Grant to Save Wildlife Waystation Passes in Assembly

The Wildlife Waystation, a Tujunga Canyon refuge for wild animals, would receive an emergency $300,000 grant under a bill narrowly approved by the Assembly on Monday.

The legislation by Assemblywoman Marian W. La Follette (R-Northridge) was rushed to the Senate after winning Assembly passage by a 55-to-15 vote, one more than the minimum required.

Assembly action came after a lively exchange between the San Fernando Valley lawmaker and Assemblyman Richard Floyd (D-Hawthorne), who attacked supporters of the bill as “suckers.”

La Follette, who jokingly brushed off the criticism, later succeeded in having the Senate Natural Resources and Wildlife Committee schedule a hearing for today on the proposal because of the refuge’s pressing need for the money.

If the bill is passed by the Senate and signed by the governor, the $300,000 would be made available immediately for improvements in the Waystation’s water supply, sewers, drainage and roads.

Without the improvements, the Waystation has been forbidden by Los Angeles County to hold fund-raising events at the refuge to cover monthly bills totaling about $25,000.

The 160-acre private, nonprofit refuge in the Angeles National Forest was founded nine years ago. It usually serves as a temporary home to about 500 lost, abandoned or mistreated wild animals.

Floyd said the Waystation did not need to turn to the state for a bail-out, but could have staged a fund-raiser elsewhere.

Instead, Floyd contended, Waystation backers found “a sucker in the Legislature, hoping there are 53 other suckers in the Legislature.”

“This is no way to treat the taxpayers’ money,” Floyd said, contending that the proposal would earmark “big bucks to improve private property.”

He said there is no guarantee that Waystation officials “won’t shift the . . . animals off to somewhere else and go ahead and use that property for something else.”

La Follette jokingly called Floyd, a portly South Bay lawmaker known for his feisty remarks, “a good example of a cub that must have been very lovable but, when he got to be 200 pounds, no one knew what to do with him.”

Afterward, she said lawmakers take criticism leveled by Floyd “very lightly.”

During the floor debate, neither La Follette nor her allies responded directly to Floyd’s contention that the fund-raisers could be held elsewhere.

La Follette said that, with the refuge’s narrow road, “when there is a fire, the animals can’t be evacuated.”

She warned that, if a fire broke out, the animals might be forced into nearby suburban communities. “Who wants tigers and lions running loose in their community?” La Follette asked.

Another Valley lawmaker, Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sepulveda), joined La Follette in urging passage of the bill.

“The Waystation provides a service that no one else does in the state,” Katz said. He pointed out that the $300,000 would not come from the general fund but from the state’s environmental license plate fund, which is reserved for conservation purposes.