2 Voices Claim They Speak for Encino : Rivalry: The 10-square-mile area’s property owners can choose from groups whose approaches to development and other issues clash. Most people don’t belong to either one.

Jerry Silver remembers his frustration a decade ago when the tactics of his fellow slow-growth activists included passing out sweets at City Hall.

As he saw it, the Encino Property Owners Assn. was “getting kicked in the teeth by the City Council” while naively giving council members boxes of See’s candy. “I felt that they should take a much tougher stance on development,” said Gerald A. Silver, who formed his own organization in 1980 after being voted off the association’s board.

The association no longer distributes the modest gifts--remembered by Vice President Kathy Lewis as simply “a token to let them know we were interested in communicating with them.” But the association’s friendly approach endures, as does its sharp philosophical difference with Silver and his more militant splinter group, Homeowners of Encino.

Pick any issue or building project that affects Encino residents and, chances are, the groups’ approaches will differ--one using sugar, the other castor oil. Most recently, they have disagreed over the best way to reduce the size of a large building planned for the northeast corner of Ventura Boulevard and Hayvenhurst Avenue.

Of the roughly 35 homeowner groups in the San Fernando Valley, none seem to have such an intense rivalry or clash of styles as the two in tony, 10-square-mile Encino. Homeowners of Encino passes out petitions, not candy, Silver is fond of saying. The Encino Property Owners Assn. aims for results, not headlines, retort Lewis and group President Robert L. Glushon.

Silver is accused of being a self-proclaimed “voice of Encino” without a valid constituency; Glushon is criticized for representing developers in his private legal practice.

“Encino is unique in the fact that there are two homeowner groups that sometimes work together and sometimes are diametrically opposed,” said Gordon Murley, president of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns., an umbrella organization that includes both Encino groups.

“I would say Jerry Silver’s group is much more adamant about good, controlled growth with infrastructure being in place before anything else is done, whereas over the years, the Encino Property Owners Assn. has been more conciliatory and more willing to negotiate a settlement than the other one.”

Both groups are effective in different ways and, if there is a pattern, it might be this: The vigilant Silver becomes alarmed over a development proposal and wastes no time contacting neighbors, public officials and news reporters with his concerns. He finds a gimmick to delay construction plans. Then the Encino Property Owners Assn. steps in, decides which issues to target, meets with the developer and wrests concessions for the neighborhood.

If there weren’t such obvious disdain between the two groups, it might seem as though they were playing out the Not-in-My-Back-Yard version of good cop-bad cop.

“EPOA’s style is to learn the ropes and participate more regularly” within the city’s political system, said Cindy Miscikowski, chief deputy to Councilman Marvin Braude, whose district includes Encino. “Jerry is most adept at getting his point across in the media.”

Encino residents benefit by having both groups, said Miscikowski and Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn.

“The more groups involved, the better,” Close said. “The goal is to put pressure on city officials and the more there are, and the more vocal the groups are, the better.”

Both groups opposed the $115-million project at Ventura and Hayvenhurst when it was originally unveiled as a 375,000-square-foot complex of shops, offices and a six-screen movie house.

In the past few months, however, Property Owners has been cautiously supportive of a compromise that would eliminate the theaters and stores, shave off about 40,000 square feet in floor space and exempt the project from the proposed Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan, a new set of zoning regulations that will affect all 17 miles of the Valley’s “Main Street.”

Homeowners of Encino, meanwhile, rejects the proposed compromise. It wants a reduction to five buildings of 39,500 square feet each, for a total of 197,500 square feet--an alternative studied in the developer’s own environmental impact report.

Said Silver, in typical outrage: “They’re willing to settle for crumbs! When a developer says he wants 377,000 square feet and they say we worked out a deal for 335,000 square feet? Come on! That’s no deal.”

Said Glushon: “It’s a question of tactics and strategies.”

As Glushon sees it, project opponents had two options: fight the developer’s plans with a lawsuit and risk losing in court, or target the most odious thing about the proposed building--its theaters and shops and the traffic they would generate.

“Our only disagreement in strategy has been Jerry’s effort to just go forward and oppose the project without establishing any dialogue or other conditions,” Glushon said. “And our position has been that you can’t cut off that dialogue. You’ve got to fight for the best result you can get.”

Last summer, Gardena builder Gerald Katell found himself caught between the two groups while seeking a building permit for a relatively modest office building of 140,000 square feet at the northeast corner of Ventura and Balboa boulevards.

Katell’s firm met with both homeowner groups and worked out an agreement with Property Owners, promising use of a community room, free parking on weekends and a well-landscaped building if the association did not oppose the project.

But Homeowners of Encino challenged Katell’s right to a building permit and demanded the preparation of a full environmental impact report--an expensive, time-consuming process. In the meantime, Silver formed an unlikely coalition of suburbanites and American Indians to highlight the site’s proximity to the “Lost Village of Encino,” a large, centuries-old Indian village excavated in 1984.

Silver ultimately lost the battle for the environmental report. But the city Building and Safety Commission agreed with Silver that officials had overlooked the need for archeological precautions. The commission told Katell to hire an archeologist and American Indian as construction consultants, in case any significant artifacts turned up.

Most significantly, by seizing upon the archeology issue, Silver was able to delay Katell’s project nearly four months--just long enough for the commercial real estate market to go soft. Today, Katell’s building site remains unused while he tries to secure tenants and financing.

