A Quiet Kind of Victory

There were a couple of victory celebrations the other night about as different in style and tone as Hulk Hogan from Walter Cronkite.

One celebration was loud and exuberant, full of the showy kinds of elation that manifests itself with high fives, slap-shakes and oceans of beer.

It was held at the Forum the day the Lakers beat the Boston Celtics by a half-dozen points.

There were 17,000 people in attendance that Sunday and at least 70% of them must have been Lakers fans, judging from the noise they were making.

They jumped and hugged and bellowed like buffaloes in heat.

The other party of which I speak was a sedate, almost funereal gathering in a room off the lobby of the Marriott Hotel in Woodland Hills.

Well, yes, there was subdued laughter and polite applause among the 150 or so who came together for a victory reception, but nothing like the controlled pandemonium I had witnessed a few hours earlier.

There were no high-fives, no slap-shakes and sure as hell no bellowing. They sipped white wine and air-kissed and said wasn’t it nice to get rain for a change?

But the highest triumph of a democratic process was being observed here, the true glory of a people’s free will translated into law.

These were neighbors who had reduced the arrogance of a giant land developer to muttered bewilderment, and they hadn’t needed Magic Johnson to do it.

I watched the Lakers game from a $90 seat provided by a guy named Gary Sanderson, who used to be a copy boy at the Oakland Tribune. He grew up to be director of corporate relations for the Pacific Telesis Group, which goes to show what you can learn running copy.

Bob Gross, who is president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, invited me to the Marriott reception, which cost $5 to get in. He led the quiet victory celebration of the homeowners over a contractor who wanted to build $150 million worth of high-rise buildings in their neighborhood.

This was a far more significant victory than the one achieved by the Lakers, despite the lopsided difference in the celebrations.

The Lakers have beaten the Celtics many times in the past, but Homeowners almost never beat Land Developers. This win is unique.

We’re talking here about the Warner Ridge Project in Woodland Hills.

Developer Albert Spound wanted to construct seven office buildings in the middle of a suburban neighborhood.

The people learned of it through a rezoning notice, discovered what was going on, and the fat hit the fan, sort of.

“Not in our neighborhood,” they said. While it lacked an accompaniment of trumpets, it was more of a battle cry than Spound had ever anticipated.

The people got together, raised money, hit the telephone, circulated petitions, searched records and began pounding on the door of City Councilwoman Joy Picus.

Picus counts land developers if not among her dearest friends at least among her dearest financial supporters.

But something’s been happening in L.A. The people are speaking up and the legislators are listening. Money doesn’t always talk. Votes count too.

About 18 months ago, Topanga Canyon beat back a $100-million mountain resort called Montevideo.

The project included everything but an NFL stadium. It would have been an obscenity against nature in the rolling hills overlooking the San Fernando Valley.

Topangans are not a subdued people. They raised hell to such a degree that even County Supervisor Mike Antonovich was forced to listen. Up until then, Mike was to land developers what Sandy was to Little Orphan Annie.

His strongest objection to their rampant construction was a mild “arf.”

But when vote time came, Antonovich arfed with the people. Maybe it was the waving pitchforks that did it. Who knows? Down went Montevideo.

They didn’t wave pitchforks around Warner Ridge. They handed Joy Picus petitions bearing 5,000 names, and they leaned, quietly but steadily, for almost four years.

It was the political equivalent of a full court press.

Spound fought back with publicists, lobbyists, lawyers and an elegant dinner for those in the neighborhood who tilted his way.

But in the end, Picus went with the people and manipulated Spound’s defeat before the City Council with the virtuosity of a tightrope walker. She stayed up, but down went the Warner Ridge Project.

Victory can be measured in many ways, by points or by the cries of a powerful land developer ground under by the will of the people.

It terms of social significance, the latter prevailed last Sunday. How sweet it was.