Political Risks Swayed Picus on Warner Ridge Vote : City Council: Consultants dissecting the development dispute say gauging the will of constituents is a matter of survival.

Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus says proudly that she was championing the views of her constituents when she helped block the proposed Warner Ridge office complex in Woodland Hills.

But depositions in a $100-million lawsuit concerning the hotly debated project make clear that the will of the public on such matters is fickle and evanescent, and that divining public opinion is subjective, inexact and fraught with political risks.

In this case, for example, one homeowners group favored an office complex on the site, as did the usually influential Woodland Hills Chamber of Commerce and the administration at neighboring Pierce College. Two citizens committees--appointed by Picus--said offices would be appropriate for the 21.5-acre property.

Even so, another homeowners group, the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization, pressured Picus to come out against the project. So far, she has kept it from being built.

Rarely do development disputes heat up as this one has. How Picus weighed these competing interests offers an example of how City Council members--indeed, how most elected officials--are called upon to carefully gauge the views of their constituents. It’s a matter of political survival.

Each council member calibrates the scales they use to weigh such matters differently, depending on each one’s personal style, philosophy of governing and the degree of political vulnerability involved, council members and their aides said.

All council members hear from constituents via public hearings, correspondence and office visits, but many take additional steps, such as conducting polls, to take the public pulse on major issues.

Councilwoman Ruth Galanter, who represents Westside areas where concerns about growth run high, urges developers to air their projects before four unofficial advisory groups she formed.

Councilman Hal Bernson, who represents the northwest San Fernando Valley, said the views of the community are reflected by the citizens advisory committees he appoints when major issues, such as Porter Ranch, arise and he hews closely to their conclusions.

That philosophy, however, almost cost him reelection this year when opponents of the Porter Ranch project mounted an effective campaign against him.

Reflecting on Picus’ handling of the Warner Ridge case and the risks he took in backing Porter Ranch, Bernson said: “All I can say about Joy is that she’s listening to her constituents in order to avoid the kind of thing I went through . . . where I did what I thought was right and nearly lost my hide. She’s trying to avoid the same dilemma.”

But public officials shouldn’t always be persuaded by those screaming the loudest for attention, said William H. Lucy, a professor at the University of Virginia who has written several books about the politics of land-use decisions.

American citizens “expect representatives to be too much mirrors of who speaks loudest, rather than deliberators,” Lucy said.

“The problem of listening to those who speak loudest,” Lucy said, “is that they may very well be a minority, but they are the ones who have the strongest interests at the moment.”

Moreover, public opinion can change with lightning-like speed, especially when new information about an issue emerges. Developers and homeowners’ groups alike, these days, employ public relations consultants and other public opinion experts to have their views cast in a positive light and to demonstrate that they have widespread support.

But sheer numbers are not enough. Politicians also tend to consider the political stripes of those supporting each side of an issue, said Lynn Wessell, a Los Angeles political consultant for developers. He said council members listen most to the people who help them get elected, regardless of whether their views are in the majority.

“It is really government by special-interest group in various councilmanic districts,” Wessell said. “Ultimately they measure where their liabilities are and where they are not” in making decisions.

That was the challenge before Picus with Warner Ridge.

Between 1986 and 1988, she sat on the fence, telling both Warner Ridge Associates and the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization to demonstrate that their views were those of the majority.

When the debate started in 1986, the year a Picus-appointed advisory committee endorsed an office complex on Warner Ridge, few area residents were even aware of the proposal, said Bob Gross, president of the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization.

Only 70 very upset opponents turned out for an initial hearing on the proposal, Gross recalled. But encouraged by frequent mailings from the organization and meetings, 600 families eventually joined the group, largely to oppose the offices, Gross said.

The organizing worked. In an interview last week, Picus explained how she determined it would be to her political advantage to use whatever hardball tactics she could muster to block the proposed 810,000-square-foot office project.

“The main thrust came very, very clear from the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization and from the Carlton Terrace people, but it also came from a lot of other people,” she said.

Picus lives in the area and said she also heard complaints from her neighbors in the supermarket or at the shopping mall that the giant office complex could bring too much traffic and destroy the area’s residential character.

But the project’s developer charges that Picus took illegal steps to scuttle the project because she feared the Woodland Hills Homeowners Organization would mobilize against her during a tough reelection bid.

A deposition given by a Picus staff member in the Warner Ridge suit contends that Gross and his organization were poised to defeat Picus at the polls in 1989 if she failed to abide by their wishes. But Gross denies the charge and says that, in fact, neither he nor his group planned to become active in the election.

“Why would I threaten someone I’m trying to get something from?” he said.

Jack Spound, a partner in the proposed Warner Ridge development, also had sought to demonstrate support for his plans. He followed Picus’ advice to go door-to-door to explain the project. He sent out newsletters. And he modified the proposal in response to community concerns. He also collected 250 signatures from people who lived in the area who backed him.

In his deposition in the case, Spound said: “It was just as easy for her to support one part of her constituency rather than the other that was opposing” the project.

Nevertheless, in November of 1988, Picus told Spound that she would go against him.

“The councilwoman explained to us that she was opposing the project for political reasons, and that she wasn’t concerned with the merits of our project,” Spound said in his deposition. He said he believed she was “being misled by a vocal community, a minority.”

In fighting against the commercial project, Picus ignored the views of many residents, said Marie Anderson, secretary of the Warner Hill Homeowners Assn., which represents owners of the 66 townhouses near the property. The association has endorsed the office project.

“We sort of got left by the wayside,” Anderson said. “She lost interest in us.”

B.B. Maynard, another resident who wanted to see offices built, said he bears no grudge against Picus for opposing him.

“I think she is very definitely representing the great majority of the voters and homeowners in this area, those that cared about it,” he said.

Since Picus’ deposition became public this month, she has won praise for vigorously defending homeowners’ views. But ironically, the office complex never would have been proposed had not Picus been so faithful to what was politically popular, contends a former president of the city Planning Commission.

After a proposal to build condominiums at Warner Ridge angered the public in the late 1970s, Picus went to the city Planning Department in the early 1980s and asked it to recommend appropriate use for the property.

The department’s recommendation that low-rise offices be built at Warner Ridge was included in a 1984 General Plan for the area and was endorsed by an advisory committee appointed by Picus. Picus made the motion that the City Council adopt the plan, and it was adopted.

“The planning staff came up with the recommendation . . . and Picus’ office bought into the suggestion,” said Dan Garcia, who was president of the Planning Commission at the time the General Plan, which is supposed to be the bible for development in a community, was adopted. “It was precisely for that reason it was in the General Plan that way.”

“She started all this . . . and that’s the way it stood . . . until four years later she basically changed her mind, for whatever reason,” said Garcia, who left the Planning Commission in 1988 and later became a consultant to Spound.

In an interview, Picus denied that she or any member of her staff approved the commercial designation for Warner Ridge. She said, however, that in hindsight she should have vetoed the Planning Department’s recommendation for the property. But, Picus said, she was distracted by another development fight occurring at the time.

Now, the General Plan, which is a key issue in the lawsuit, is an embarrassment to Picus. “It got past me . . . it wasn’t my idea, I guarantee you,” she said.

She later sought to repair the damage by trying to get the General Plan designation changed, but she was unsuccessful. She then tried to block the offices by changing the zoning, touching off the battle that led to the current lawsuit.