Nancy Reagan Withdraws Support for Drug Facility

Former First Lady Nancy Reagan on Friday unexpectedly withdrew her support from a drug treatment and research center in Lake View Terrace, saying she “respects the concerns of the neighborhood.”

Organizers of the proposed Nancy Reagan Center said her decision will kill plans to locate the $10-million, 210-bed facility at the former Lake View Medical Center in the northeast San Fernando Valley.

For more than a year, neighbors had fought the proposal, complaining that it would damage property values and attract crime and drugs to their streets. They held numerous rallies, letter-writing campaigns and petition drives--while Mrs. Reagan helped raise funds for the project at gala affairs featuring celebrities and political supporters.

Mrs. Reagan’s announcement was made Friday morning by her spokesman, Mark Weinberg, shortly before members of her staff met with representatives of area residents.

“She regrets that this situation has upset members of the community,” Weinberg said.

The Nancy Reagan Center was to be the core of Mrs. Reagan’s post-White House anti-drug efforts, with room for 150 live-in adolescents, 60 adults, a drug counselor training program and a research center. She had planned to have an office there.

More than half of the estimated $10 million needed to buy and renovate the former hospital buildings was raised at events endorsed by Mrs. Reagan, according to Phoenix House Inc., the nonprofit organization planning the center. Where the money will go now was unknown.

Weinberg said Mrs. Reagan will continue her “Just Say No” to drugs crusade “without missing a beat,” but he would not comment on whether it will include a similar center located elsewhere. He also would not say whether she will continue to work with Phoenix House.

However, Phoenix House representatives said they would look for another location in the Los Angeles area.

“Our understanding is that the Nancy Reagan Center will operate in a site other than the Lake View Terrace site,” said spokesman Chris Policano.

Those who live near the former hospital were pleased by Mrs. Reagan’s announcement but puzzled by its timing.

“We made hundreds of phone calls to her, sent her letters and petitions with about 1,200 signatures. We picketed her fund-raiser,” said Lynne Cooper, president of the Lake View Terrace Improvement Assn. “Who knows? Maybe the mail finally reached her office.”

Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi, whose district includes Lake View Terrace, said the announcement was “a victory for the community and the leaders.”

“If we had quit protesting a year ago, we never would’ve heard from Nancy Reagan,” he said.

Change of Heart

Mrs. Reagan’s decision seemed to indicate a change of heart since February, when The Times asked Weinberg what the former First Lady thought about the community opposition. Weinberg said at the time that Mrs. Reagan was “sorry,” but “she is also aware that everyone agrees we need to be treating our kids, but they say, ‘Please don’t do it in this neighborhood.’ ”

Lewis Snow, who met with Reagan staff members Friday as vice president of the Lake View Terrace Home Owners Assn., said he was “absolutely floored” by the sudden pullout. When he was asked to attend the meeting, Snow said, he had assumed that Reagan’s staff members wanted to quiz him about a homeowner protest he had organized for June 4 outside the Reagans’ Bel-Air home.

The only explanation he received was that Mrs. Reagan did not want to forge ahead without “total community backing,” Snow said. But he said he “got the feeling she was very upset with the way Phoenix House had handled the program, in terms of public relations, because it had polarized the community.”

Phoenix House operates 10 centers nationwide, six in New York and four in California. All faced some degree of community opposition before they were opened, but few continued to be controversial once they were in operation.

Mrs. Reagan visited a Phoenix House center in New York during former President Ronald Reagan’s first term in office and chose the site to publicly launch part of her anti-drug campaign.

‘It’s for the Kids’

City Council candidate Lyle Hall, who is among the few local Phoenix House supporters, said he was disappointed that the organization had decided not to proceed in Lake View Terrace without Mrs. Reagan.

“I hoped they would go forward with the rehabilitation program, at least, because it’s for the kids and not necessarily for Nancy Reagan’s credit,” Hall said.

The controversial proposal was approved by a city zoning administrator in March but his decision was appealed to the Board of Zoning Appeals by both Phoenix House and neighborhood residents.

The Board of Zoning Appeals was scheduled to hear the case on June 27. Each side had vowed to appeal any unfavorable decision to the City Council and continue into the courts if necessary.

Opponents speculated that the loss of Mrs. Reagan’s support would have gutted fund-raising efforts for the Lake View Terrace site.

“They primarily fed on her name. . . . It’s the key to getting financial donors,” said Fred Taylor, a Pacoima community activist who organized meetings to explore alternative sites for the facility. “That’s like rain before a baseball game. It’s a rainy day for Phoenix House.”

Fund-raising events included a May, 1988, breakfast for Mrs. Reagan hosted by longtime friend Merv Griffin in the garden of his Beverly Hills home. In January, the proposed center received the proceeds from a welcome-home dinner for the President and Mrs. Reagan at the Beverly Hilton, where a traffic jam of limousines transported supporters such as actress Joan Collins to a $1,000-a-plate dinner.

Sources close to the Reagans said those events were intended to raise money for Mrs. Reagan’s anti-drug efforts, which at that time focused on the Lake View Terrace drug treatment center. But one source said it was unclear whether the money will stay with Phoenix House now that she has changed her mind about the Lake View Terrace site.

Pamela Powell, development director for Phoenix House, said she knew “nothing at all” about the center’s financial arrangements.