Public Relations Blitz Staged for the Ritz : Development: At dinner meetings, representatives try to persuade Rancho Palos Verdes residents to back Barry Hon’s Ritz Carlton development.

It’s a Wednesday night high in the hills of Rancho Palos Verdes and Marion Ruth, microphone in hand, is stumping for a developer hoping to build a tony Ritz Carlton resort on the city’s coastline.

“We want you to leave here as our goodwill ambassadors,” she tells 65 or so of her neighbors, who have been invited to a private home to learn about builder Barry Hon’s proposed resort and to dine on a buffet dinner of Parmesan chicken and sauteed zucchini.

Later, after the Orange County developer’s aide, Peter Herman, has delivered his spiel and answered audience questions, Ruth proselytizes the group, urging them to contact City Council members and voice support for the resort.

“We must get in touch with every councilman, not once, but twice!” said Ruth, a local real estate agent who believes the hotel will be an asset to the city.

So it goes in the public relations blitz launched by Hon to win the hearts and minds of residents and city officials for the 450-room Ritz Carlton he wants to build on one of the last large, undeveloped pieces of land along the coveted Los Angeles County coastline.

Besides staging dinner parties to enlist support for his project, Hon, through his company, Palos Verdes Land Holdings Co., is working to assemble a large group of residents to lobby for the resort. He also has given thousands of dollars to local cultural and charitable groups.

“The days you go and just blow something through (City Hall) are long past, I believe,” Herman said.

But Hon’s tactics don’t sit well with Councilman Robert Ryan. Hon’s version of the American Dream, Ryan asserts, is to “try to buy his way into town.”

“He is appealing to our elite,” Ryan said. “And when you get these people at dinner parties, they say he must be nice because he’s got clean fingernails.”

On a smaller scale, Hon’s public relations tactics are also being used in the city by the Monaghan Co. The Arizona-based company, which wants to build a 495-room hotel and 80 homes on the site of the former Marineland aquatic park, has hired a public relations firm and put together its own citizens group to lend support to its project.

And the Zuckerman Building Co. of Los Angeles, a family-owned firm that has built many Palos Verdes Peninsula homes, has signed up its own public relations firm, mainly to wage war against Hon.

Hon would like to acquire 140 acres of Zuckerman property for a golf course and homes next to the hotel. The Zuckermans, who are opposed to the hotel, want to put their own housing development on their land.

“We have always taken the position we had to level the playing field with the big guys,” Peggy Zuckerman said.

All this activity comes at a time when the city’s environmentalists and others have expressed fear that the community, particularly the coastline, is being threatened by overdevelopment. During last fall’s City Council election, the two hotel projects were the main topic of political debate, and they have continued to be.

Even though both hotel projects are still in the early planning stages, some residents in recent weeks have urged council members that the city’s voters should ultimately decide how the coastline should be developed.

“Most of the people who live here came here because of the semi-rural environment,” said Alan Carlan, a longtime resident who ran unsuccessfully for a council seat last November on a platform that called for public preservation of the city’s coastal land.

Hon, who in 1987 became the city’s largest landholder when he acquired about 850 acres in various parts of the city, began his bid to win public support for a Ritz Carlton at the urging of some council members.

Since zoning for hotels was not considered when city officials zoned the coastal area, the council encouraged him to “take his show on the road” to test public sentiment, according to Councilwoman Jacki Bacharach.

To accomplish that task, Hon has heavily relied on Herman. Before joining Hon’s company as a vice president for special projects, Herman was on the staff of Orange County Supervisor Thomas Riley, assigned to work with developers and community groups.

“In my last job, I felt full disclosure by the development industry was the right way to go, and that is what we are doing in this project,” Herman said.

Over the past 30 months, Herman estimates that he has met with at least 50 neighborhood associations and other community groups to explain the Ritz project. Shortly after last fall’s election, he hired Peggy Lambie, a 14-year resident of Rancho Palos Verdes who is active in numerous local organizations, to assist him. One area where she has been invaluable, Herman says, has been in introducing him to the city’s “opinion leaders.”

Although he did not have a precise figure, Herman said the company has contributed perhaps as much as $15,000 to various city groups, including the Peninsula Education Foundation, the Norris Theatre and an organization that raises money to support shelters and other programs for the homeless. Herman defends the contributions, saying Hon typically makes them in cities where he has projects.

“Our company and the Ritz Carlton both have a long and documentable legacy of being involved in community activities,” Herman said. “We think it is right and proper to be involved in community groups.”

Both Herman and Hon say a major thrust of the public relations campaign is to get supporters of the resort complex to make their feelings known to city officials. Besides urging them to attend public hearings and speak on behalf of the project, supporters are also being urged to write letters to council members.

“Unfortunately for us, the people who are in favor are not strident, shrill-voiced people,” Hon said, referring to the critics of development who often speak at City Council meetings. “If you measure the decibel level, we don’t always come out on top.”

Hon has been selling the resort on the basis that it would be an architectural gem built in a Northern Italian motif. There would also be public tennis courts and an 18-hole golf course, as well as an extensive network of public trails and parks and ocean viewing areas.

No matter how many people may support Hon’s proposed resort, Cathy Manning, a local environmentalist who has spoken out against what she considers excessive development, said most people living on the peninsula simply do not favor any large-scale projects.

“The majority of people are very strongly against the level of development currently contemplated,” Manning said, referring both to Hon’s project and Monaghan’s proposed hotel. “There is no way the majority of people are with Barry Hon.”

The idea to hold dinner parties was Marion Ruth’s. Ruth, who owns a real estate firm, said she decided that the parties would be a good way to reach out to those who might support the resort and get them involved.

Despite fears voiced by some critics that the resort will increase traffic woes, Ruth said she does not believe that will happen because traffic to and from resorts is not heavy during peak hours.

Ruth also said the resort would provide the city with a five-star hotel complete with fine restaurants and a place to hold weddings, receptions and meetings. At present, local residents sometimes have to travel far outside the community to find such amenities, she said.

Several people who attended the Wednesday night dinner echoed those sentiments. As they sipped cocktails, they mulled over a model of the project that was about the size of a large dining room table, inspecting its architecture and the layout of the golf course.

One guest, Ann Wonder, said she had a “few ambivalent feelings,” and was worried that the resort might increase traffic on peninsula roads. Another, Cindy Chew, a Rolling Hills Estates resident, said she could support the hotel providing that Hon makes good on his promise to allow public access to the golf course as well as the tennis courts.

“It’s a package,” she said.

Lambie said afterward that of those who were invited, there were only seven no-shows, and four of those people were ill. Other dinners have been scheduled throughout March, she said, adding that she has no problem finding willing guests.

“I actually have a waiting list of people,” she said.