Councilman, Developer’s Attorney Square Off : Fryman Canyon: A builder attempts to construct a fence around the 63-acre site, but Michael Woo wants the work stopped.

Fryman Canyon. A rustic and tranquil getaway spot from urban worries? Hardly.

In fact, the controversial Studio City canyon--center of an increasingly tense development fight--seemed more on the edge of chaos than on the edge of a lazy curve of Mulholland Drive on Friday.

An effort by the developer to construct a fence around the 63-acre site set off an hours-long squabble with environmentalists that featured name-calling and threats, all dutifully recorded by news cameras. After it was all over, the fence was still going up, even though Councilman Michael Woo said he thought it was illegal. Meanwhile, environmentalists discussed plans for a protest march to save the canyon as the fight over it began reaching bizarrely theatrical proportions.

“The stress level is getting pretty high” at Fryman Canyon, Woo said.

At one point Friday, a normally mild-mannered Woo, in a purple polka-dotted bow tie, was going mano-a-mano with attorney Benjamin M. Reznik, packing a constantly ringing mobile phone, who represents developer Fred Sahadi. “The work on this fence is going to stop,” Woo firmly told Reznik.

“I just spoke to Art Johnson and he said it was his opinion that work on this fence constitutes work” not allowed by the city without a valid permit, Woo continued forcefully, his slim figure growing taut as reporters looked on. Johnson is an official with the city Building and Safety Department.

“Since when is it illegal to fence off one’s own property?” Reznik shot back, his voice rising an octave or two. “You don’t need a permit from the city to do that.”

His voice rising too, Woo replied, “Then we’ll use whatever legal authority we have to stop this.”

But by the end of the day it was still unclear if building and safety would eventually live up to Woo’s expectations and stop Sahadi’s methodical installation of the five-foot-tall chain-link fence around the northern perimeter of Fryman Canyon.

Friday’s pandemonium at Fryman began with the fence, and breathless phone calls from the canyon’s environmentalist/guardian angels to various public officials and news media that new depredations were occurring at the woodsy site in the Studio City hills. Round one occurred several days ago, when a woman blocked the entrance of the canyon with her Mercedes to prevent work from starting.

Round two began as a reporter approached the scene Friday and heard marriage therapist Judy Marx loudly moaning that Sahadi’s fence crews had “chopped down a major branch of an oak tree.” Her dogs, Meiko and J.D., nosed at a policeman’s foot, apparently unperturbed by their mistress’s anguish.

Nearby, Diana Brueggemann, a Woo aide, was echoing Marx’s lament and punching at a mobile phone to summon help from Mayor Tom Bradley’s legal counsel, Jane Ellison. Ellison later showed up carrying her son, Sam, 7 months old, in a papooselike sling. “I’m on maternity leave,” she said.

More car-phoning was undertaken in an attempt to get a final determination on the legality of the fence. The fence continued going up. Officials huddled. Police officers conversed with a construction foreman.

An elderly man jogged through the milling crowd. He had headphones on and carried a cane.

Larry Burks, a top Board of Public Works official arrived and warned Reznik that at Woo’s request the board had revoked the developer’s construction permit.

A murmur went up that the fence had been stopped. It was a false alarm. The fence work went on.

Reznik returned from his Jaguar and a mobile phone talk to announce that Sahadi would be in court Monday to seek reinstatement of the construction permit. More confusion and mumbling. “You should be in therapy,” Marx yelled at Reznik. “You are going to send me into therapy,” Reznik said with a laugh.

Reznik did an interview next. Why the fence? he was asked. So construction work could proceed “in a safe and workmanlike manner,” he replied.

Then the bombshell.

“We’re not going to let people climb through these hills and mountains and do crazy things that create liability on my client’s part,” Reznik said. Does that mean Sahadi is going to try to keep people off all the property? Reznik said yes.

“Did you hear that?” said a shocked Daryce Richman-Cooper, dressed in striped skin-tight slacks. Richman-Cooper is another Fryman defender.

Later, Marx and Richman-Cooper said they may contest Sahadi’s right to prevent the public to use some 32 acres of his property. That property was supposed to have been deeded over to a state parks agency several years ago but somehow was not.

“Maybe we should have a rally this weekend and march onto the property, “ Marx said.