Mediation Used in Reservoir Dispute : Water quality: DWP and residents discuss the explosive issue of covering or building filtration plants at the ‘lakes.’ But critics charge the meetings are not open enough.

Three years ago, Jean T. Barrett fought plans to cover open reservoirs in the city by hawking T-shirts that urged people to “Stop the DWP Cover-Up.”

These days, she and other residents sit around a conference table with top officials from the Los Angeles Department of Water and Power to discuss the future of several reservoirs, some of which dot the city’s wealthiest neighborhoods.

“Three years ago, none of us would have believed we’d be sitting down in the same room with these people,” said Barrett, who lives about a mile from the scenic Hollywood Reservoir. “I certainly never thought we could be working with the DWP for a common goal, but I really believe that’s what we’re going to do.”

It’s hard to believe.

Residents at meetings all over the city hissed, jeered and hurled catcalls at DWP employees two years ago to protest plans to improve water quality by covering or building filtration plants at 10 open reservoirs--known by homeowners as “lakes.”

As a result, the department opted for a fresh, some say innovative, approach for dealing with the public. Setting aside $212,000, the department invited community delegates to mediation meetings led by a $100-an-hour consultant.

Some reservoir neighbors, like Barrett, praise the department’s efforts, which seem to have calmed the waters of the reservoir controversy.

But suspicious critics charge that government can still cut back-room deals--only now select members of the public are in the back room too.

They denounce the closed mediation meetings that began 15 months ago that limit the number of participants and seek to prevent the media from quoting discussion.

As a matter of public policy it is “abominable” to have ground rules for confidentiality that stifle the comments of observers and participants on discussions affecting the public, said Renee Allison, governmental affairs advocate for the California Newspaper Publishers Assn. “It is contrary to our democratic system of open government,” she said.

One such ground rule says: “When responding to the press, participants and the mediators shall respond within the spirit of the negotiations, i.e. the ongoing goal of reaching a consensus on the issues before the Team.”

Such ground rules prompted some Encino residents to form their own coalition in January so they could discuss the possibility of a filtration plant with the DWP in open meetings.

The dispute over the mediation ground rules is the latest in a string of controversies touched off by the department’s plan to improve water quality by covering six reservoirs that range from 14.6 acres to 5.7 acres--Upper Stone Canyon, Upper Hollywood, Ivanhoe, Santa Ynez, Elysian and Rowena.

Officials also planned to build filtration stations at four larger reservoirs--Silver Lake, Lower Stone Canyon, Lower Hollywood and Encino--ranging from 77 acres to 158 acres.

Those plans were assailed by homeowners, environmentalists and joggers who frequented the reservoirs and wanted to preserve the prized water views. Activists filed lawsuits and tried to declare the sites historical landmarks. They even persuaded state legislators to intervene, but legislation aimed at protecting the reservoirs was vetoed by the governor.

Civic and homeowner groups banded together as the Coalition to Preserve Open Reservoirs. They were among thousands who attended meetings in February, 1990, still remembered for the hostility expressed toward the DWP.

“There was mistrust and misunderstanding,” said Jim Wickser, the department’s assistant general manager for water. “Generally, we were on a collision course to litigation and nothing productive, at best.”

As a result, the DWP and Mediation Institute of Woodland Hills invited about 30 groups that had attended the tumultuous meetings to attend mediation sessions, said institute President Alana Knaster.

Twelve organizations, all members of the Coalition to Preserve Open Reservoirs, agreed to send representatives, and two other groups have since joined. Four DWP officials, including Wickser, represent the department at the twice-monthly meetings.

But solving water problems isn’t always smooth sailing.

“It sort of in a sense was like a therapy session,” Sharon Flanagan, a Silver Lake resident, said of early mediation meetings. “The lack of trust, the feeling that you’ve been betrayed, anger--all of these very strong emotions that were present obviously predominated things.”

Gradually, tensions eased. Unlike public meetings, at which officials waited defensively for challenges from often hostile audiences, the mediation meetings were more relaxed. Sometimes, a subcommittee met at a member’s home, discussing water quality or filtration equipment over home-baked cookies.

