Legislative Session Results : Bills on Bay Pollution, Parking ‘Boot’ Signed

Before the Legislature’s regular, two-year session wound down last month, lawmakers grappled with statewide and global issues ranging from seat-belt laws to apartheid.

But local issues, such as Santa Monica Bay pollution and parking problems in congested West Los Angeles neighborhoods, also received attention from the Legislature and Gov. George Deukmejian, who on Tuesday completed action on the last of about 3,500 bills.

At the request of Los Angeles and Hermosa Beach officials, Sen. Robert G. Beverly (R-Manhattan Beach) carried legislation that would expand their ability to crack down on scofflaws who ignore parking tickets.

Must Have 5 Tickets

The measure--which sailed through the Legislature and was signed into law by Deukmejian in June--permits all cities to place a wheel-locking device called a Denver Boot on any vehicle that has five or more outstanding parking tickets. Under previous law, the boot could be used only if the vehicle’s registration also had expired.

The law took effect immediately and Los Angeles city officials said that in the next two months they plan to crack down on persistent violators in congested areas such as Westwood.

Robert Yates, parking administrator for the Department of Transportation, said Los Angeles plans to reduce its $75-million backlog of unpaid citations by employing the boot as many as 100 times a day--a fivefold increase. “Hopefully . . . people will begin to appreciate they can’t habitually violate parking laws,” he said.

Dozens of Bills

The Denver Boot measure was among dozens of bills sparked by Los Angeles-area problems or disputes introduced in the legislative session.

West Los Angeles spawned a variety of bills, especially on environmental issues, which met with mixed success. On Tuesday, Deukmejian signed three bills aimed at protecting Santa Monica Bay but vetoed two other key measures. In the Santa Monica Mountains, the governor agreed to a key acquisition but turned down two measures supported by the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy.

On other local issues, a bill to help the film industry was bottled up in committee. But Jewish groups succeeded in gaining passage of legislation on kosher food and on educating the public about the horrors of the Holocaust.

Nonetheless, Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles), whose district covers much of the Westside, said most bills introduced by Los Angeles-area legislators are aimed at issues affecting the entire state--not merely the Westside or even Los Angeles County.

Rosenthal said delegations from Orange and San Diego counties frequently band together to support legislation on such issues as school financing and transportation in their areas. In contrast, he said, the 44 Los Angeles County legislators--who make up more than one-third of the 120-seat Legislature--rarely speak with a single voice.

Said Rosenthal: “It’s very seldom, if ever, the whole county delegation sticks together on anything. If they did, we’d run the whole place.”

Statewide Implications

Nonetheless, a Los Angeles-area issue--such as rent control--easily can trigger a legislative proposal with statewide implications.

For example, Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) scuttled a controversial bill that would have relaxed tough rent controls in Santa Monica and West Hollywood. In August, Roberti, whose Hollywood-area district contains many renters, prevented the measure from being considered by the full Senate.

As the leader of the Senate, Roberti has helped bottle up three similar proposals since 1984. The key feature of the measures has been a provision to remove vacancy controls and allow landlords to increase rents without limit when an apartment becomes vacant for any reason except eviction.

Lenny Goldberg, lobbyist for the city of West Hollywood, said passage of the proposals might have triggered rent increases, causing “severe damage to tenants.”

Street prostitution in Hollywood is another problem that spurred legislation. A Roberti measure, which passed the Legislature and was signed into law last week, is designed to help police in the fight against streetwalkers.

Flexibility for Police

Los Angeles City Atty. James Kenneth Hahn said that under existing law an arrest is not valid if undercover police officers directly ask a prostitute to engage in sex for money. Under the new law--which will take effect Jan. 1--police will have the flexibility to initiate negotiations with suspected prostitutes.

“We expect to have more arrests and convictions as a result of the change in this law,” Hahn said. The measure was opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union, which argued that it would allow police to entrap prostitutes.

Other major Westside issues included:

Reducing pollution in Santa Monica Bay. Assemblyman Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) introduced a package of five anti-pollution bills sparked by rising concern over sewage dumped into Santa Monica Bay.

Deukmejian signed three of the bills, which direct the state Water Resources Control Board to review a water quality plan for ocean waters and require that the agency be notified when there is an unauthorized release of hazardous substances. A third bill requires sportfishing regulations to include specificed health advisories.

However, Deukmejian rejected two other key Hayden measures, including one that mandated the development of a statewide plan to address the human health risk associated with chemical contamination of marine life and another that would have required government employees to report unpermitted and potentially dangerous releases of hazardous substances into ocean waters.

Duplicated Efforts

In rejecting the two measures, Deukmejian said they duplicated existing efforts at assessing and monitoring toxic pollution around Santa Monica Bay. Further, he said, the measure to require reporting of toxic spills “would inappropriately single out a specific class of government employees for criminal sanctions and would place courts in the position of evaluating the on-the-scene decisions of health professionals.”

