Dedicated Handful Scrutinize City Business : Activists’ Attention Not Faltering

Ron Shipton was doing what he likes best, hanging out at West Hollywood City Hall. As usual Shipton, 40, was flipping through documents. He does that so often, Shipton admits, that some people think he works there. He doesn’t.

While examining a bill the city paid for printing rent control documents, he saw that the city had paid the same amount, to the penny, to the same company on two occasions. That aroused Shipton’s curiosity, so he took the information to city officials, who confirmed that the city had paid the same bill twice. The city canceled the second payment, saving more than $5,000.

City Manager Paul Brotzman said city employees might have caught the mistake, “but there is no guarantee that we would have.”

Shipton is one of a handful of activists who attend nearly every City Council meeting and seem to have an opinion on every issue. These devotees have initiated laws, reported violations of the city code and, in Shipton’s case, possibly saved the city $5,000.

It was a proud moment for Shipton, who operates a concession at the Studio One disco two or three nights a week, leaving the daytime hours to comb the city’s files.

Shipton said he had not been interested in local government until last year’s incorporation effort. Although he initially opposed incorporation, he has come to value home rule. “I can see a qualitative difference when you’re dealing on a local level,” he said recently. “When you write a letter to your senator, I don’t think it makes a real dent, but at this level it can.”

Shipton’s most common complaint is about the city’s freewheeling spending on social services. He said the City Council has funded programs for senior citizens and homosexuals without studying other methods to accomplish its goals.

Early in the year, Shipton was given access to almost any file at City Hall, but recently his sleuthing has been curtailed. Shipton said council members ordered his access limited when they realized that he was looking through their expense vouchers.

But City Manager Brotzman said he simply wanted to make sure that original documents were not misplaced. He said Shipton and others are free to look at original files in the presence of a staff member. Otherwise copies of the files have to be made before they can be viewed by the public, Brotzman said.

Real estate agent Jeanne Dobrin, 65, is one of the most dedicated activists. She began attending public hearings at the county Regional Planning Commission and Board of Supervisors at least four years before cityhood.

Familiar Sight

Dobrin is a walking encyclopedia on the recent history of zoning and development in West Hollywood. She is a familiar sight at council meetings, with reading glasses perched on the end of her nose and a bulky copy of the county code always close at hand. She recently helped convince the council to enforce a law that prohibits businesses from displaying merchandise on sidewalks or streets.

Dobrin has been known to speak at length on almost any issue. At a recent hearing on a major development she told the council: “I will be here talking to the council on any development that . . . well, just on any development at all.” The audience laughed knowingly.

One city employee said Dobrin “could be tiring and abrasive. But she has also suggested things that have helped the city.”

Budd Kops is another of the council’s devoted followers. Kops, 66, began his career with vitriolic attacks on rent control, but he has since expanded his interests to include everything from the proposed restoration of the Sunset Towers apartment building to an ordinance that would force owners to scoop up their pets’ droppings.

It was Kops who convinced the city to fence vacant lots to prevent illegal parking and trash dumping. He also was the first resident to suggest a “pooper scooper” law. (Councilman Alan Viterbi later introduced the proposed ordinance to the full council.)

At a recent hearing on the restoration of the Sunset Towers, Kops suggested that the developer station a spokesman at the project site to help smooth over problems and to answer questions from residents. The City Council subsequently made that a requirement for approval of the permit.

Kops, Dobrin and Shipton said they all hope to be chosen later this month when the City Council appoints several boards and commissions.