’s planning problems.

“Gibson was for big business and big-business development . . . and she seems to be following the same trend,” Collins said. He cited one case in which Flores allowed new homes to be built on a strip of vacant land in Harbor Gateway where residents had wanted a new park. Together, Flores and Gibson have been a political dynasty, Collins said, commenting: “I want the dynasty to end.”

Flores’ chief deputy, Bernie Evans, who also served under Gibson, said there is “no question” Flores is pro-development and believes that those who pay for land should be entitled to use it. But he drew sharp differences between Flores, who insists that new development should be compatible with surrounding areas, and Gibson, who was often critical of formal planning efforts.

“He always felt that Houston, Tex., was a model city” because it had minimal planning regulations, Evans said of the former councilman. Flores, by contrast, helped reduce growth in San Pedro by pushing a tough new communitywide development plan, which tightened zoning regulations throughout the community.

Gibson Opposed Plan

That plan, similar to those now being adopted under court order throughout Los Angeles, decreased the ultimate allowable population of San Pedro from about 240,000 to 120,000, Evans said. Although Gibson opposed its enactment, Flores felt the plan was necessary to prevent traffic and parking problems and to preserve the charm of the seaside community, where the current population is about 75,000, Evans said.

“One of her major campaign promises was to implement the San Pedro community plan,” Evans said. “It was the first in Los Angeles to be implemented.”

Now, in a similar effort, Flores is working with a citizens committee to revise the community plan for Wilmington, where rezoning is seen as a way to separate industrial growth from residential areas. The effort could mean important changes for Wilmington over the next 10 years, Flores said. She said she hopes oil companies can be made to place their pumping equipment in centralized locations, rather than scattering pumps through the community.

As old homes and plants are replaced with new ones, a good zoning plan will help draw a line between industrial zones and residential neighborhoods, she said.

Involved in Planning

Frank Eberhard, the city’s chief zoning administrator, said Flores has been much more involved in districtwide planning issues than Gibson. Among other efforts, Flores has fought to close the 20-acre Harbor Dump on Lomita Boulevard, where one of her aides compared the high mound of trash to the Disneyland Matterhorn.

Flores also has argued against proposals for a $48-million co-composting plant in San Pedro, which would combine household trash and raw sewage into compost for fertilizer. She and other council members have questioned the feasibility of the project, skeptical of the market for huge amounts of the compost. Opposition from her district has prompted lobbyist Joaquin Acosta, who has been granted exclusive rights to build the plant for the city, to say he will construct it in another part of Los Angeles.

Critics of Flores, including Collins, argue that she has failed to serve many of the district’s residents, particularly in low-income areas of Watts and the Harbor Gateway strip, a narrow tract of land connecting downtown Los Angeles to the harbor area. Collins charged that Flores has disregarded chronic gang and drug problems in those communities, commenting: “I don’t think she’s concerned with building these areas; I think she wants to see them dilapidated.”

Flores, however, said her close attention to constituent problems has been one of her strengths as a council member. Each Thursday, Flores said, she tours different areas of the district, often meeting with citizens advisory groups in Watts, Wilmington, the strip, San Pedro or the harbor area. She said she works as closely with her citizens groups and other constituents as any member of the City Council.

“I feel my record speaks for itself,” she said.

Opposes Tax Increase

Although Collins said he supports a a June ballot proposal to add 1,000 new police officers in the city--a plan that Flores has helped formulate along with Mayor Tom Bradley and council members Zev Yaroslavsky, Marvin Braude and Peggy Stevenson--he criticized the proposed $75 boost in property taxes that would pay for the plan. The funding for additional police should come from new liquor or cigarette taxes, which would not hurt low-income homeowners, Collins said.

In addition, he said, youngsters in areas like Watts should be steered away from crime by being given job training and city-paid outings, such as camping trips. Those trips could be awarded on the basis of school grade-point averages, Collins said.

“We have these kids turning to drugs to make money, to have nice things . . . joining gangs because of peer pressure,” Collins said. “This goes on and on and on, and we need to stop it.”

Flores said she has supported a property-tax increase to add police officers because the city has no jurisdiction over liquor and cigarette taxes, which are controlled by the state. She said her office has been involved in supporting a variety of city programs in Watts, including efforts to provide child care, housing for senior citizens and low-interest loans to encourage home ownership.

City Pays for Trips

Every year, youth groups throughout the district are given city-paid trips to places like Disneyland and the beach. Some of those funds go unused in parts of the district, and they are added to the amount set aside for groups in Watts, Flores said. She also has voted for anti-gang programs, and last year her office joined with a Los Angeles radio station to conduct a job fair for low-income teen-agers, Flores said.

In December, Flores celebrated what her aides called a milestone when public officials met for the grand opening of a new Boys Market and several other stores at 103rd Street and Compton Avenue. It was the first time a shopping center had opened in Watts since the riots in 1965.

The $12-million project, financed by private developers and city redevelopment funds, was brought about largely through the work of Flores and Mayor Bradley, according to Flores’ chief deputy Evans. Flores, who had promised during her 1981 election campaign to help build the center, met several times with Manhattan Beach-based developer Alexander Haagen to piece together a complex financing package, Evans said.

Finding commercial tenants for the center was particularly difficult because “nobody wanted to be . . . financially responsible” for the risks, he said.

‘Absolutely Fabulous’

Freita Shaw Johnson, president of the Watts citizens advisory council, said Flores was “absolutely fabulous” in working to create the center. She said the center “has done wonders” for the community, whose residents no longer have to commute to Lynwood to do their shopping.

Flores failed to win federal tariff protection for dying tuna canneries in San Pedro, in spite of city lobbying efforts in Washington, D.C., but she has helped secure city grants for struggling commercial shops in San Pedro, said Leron Gubler, the Chamber of Commerce leader. Gubler said Flores helped get $150,000 for a nearly completed study of San Pedro’s central business district and helped obtain an additional $300,000 in city funds to provide added parking, new signs and decorative planters.

Further aid for that business community will be one of the goals of her second term, Flores said. But she said her greater emphasis will be on Wilmington, with all its heavy industry and zoning problems.

“(That) has been a very fragmented community,” Flores said. “It has been very difficult to sort out the problems, then to go about solving them.” She said she regrets that the BKK issue has not been resolved and said she hopes the area may someday have shoreline shops and restaurants like San Pedro. “That’s going to be one of my focuses.”

Collins, meanwhile, said his focus will be on the children. “These children are growing up and being killed off,” he said. “If the drugs don’t get them, the gangs will. If the 15th District is going to be a great district, then we must have a new leadership . . . for our posterity.”

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