Mayor’s Valley Office Puts City Hall Within Reach

Ask any of the five staff people in Mayor Tom Bradley’s San Fernando Valley field office about the telephone caller they most remember and the answer is always the same: the woman who was convinced that there were rhinoceroses living in the underground storm drains.

“She claimed they were originally put there by Indians,” recalls manager and unofficial Valley mayor Doris (Dodo) Meyer, “and that the beasts were fed marijuana, getting stoned and then stomping around, thereby shaking her house.” An investigation by Meyer’s office revealed that the commotion was not caused by rhinos but the regular passing of heavy construction vehicles. Undaunted by reality, the woman complained for 4 more years.

The compact Valley mayor’s office, an extension of the downtown office, is tucked in a corner of the 4th floor of the Van Nuys City Hall building, which allows residents the opportunity to fight with city hall--or complain about rhinos--without having to fight downtown traffic.

Firing Line

Dealing with constituents--from those who oppose the expansion of the Lopez Canyon landfill in the northeast Valley to the recently instituted restricted rush-hour parking on De Soto Avenue in the west--puts Meyer, her two field representatives and two secretaries on the firing line. The office’s job, in part, is to act as the mayor’s ears, keep him apprised of public sentiment.

“We get homeowners, senior citizens and anyone else who is in trouble or believes they’re in trouble,” Meyer said, “including people reporting other people and complaints from the community. We will always hear from the negative people and almost never hear from the positive.”

Biggest complaint? Tree trimming. Approximately 20% of the incoming calls are about tree trimmings and other tree-related problems, such as a tree blocking a street sign.

Holly Azzari, a field representative, said some of the calls are due to the tremendous tree-trimming backlog. “The city says a tree will be trimmed every 7 years, but sometimes it won’t be done in the homeowner’s lifetime.”

Customer Relations

Field representative Gabriel Bustamante said the office, established in 1971, tries to help the individual with his problem, such as the tree that needs trimming or a pothole that never seems to get fixed. “If this office were part of a large company,” he said, “it would be considered a customer relations office.”

The mayor’s office, while doing public relations for the city, sometimes finds itself at loggerheads with a council district that feels it is being picked on unfairly. Lopez Canyon is one such controversy.

According to Meyer, the city is planning to install a rock crusher in the landfill to line a new dump bed and boost the capacity of Lopez Canyon from its current 12 million tons of rubbish to an estimated 26 million tons. Since Lopez Canyon is the only city-owned landfill in operation--the others are privately owned--Meyer chalks a lot of the complaints up to “NIMBY”--residents who have the “Not-In-My-Back-Yard” philosophy.

But David Mays, the chief deputy of Councilman Ernani Bernardi’s office, in whose district Lopez Canyon lies, disagrees, saying the NIMBY attitude is not to blame, but rather the fact that doubling the capacity of the landfill will keep it open after 2005 instead of its projected closing date of 1992.

“They’re very unhappy,” Mays said of the residents in Bernardi’s district. “They don’t think the operation is run very well, and with all the negative implications it brings--stench, gas fumes and flies--they don’t want the dump in the community.”

Political Impasse

Politically, for Meyer’s office, the issue is at an impasse, the city calling the dump expansion a necessity, the people in the district distressed because the landfill will be open years longer than originally anticipated and because of potential health problems. One worried homeowner complained to the Valley office that he has a recurring nightmare of a wall of trash coming down the canyon on a rainy night and submerging all the houses.

“Everything we do is political and very sticky,” Meyer said about her job. “There is no easy way through this to try and make things work in the community. You just have to do the best you can.”

But the dump is only one of the sticky situations that finds Meyer and her staff representing the policies of the mayor, on opposing sides with council districts.

There is the continuing problem of the route for the proposed light-rail system that will link the Valley with downtown, and the comparatively new problem of a proposed drug rehabilitation center, called Phoenix House, suggested for Lake View Terrace. Complaints about light rail focus on the possible construction inconveniences. Staffers attribute worries about Phoenix House, once again, to NIMBY.

Being on the battlefront and trying to find common ground with both residents and the council is far from what the office was when Meyer accepted the position in 1973.

Claire Davis, a secretary in the office and the only original staff member remembers:

“There was nothing here,” she said, recalling that when the office was formed under former Mayor Sam Yorty, there was just Davis, a telephone and a typewriter. “If we got a letter concerning barking dogs, we’d send it along to Animal Regulation. We had one committee, and it rarely met.” Meyer, Davis said, improved things by forming education and transportation committees and instituting an open-door policy for constituents.

On a typical day on the 4th floor, anywhere from two to three dozen telephone calls are fielded. Usually, someone is complaining about city services or voicing an opinion on light rail or restricted parking, or reporting that a tree needs trimming.

Opinions on major policy matters are noted and forwarded downtown. Tree trimming, potholes and barking dogs are another matter.

“We’ll take down the information and coordinate with the proper council office to find out if they are aware of the problem,” Bustamante said, explaining that some residents call both offices out of a sense of frustration.

Committee Meetings

Bustamante and co-worker Azzari spend much of the day on committees or local advisory councils, with both representatives dealing with problems concerning the homeless, social services, alcohol, senior citizens and the gay and lesbian communities.

Then there are those problems, like the rhino lady, with less serious implications that usually seem to peak when the moon is full.

“The Detergent Man,” so nicknamed because he would call once a month from a Laundromat--Davis could hear the machines in the background--and complain about non-biodegradable laundry soaps poisoning the atmosphere and environment. Another caller was convinced that everyone she met was an illegal alien, and why wasn’t the mayor’s office getting rid of them?

“A person came in recently saying she had spoken to the mayor and was wondering where he was,” recalled Azzari. Informed that the mayor could not have called because he was in Korea attending the Olympic Games, she shot back, “Then he called me long distance.” The woman also claimed sole responsibility for bringing the 1984 Games to Los Angeles.

“People still feel that sense of city hall and government not working for them because it’s not accessible,” Bustamante said, commenting on the importance of the Valley office. “To call up somebody downtown who might never have been in the Valley is not real,” he said. “There’s not a connection from one person to another. Having it in the Valley makes it real.”