District Hurt as Wachs Eyes Mayor’s Job, Critics Charge

Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs likes to tell audiences that he accepts criticism as part of his job.

“After 15 years on the council,” he told a Sherman Oaks crowd recently, “I’ve come to sort of see it as evidence that I’m out there working.”

Lately, however, Wachs has been getting enough brickbats to keep himself, and probably a few other council members as well, assured that they are doing their jobs.

For more than a year, homeowner leaders that Wachs once counted as allies have been criticizing him privately.

Bitter Meeting in Studio City

In the past two months, the critics have gone public, denouncing him at community meetings, in association newsletters and, most recently, to his face at an acrimonious meeting in Studio City. In one instance, homeowner leaders urged their members to flood Wachs’ office with written and telephoned protests.

Common to all the complaints emanating from Wachs’ southeast San Fernando Valley district is the assertion that the councilman’s undisguised ambition to become mayor has left him bored with his 2nd District post.

Homeowner critics say Wachs devotes most of his time to citywide and national issues at the expense of the pursuit the homeowners cherish most: the restraint of development.

They also accuse the councilman and his staff of ignoring requests for service, failing to aid civic groups on beautification projects and other civic improvements and seldom returning telephone calls or replying to letters.

Some have charged that Wachs, to finance his quest for higher office, has begun to shift from his longstanding practice of siding with homeowners against developers on most issues.

“If he spent as much time on district issues as he has on, say, rent control, we might not have this conflict,” said Richard Close, longtime president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn.

Needed to Go Public

“Joel is very interested in the arts and rent control and the fight against AIDS,” said Daniel M. Shapiro, president of the Studio City Residents Assn. “But the only way we in the district can get his attention is to go public with our gripes.”

Wachs, 46, has moved vigorously to blunt the fusillade of complaints. He met with three different groups of constituents in February and has agreed to meet homeowner leaders monthly.

He has conceded a few minor points to the critics, telling the leaders, “I accept 50% of the blame for the communication problems.”

But, in a subsequent interview, he said, “I get the job done, and that’s a lot more important than returning phone calls.”

Wachs, who is up for reelection in April, 1987, also suggested that his critics are politically motivated.

Once the monthly meetings are under way, he said, “We will find out whether the problem genuinely was a matter of communication or, as I suspect, these people have a broader political agenda.”

He contended his relations with homeowners are “as solid as ever, I’m just having political trouble with a few of the leaders.”

Meeting With Homeowners

When Wachs met with 10 homeowner leaders Feb. 13 for a sometimes heated session that the leaders had billed as a showdown, it was clear he viewed the assemblage as a collection of past, present and future political adversaries.

He noted sarcastically that one participant in the roasting, Jerry Hayes, president of the Studio City Chamber of Commerce, ran against him for the council in 1983 and has indicated he plans to try again in 1987.

When Shapiro, who narrowly lost a runoff race for city controller last year, told Wachs there was a “sickness in your office,” the councilman replied, again in a voice laden with contempt: “I don’t even want to think about your motives, Dan.”

And Wachs noted that Tom Paterson, president of the North Hollywood Homeowner Assn. and one of the organizers of the showdown meeting, “ran against me in 1983 and has been saying these same things about me since then.”

Wachs, who won reelection over five poorly financed opponents in 1983 with 75% of the vote, is unlikely to be in serious political trouble should he seek a fifth term in 1987, especially with a treasury of nearly $800,000 on hand to discourage challengers.

Apparent Disarray

But the appearance of disarray in his district could harm him in a campaign for mayor if that post opens up. That would occur if Tom Bradley succeeds this year in his second campaign for the governorship.

Wachs has made no effort to hide his interest in being mayor. Should he run for the top city post, he is expected to campaign as a champion of homeowners and environmentalists, as he has in all his council races.

Thus, homeowner leaders and political observers say, they were not surprised at Wachs’ energetic damage-control efforts this month.

“He knows people are upset with him, so he’s been making the rounds,” said Shapiro. “He knows that angry homeowners can be a liability.”

The attacks on Wachs come at a time of increasing militancy among Valley homeowner associations. Most political activists view the new aggressiveness largely as a backlash to the rapid residential and commercial construction the area has experienced for more than a decade.

