W. Hollywood Civic Center Foes Confident : Bond Defeat Buoys Park Group

Bolstered by the defeat of a bond issue to build a new fire station and library in West Hollywood, opponents of a long-awaited civic center on Wednesday expressed renewed confidence in their effort to prevent the center from being built in West Hollywood Park.

“The people who thought you couldn’t fight City Hall and win now know you can, and the election should signal that we’re going to press ahead full steam,” said Tom Larkin, a leading opponent of the civic center who helped oppose the bond measure.

Despite the endorsement of four members of the City Council and support from the politically influential Coalition for Economic Survival, a renters’ rights group, voters on Tuesday rejected the proposal 1,928 to 1,764.

With a two-thirds vote needed for passage, the $8-million measure captured only 48% of the vote in a higher voter turnout than leaders on either side expected. It was the only local item on the ballot.

“I think the other side must have known they were going to lose, but I don’t think they ever expected that we would actually win a majority,” said City Councilman Steve Schulte, the only council member to oppose the bond issue.

Besides the election, opponents had another reason to celebrate. On Tuesday, the Los Angeles County registrar’s office announced that the Save Our Parks Alliance, a group formed to oppose the civic center, had obtained enough valid signatures to place an initiative on the April, 1990, ballot aimed at preventing the center from being built in the park.

“It’s like a double whammy for us,” said Larkin, the group’s chairman. “It’s been quite a week.”

He and others portrayed the election as a referendum on the civic center, claiming the bond issue was a backhanded attempt to squeeze more money for the center, since the fire station and library were originally part of the center’s design.

Had it been approved, the measure would have increased property taxes by up to $33.47 per $100,000 of assessed valuation over the next 20 years. The money would have been used to replace a single-engine fire station that officials have said is seismically unsafe, as well as quadruple the size of the county branch library that serves West Hollywood.

Angered by plans to use scarce park space to build a civic center, opponents argued that the city should dip into its $14-million reserve fund to pay for the fire station and library and then let voters decide whether the center is built.

Supporters of the bond issue tried to frame the election as an attempt to undermine rent control, noting that three of the council members supporting the measure --John Heilman, Abbe Land and Mayor Helen Albert--are on the 25-member steering committee of the Coalition for Economic Survival.

And on Wednesday, Heilman continued to sound that theme.

Commitment Questioned

“They (the opponents) don’t have any commitment to the park or to the civic center. Tom Larkin and his friends wanted a vehicle to attack us, and they found it,” Heilman said.

In interviews, he and Land rejected the idea that the election reflected anti-civic center sentiment.

“This election wasn’t about the civic center, as hard as the other side would like to make us believe that,” Land said.

Land, who will become mayor next week as part of an annual rotation, accused opponents of the measure of “jeopardizing the safety of West Hollywood residents” by opposing the bond issue “since they know that without the bond issue the city doesn’t have the money to build the station.”

However, Schulte dismissed the accusation as “the same thing we’ve heard all along,” and offered to join Land “in bringing a sensible plan to the council within the next two weeks to build a fire station.”

Fire Station Support

“Contrary to the way the other side has tried to paint it, we’ve never opposed the fire station,” he said. “What we’ve objected to is the backhanded attempt to make a down payment on the civic center by using a bond measure, when there are higher priorities we should be giving attention.”

Schulte said he resented a campaign mailer sent out by proponents with the message that “our pro-tenant council members” supported the measure.

“There are five pro-tenant members on the council,” Schulte said, referring to himself. “I think anyone can see from the (election) results that there were a lot of tenants who opposed this thing.”

The bond issue would have provided $4.3 million to build the fire station, and $3.3 million for the library, with the remaining $400,000 to cover bond fees and other financial costs.

New Facilities

Had the measure passed, a two-engine fire station would have been built to replace the existing single-engine station on a narrow residential street that officials acknowledge is seismically unsafe.

The 21,000-square-foot library proposed in the bond measure was to have included up to 6,000 square feet to house the International Gay and Lesbian Archives, an extensive private collection of gay and lesbian research materials whose owners have expressed a desire to see them placed permanently in West Hollywood.

While the county provides library and fire services to West Hollywood, officials have said that county funds are not available to replace either facility.

For civic center opponents, word that enough valid signatures had been collected to qualify the initiative for the ballot came as welcome news after a similar effort failed last year.

Larkin’s group submitted 2,806 signatures last July, but after an official count by the registrar’s office the group fell 344 valid signatures short of the number needed then to place the initiative on the 1990 ballot.

Enough Signatures

In its revived effort, the group was able to collect almost half the signatures on Election Day last November, and last month submitted 3,358 signatures to the city clerk’s office. On Tuesday, the registrar’s office said 2,459 of the signatures were valid, 277 more than the minimum needed to qualify the initiative for the ballot.

However, city officials who support building the civic center in the park, including a majority of council members, have hinted that they may try to challenge the legality of the initiative.

City Atty. Michael Jenkins has already been asked to determine whether a 1963 court case involving a park in Fresno may have set a precedent that may be used to deny the initiative a place on the ballot.

City Manager Paul Brotzman has said that Jenkins is likely to render an opinion on the matter “sometime within the next month.”