Sister City Dispute : Beverly Hills Rethinks Its French Ties

The Beverly Hills City Council has decided to go ahead with a planned visit by the mayor of Cannes while it rethinks a controversial resolution that established sister city links with the French resort town.

The seemingly innocuous sister city issue has sparked debate over who should have paid for the mayor of Beverly Hills’ visit to Cannes in April, how money was raised to pay for the return visit by her French counterpart, and whether the use of the city seal was authorized for fund-raising purposes.

At its meeting Tuesday, the council heeded an appeal to proceed with the program from an official of Sister Cities International, an organization that promotes such links around the world.

‘Dedicated to Peace’

“This program is dedicated to peace and we have to live with each other,” said Ethelda Singer, a volunteer who is West Coast vice president of the organization.

She said she originally came up with the idea to link Cannes with Beverly Hills four years ago, a proposal that came to fruition when Mayor Charlotte Spadaro won approval for the sister city relationship upon taking office in April.

The issue has been fraught with controversy ever since, but Singer said good feelings from the visit of Cannes Mayor Anne-Marie Dupuy next month may spill over into the deliberations of the sometimes fractious Beverly Hills council.

“Maybe it will bring them together in a way that other things cannot,” she said after Tuesday’s meeting. “I’ve seen it happen before.”

The controversy started with the timing of the original vote, which came shortly after the French government declined to allow American fighter pilots to fly over its territory on their way to bomb Libya.

More recently, a former mayor charged that the council was irresponsible in the way it set up an official committee to promote the link with Cannes.

In the Dark

But Spadaro asked the council to go ahead with the program despite objections from council members Max Salter and Donna Ellman, who complained that Spadaro had kept them in the dark about her activities.

Minutes of earlier meetings show that the sister city committee’s activities were indeed discussed, Spadaro said. According to Spadaro, the minutes show that it was Salter who urged that deliberations be cut off at one point because of the press of other business.

“The official sister city connection is important,” Spadaro said. “We have to decide where to go from here. It’s the only constructive thing to do.”

George Slaff, who served three terms on the council, said last week that the Beverly Hills/Cannes Sister City Committee had acted improperly by asking donations ranging from $100 to $2,500 to take part in its activities.

He repeated his charges Tuesday, saying that he did not question the good faith of those behind the sister city committee but asserting that they had “commercialized the membership process.”

Slaff also warned that use of the city seal and the City Hall mailing address may pose legal problems, but he said he was mollified after the council decided to recast the relationship with Cannes along guidelines set forth by Sister Cities International.

Although every city is different, Singer said, her organization recommends that an independent nonprofit corporation be set up to run the sister cities program instead of an official committee appointed by the City Council.

Guidelines published by Sister Cities International note that an independent corporation can continue to function despite changes in City Hall or in its own leadership.

At the same time, she said, the initiative to establish such a link has to come from the city government.

She also said elected officials are expected to be in the forefront during official events such as the coming visit of the French delegation.

Paid for Trip

Spadaro paid for her own trip but the Beverly Hills sister city committee will underwrite Dupuy’s visit.

Singer’s organization, established in 1956, represents more than 750 American cities linked with more than 1,200 municipalities in 86 countries.

Speaking for the Beverly Hills/Cannes Sister City Committee, President Arthur M. Kassel said he would go along with any changes imposed by the council.

He said he has been working closely with Singer to make sure that the group was following the Sister Cities International guidelines, and that it had applied for incorporation and for tax-exempt status.

“We’ve tried to do everything in the proper way,” he said, adding that he has postponed depositing several checks in the bank while awaiting guidance from the council on how to proceed.

So far, he said, the group has raised $16,846.91 in cash and another $25,300 in pledges, a total that prompted Salter to urge jokingly that Kassel be named fund-raiser for the Beverly Hills Education Foundation, which raises money for the city’s financially troubled school system.

Councilman Robert K. Tanenbaum came to Kassel’s defense, saying that he was maligned at the council’s previous meeting.

“If there is any blame to be allocated, it seems to me that the council bears that responsibility,” Tanenbaum said.

$15,000 Price Tag

Kassel said the Nov. 18-25 visit of the mayor of Cannes is expected to cost $15,000, including $2,500 for transportation, $7,000 for meals, $2,000 each for hotels and video-taping, $1,000 for security and $500 for flowers and gifts.

He said the committee would destroy any stationery bearing the City Hall address if directed to by the council, which named Spadaro and Vice Mayor Benjamin H. Stansbury Jr. to come up with new guidelines for its activities.

Stansbury said the problems with the first resolution were semantic and that a new version would be drafted to bring the sister city activities in line with the recommendations of the international organiation.

“We should cut them loose . . . blessed by the city,” Stansbury said. “After that, they do their own thing under the rules of Sister Cities International.”

Kassel, proprietor of a Los Angeles shooting range, also acquiesced to Ellman’s urging that his establishment, the Beverly Hills Gun Club, not be used as an address for the group because of a possible reflection on the city’s image.

Council members agreed that it would be proper for the committee to use the city seal, a practice that Singer said was common in other cities with longstanding sister city relationships.

Although Cannes is the only city with which Beverly Hills has an active sister city relationship, Salter said he has been approached by a group of doctors who hope to revive a long-dormant link with the Mexican resort of Acapulco.