Stimulated by Success

Also, the associations seem to have been energized by several recent successes. These include their collective effort last year to force the City Council to conform its zoning laws with the city’s more restrictive community plans, and their role in successfully lobbying the council last October to impose a moratorium on high-rise construction on Ventura Boulevard from Woodland Hills to Studio City.

They also have been more active in generating ideas for civic improvements and changes in city laws, thereby placing council members in the unwelcome position of reacting to ideas generated by others rather than pursuing their own ideas.

“No elected official likes to have to share the glory,” said Close. “That’s a part of the conflict between Joel and the homeowners. I don’t think he likes it when others initiate ideas.”

Indeed, much of the friction enveloping Wachs stems from homeowner proposals, including a pocket park and a shuttle bus suggested by leaders of the Studio City association, and a new city law proposed by the Sherman Oaks group that would require developers to plant more trees along streets.

Bus Service Secured

Shapiro noted that Councilmen Howard Finn, who represents the northeast Valley, had secured a shuttle bus service for Sunland-Tujunga, and that Westside Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky had launched a similar bus service in Westwood.

But his group’s proposal to operate a shuttle bus with tax funds earmarked for local transportation has “gotten little or no cooperation from Wachs’ office for more than two years now,” Shapiro said.

And, Shapiro charged, there has been a “similar complete lack of response from Joel for nearly two years” to the Studio City group’s proposal to develop a pocket park at Ventura Boulevard and Radford Avenue as a gateway to the community. The group proposes to raise $100,000 to pay for development of the park and its maintenance.

Wachs said the existing shuttle buses are money losers, “and the city transportation people are against any new shuttles.”

But Wachs said that “contrary to the accusations of some,” his office is pursuing the proposal.

He said his staff is taking a survey of businesses and residents to support the feasibility of such a service in Studio City.

Liability for Park

The pocket park proposal, he said, was dealt a potentially fatal blow when the city attorney’s office said the city would be liable for the park even if it was donated.

He added that the residents association has “not demonstrated they actually have any money to develop the park. So far it’s just been talk.”

Wachs acknowledged he “should have had someone call to say thanks” in response to the Sherman Oaks group’s proposed changes in city law governing the planting of trees for large developments.

The report, sent to Wachs in November, was researched and written by Frank J. Tysen, a former USC professor of environmental planning.

Wachs’ failure to acknowledge receipt of the report shows “how little he cares about what his constituents are saying and thinking,” said Fred Kramer, a Sherman Oaks homeowner activist.

Relations between the homeowner leaders and Wachs came to a boil in the past two months over the question of what to include in an upcoming revision of development guidelines for traffic-clogged Ventura Boulevard.

The new rules are to be written before the one-year high-rise moratorium along the boulevard expires in November.

Delaying Design Controls

Wachs, along with fellow council members Marvin Braude and Joy Picus, who each represent segments of the prosperous boulevard, decided in December that city planners initially should not draft new design and landscaping controls or restrictions on billboards and other signs.

Action on those issues should be put off until the council enacts new controls on traffic, parking and building size, they said.

Despite repeated denials by the three council members, homeowner leaders said they feared the officials were attempting to shove the more controversial aesthetic controls into the background, possibly forever.

To force Wachs’ hand, homeowner leaders sent out a newsletter in January encouraging all members to call or write the councilman’s office to protest the reduced scope of the boulevard development guidelines.

About 85 people protested, said Howard S. Raphael, a Wachs deputy.

Shortly after the protests were lodged, Wachs met with homeowner leaders in the showdown session and agreed to introduce a motion in the council requiring that aesthetic controls for the boulevard be drafted immediately.

Leaders Divided

Following that success, homeowner leaders are divided about the prospects for their future relationship with Wachs.

“We certainly got his attention this time,” said Close, of Sherman Oaks. “Possibly this will turn things around somewhat.”

But Shapiro was less optimistic, saying, “We’ve complained before, and nothing seems to last. One thing though, now that we are going public, he’s going to end up looking like a horse’s behind if he freezes us out.”

Said Wachs: “I think we cleared the air pretty well and should be able to work together from here on. Unless, of course, all this complaining was purely political.”