Hayden said that overall the governor’s actions were a step in the right direction. “Three for five is good in baseball, and it’s good in politics,” he said. But Hayden was disappointed by the vetoes, especially the one that killed a plan to address the human health risk of ocean chemical contamination on “people up and down the entire coast.”

Preserving open space in the Santa Monica Mountains. It was an up-and-down year for the Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy, which wound up with funds for one of its top acquisition priorities--the 1,690-acre Circle X Ranch south of Thousand Oaks.

But on Tuesday, Deukmejian vetoed a measure to earmark $166,500 from the environmental license plate fund, which is generated by the sale of vanity automobile license plates. The governor said the state Resources Agency is considering other ways to spend this money, and the conservancy grants should be considered with those other proposals.

Deukmejian also rejected a bill designed to prod the state Coastal Conservancy to purchase 345 acres at Roberts Ranch in Malibu. In his veto message, the governor said: “The state Coastal Conservancy has sufficient funds and authority to acquire this property if it is determined to be a high priority.”

Restricting the ability of 10,000 residents of Marina del Rey to form their own city and impose rent controls. The bill by Sen. Joseph Montoya (D-Whittier) passed the Legislature and was signed into law a year ago by Deukmejian. It capped a two-year effort by marina landlords to ease the threat of cityhood. Supporters of the bill contended that if the marina were allowed to become a city, residents, almost all renters, would impose rent controls and limit the amount of lease payments the county collects.

Establishing a “living museum” on the Ballona Wetlands, where the public will be able to view the wide variety of marine plants, birds, fish and mammals in the wetlands. Under a measure that was signed on Monday, the state has set aside $400,000 for the National Audubon Society project.

Regulating sales of kosher meat. Concerns voiced by Orthodox Jewish groups led to a Hayden-authored law designed to stop the fraudulent sales of non-kosher meat. It became law earlier this year.

A successful drive by the private Simon Wiesenthal Center for Holocaust Studies for a bill to earmark $5 million in state funds to its Museum of Tolerance on Pico Boulevard in West Los Angeles. The museum is intended to serve as a memorial to millions of Jews and other minorities killed in Europe during World War II. The Legislature approved the appropriation despite pleas from some Jewish groups that the Wiesenthal Center should not be singled out for state funds and that the state build a museum to remember those killed.

Bills Vetoed

Several other key bills either failed to win passage or were vetoed.

A proposal by Assemblyman Stan Statham (R-Oak Run) would have eliminated fees film makers pay for set supervision in state parks, including seven in the Santa Monica Mountains. The bill, designed to keep film makers in the state, was held in the Senate Appropriations Committee in the last week of the session.

Deukmejian vetoed a Rosenthal measure that would have set aside $280,000 to state agencies to study the impact of disposing of hazardous waste by burning it off the coast. The governor said his toxics task force recommended against “the use of ocean incineration technology for treating California’s hazardous waste. Therefore, the study provided in this bill is unnecessary, and these funds can better be utilized on other hazardous waste programs.”

Late Tuesday, Deukmejian also rejected a bill by Roberti to channel $600,000 from state park funds to Los Angeles County to help purchase three acres next to the Hollywood Bowl and preserve a historic complex of buildings known as the Highland-Camrose Bungalows.

In his veto message, the governor said “alternative fund sources are available” for the project, especially $12 million the county will receive from a state parklands bond act. But a spokesman for Supervisor Ed Edelman, who has been pushing the acquisition, said the county already has set aside $2.5 million for the project. The aide said it was too early to determine the impact of the governor’s veto on the land purchase.

Countywide Interest

Legislators also dealt with several issues issues of countywide interest.

Deukmejian last week signed into law a bill by Assembly man Byron Sher (D-Palo Alto), imposing stiff environmental controls on the 34 waste-to-energy plants planned in the state. The plants are designed to burn trash and generate electricity, thus relieving pressure on the county’s landfills, which are rapidly reaching capacity. Several bills to restrict construction of such plants failed this year.

One plant was recently completed in the city of Commerce and is scheduled to begin testing this fall. Another plant is under construction in Long Beach, and others are planned in the San Gabriel Valley and Central Los Angeles.

County lobbyists have been pushing for $161.4 million for new county jail facilities as part of a bill that dictates how $495 million in state bond money will be divided among the state’s 58 counties for jail construction projects. On Tuesday, Deukmejian allowed it to become law without his signature.

Last year the county supported a measure to raise as much as $175 million for financially hard-pressed local governments by boosting motor vehicle license fees. The county stood to gain $44 million a year but the bill in effect was shelved last year by its author, Sen. William Campbell (R-Hacienda Heights).