Carwash Supporters to ‘Fax Wachs’ : Monument Advocates Dial Last-Ditch Appeal to Councilman

Studio City leaders hope electronics can keep their save-the-carwash campaign from bursting like an overblown soap bubble.

Residents said they will set up a facsimile machine at the carwash counter on Monday so carwash supporters can ask Los Angeles City Councilman Joel Wachs to use his influence to get the structure designated a city cultural monument.

Studio City residents have pressed for the monument designation as a way of delaying demolition of the carwash and a Unocal gas station and Tiny Naylor’s coffee shop by a developer who wants to build a $15-million mini-mall at the corner of Ventura and Laurel Canyon boulevards.

Wachs, whose council district includes the corner, is chairman of the council’s Recreation, Library and Cultural Affairs Committee.

That committee oversees the city’s Cultural Affairs Department, whose Cultural Heritage Commission on Wednesday rejected a bid to designate the carwash as a cultural landmark.

“We’re starting the ‘Fax Wachs’ program,” Jack McGrath, the carwash campaign’s organizer, said Friday. “It will be instantaneous democracy.”

Hours after the commission’s 4-0 vote, McGrath urged Wachs to ignore the commission action and ask council colleagues to approve the cultural designation anyway.

Wachs said late Friday he did not know what he will do.

“I haven’t really decided,” he said. “I’ll talk to a few people next week and review the commission testimony. I’ll talk to both sides before coming to a conclusion.”

Greg Nelson, one of Wachs’ chief deputies, said his staff was researching a series of questions about the carwash that the councilman raised Friday. The primary one is whether Wachs can legally take up the issue.

Carwash supporter Walter McIntyre said he tested the “Wachs Fax” on Friday by sending a letter to the councilman that characterized the carwash’s 55-foot-tall boomerang-shaped tower as “an above-ground time capsule” that could be used to illustrate the 1950s to Studio City residents in the 2050s.

A landmark designation would delay demolition of the carwash for up to one year. McIntyre said that would give the community time to come up with a way of incorporating the carwash, gas station and coffee shop into developer Ira Smedra’s proposed two-story Laurel Promenade project.

“Council members pay attention to what’s going on in their districts. I’m optimistic,” McGrath said.