For the first time, the two groups were really talking--and listening.

“I think it’s easier for us to step into their shoes and understand what it must be like to be a homeowner in a neighborhood having to deal with this great big bureaucracy that has no feelings and has this momentum that you can’t stop,” said Robert Yoshimura, assistant engineer of water quality for the DWP.

Defenders of mediation point to progress in relations between DWP and the community.

Thanks to agreements reached in mediation, they say, Ivanhoe Reservoir probably will not be covered and alternatives may be found to a filtration plant proposed for the shores of Silver Lake.

But critics charge that the meetings’ ground rules contradict the goal of working with the public.

Mediation participants may not “characterize or discuss specific statements made by any participant with parties outside the negotiations other than their own,” according to one ground rule.

Reporters who attend the meetings are asked not to report on the specifics of group debates or quote participants, Knaster said. They may, however, report agreements of the group.

In addition, meeting notes that Knaster distributes to participants are not public documents and are protected by state law, Knaster said. She has already refused to make copies available to one homeowner who requested them. What’s more, observers must ask to attend. The idea is not to have unlimited observers, she said.

CNPA representative Allison said that the mediation group could be construed as an advisory body set up by the DWP board and therefore subject to the Brown Act, which would require it to hold open meetings and give notice of them to the public.

Wickser and Knaster said attorneys told them the meetings do not violate the Brown Act.

Skirmishing between defenders and detractors of the meetings has at times degenerated into a cross-fire of allegations of “selective discrimination,” “hidden agendas,” and “public relations ploys.” Some comments are just plain catty.

“I’m told there is a long history of his participation in meetings that is distasteful to neighbors,” said one meeting participant of a DWP critic.

“They’ve been totally co-opted,” said one critic of some mediation participants.

Such sniping aside, some critics believe that closed meetings funded with public money are simply wrong. Frank De Fazio of the Hollywood area said that by the time the public has a chance to comment on agreements reached in mediation, it will be too late to get other viewpoints across.

“They’re going to lay it on the public at the eleventh hour,” De Fazio said. “It will be very difficult then for people to oppose what’s unfair.”

De Fazio showed up at a Dec. 18 meeting unannounced but was allowed to stay. He later fulfilled the group’s worst fears when he “wrote memos and talked to people in a manner not supportive of the process,” Knaster said.

When De Fazio asked to attend another meeting, his own homeowners board, which sends a delegate to the meetings, refused to let him attend.

Gerald A. Silver, president of Homeowners of Encino, said he was asked to leave a Jan. 6 mediation meeting after refusing to abide by ground rules.

“It’s obnoxious to us,” Silver said. “This is not the way public debate should be conducted. I’m now convinced that DWP stands for Doesn’t Want Publicity.”

But Knaster counters that negotiations are carried out by representatives of community groups and that other groups could join the process. And any agreements reached through mediation must be approved by the DWP’s Board of Commissioners and perhaps the Los Angeles City Council.

Moreover, the general public will have a chance to comment at hearings or during public comment periods. “Whatever comes out of these processes will become public,” Wickser said.

Knaster said the ground rules, common to mediation, are justified. If an unlimited number of observers attended meetings, it would be difficult to get work done, she said. Misquotes in the media could destroy the trust that mediation has accomplished so far, Wickser said.

“If you bring up an idea, you don’t necessarily want to see it reported in the paper the next day,” Barrett said, noting that the group has explored and discarded a number of ways to clean up water, from growing water hyacinths in the reservoirs to importing insect-eating bats.

“I think it’s a shame when they decided to do something innovative and actually work with the communities around the reservoir that they’re being criticized and the community’s being criticized,” she said. “I think it’s ironic.”

L.A.’s Open Reservoirs--Map shows reservoirs operated by the Department of Water and Power that are part of a water quality improvement program. 1. Santa Ynez Reservoir 2. Encino Reservoir 3. Upper Stone Canyon Reservoir 4. Lower Stone Canyon Reservoir 5. Upper Hollywood Reservoir 6. Lower Hollywood Reservoir 7. Rowena Reservoir 8. Ivanhoe Reservoir 9. Silver Lake Reservoir 10. Elysian Reservoir