“With the other group, we got feedback, whereas with Silver, we were not able to do that,” Katell said recently. “It was adversarial.”

The contrasting styles of Encino’s homeowner associations are embodied in their presidents--the strident Silver, 58, a college business administration instructor, and the smooth Glushon, 37, a land-use attorney.

Silver was 11 when his family moved to Los Angeles from Omaha, and he waxes nostalgic about raising his own four children in North Hollywood during the 1950s and ‘60s--”a delightful time” when he could pick them up from school, run several errands and still make the children’s 4 o’clock music lesson.

“You could park in front of stores, in front of shops,” said Silver, who moved to Encino in 1978. “There were no parking meters. The streets were open. People lived in single-family homes.

“Today, you cannot park in front of the stores. There are parking meters, and the streets off Ventura Boulevard are clogged,” he said.

Silver, who first became an activist fighting airplane noise in the late 1950s, readily acknowledges that he would turn back the clock if he could. Fighting overdevelopment is a time-consuming task, but his schedule at Los Angeles City College, plus royalties from textbooks he has written, enable him to attend daytime hearings, pore over files at City Hall, prepare exhaustive briefs and pass out flyers in the neighborhood.

“One of my favorite flyers of his was called, ‘Nightmare on Gaviota Street,’ ” said Miscikowski, Braude’s deputy. “He’s inflammatory in a way, but he gets people’s attention.”

Silver also enjoys an ample amount of media attention--too much, contend Glushon and others who question the size of Silver’s constituency.

“Anyone can form their own organization,” Glushon said. “He doesn’t get under my skin at all except when he is quoted in the media as representing the homeowners and residents of Encino saying they don’t want rail transportation. He’s not representing the majority of people in Encino.”

It is difficult to verify the memberships of homeowner groups, which are private, nonprofit organizations. The Encino Property Owners Assn., one of the oldest homeowner groups in the Valley, claims a membership of about 1,000 households. Homeowners of Encino claims about 300 households.

With Encino’s population at about 43,000, according to 1990 population projections, neither group can claim to represent a majority.

What he lacks in constituency, however, Silver makes up for in zeal.

“ We don’t give five-pound boxes of chocolate,” Silver said, relishing the role of needler and outsider.

Glushon, on the other hand, does not dispute Silver’s characterization of him as a political insider. He said he is proud of his work for Councilmen Marvin Braude, Joel Wachs and Zev Yaroslavsky.

An Encino native, Glushon worked as Braude’s Valley field representative from 1977 to 1981. He was a student intern for Wachs and participated in Yaroslavsky’s aborted 1989 mayoral campaign in the Valley. He also served on Mayor Tom Bradley’s Telecommunications Commission and Environmental Quality Review Board.

The tanned, business-suited Glushon fits into upscale Encino more neatly than Silver, a graying, paunchy man recognizable by his trademark beard, neatly pressed sports shirts and Western belt buckle.

“I’m proud of my background at City Hall and it actually has worked to the advantage of EPOA in using those connections . . . on a wide variety of issues,” Glushon said.

Glushon, in his second year as Property Owners president, sees himself as a mediator whose legal and political expertise can help bring about compromise between builders and residents. He recognizes the rights of property owners but feels that they should also respect the wishes of their neighbors.

Homeowner groups need to pick their battles, he said. “You have to distinguish between what is inevitable and . . . get as much as you can to protect the community,” Glushon said, “and where you draw the line, and fight to stop something that is stoppable.”

Sometimes Glushon represents developers in his private legal practice; clients have included builders in Woodland Hills, Panorama City and Tarzana.

Glushon said he also represents homeowners, however, and scrupulously refuses to take developer clients from Encino to avoid even the appearance of a conflict of interest. Still, Murley of the Federation of Hillside and Canyon Assns. said he considers Glushon’s dual role inappropriate.

“We’ve always had a problem with people in real estate, or attorneys representing developers, representing homeowners. We feel it’s a conflict of interest,” said Murley, who fought one of Glushon’s clients, the West Hills Condominiums, as president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Assn.

The 80-unit project became mired in a controversy over its building permits two years ago during its final phase of construction. The outcome, which allowed the buildings to be higher than neighbors wanted, left Murley and some nearby residents bitter.

More recently, Glushon’s work on behalf of a townhouse builder in Panorama City was praised both by neighbors and aides to Wachs, who credited Glushon with persuading developer Barry Shy to listen to community concerns.

“He’s really helped to open communication between the developer, the council office and the community,” said Arlene De Sanctis, Wachs’ chief deputy for planning in the Valley. The project at Nordhoff Street and Willis Avenue is in Wachs’ district.

“I think people always wonder when they hear somebody’s the head of a homeowners group, how they can do that, how they can juggle it,” De Sanctis said of Glushon. “But I know in this case he seemed to very fairly represent the developer and the constituency also.”

Glushon won’t rule out a future political career, although he said supporting his wife and three children precludes that now. Silver, meanwhile, shuns the idea as strongly as he shunned the See’s candy.

“If I had political aspirations, I would not be working so hard to become unpopular,” Silver said. “And let me tell you why I don’t have political aspirations--because politicians by their nature have to represent both sides.

“I don’t want to bring a balance. I want to represent my personal interests and those of my neighbors. And we are not about to sit around and bring about compromise.”