Disbanding of Advisory Committee Is Sought : North Hollywood: The chairwoman of the controversial group calls it an effort to silence critics of redevelopment.

A Los Angeles City Council committee Monday recommended abolishing an unruly citizens group dominated by critics of the North Hollywood redevelopment project.

Mildred Weller, chairwoman of the controversial Project Area Committee, called the proposal to banish the group an attempt to muzzle “anyone who’s a critic of the Community Redevelopment Agency.”

Council President John Ferraro quickly denied that allegation.

The Project Area Committee has held several wild meetings, including a 1990 session that erupted into a fistfight and a gavel-pounding contest in April between two women, each claiming to be the real chairwoman.

The Project Area Committee is an advisory group to the Community Redevelopment Agency, which has been trying to revitalize blighted areas of North Hollywood. The advisory group is important because the agency is not allowed to continue operating without one.

On a 2-0 vote, the City Council’s Community Redevelopment and Housing Committee voted Monday to adopt a Ferraro motion to disband the North Hollywood Project Area Committee and to hold a general election by September to select a substitute committee.

Afterward, Weller vowed to sue to challenge the committee’s action if it is ratified by the full council--which is expected because of Ferraro’s position on the matter. Ferraro represents the North Hollywood area.

Assistant City Atty. Dov Lesel said he believes that the Project Area Committee is not now a legal entity, regardless of any future City Council action to abolish it. The council must periodically affirm the Project Area Committee’s role as an adviser to the redevelopment agency--which it has not done in eight years--or the committee loses its legitimacy, Lesel said.

Having a duly constituted Project Area Committee in place is especially important now because the redevelopment agency wants to have its charter to operate in North Hollywood extended for another 12 years. A committee must exist and give its advice to the council before such an extension can be granted, city officials said.

Redevelopment efforts in North Hollywood are now at a virtual standstill because the agency’s mandate has expired. The agency, with the backing of Ferraro, is seeking authority to spend as much as $300 million on redevelopment.

If the Project Area Committee were to vote against extending the life of the agency’s project in North Hollywood, it would require a two-thirds vote of the 15-member council to override that advice. Otherwise, only an eight-vote council majority would be needed to keep the redevelopment agency in business.

The advisory group has been badly split for several years over the redevelopment agency’s plans. Critics include owners who fear that their properties would be taken from them for redevelopment.

Recent wrangling concerning the North Hollywood Project Area Committee has focused on which of its members have been legally elected.

In February, the Project Area Committee held an election of property owners and residents in the redevelopment area to fill six vacant seats and bring the body’s membership--then consisting of nine people--up to the required 15.

However, after seven candidates were elected, redevelopment agency critics refused to seat five of the seven March 10 at a noisy meeting of the North Hollywood Project Area Committee. The critics said the candidates failed to get enough votes to qualify.

Ferraro sent an aide, Renee Weitzer, to chair an April 14 meeting that ended with Weller, armed with an oversized gavel, winning a gavel-pounding contest with Weitzer.

It was after that wild session that Ferraro decided to abolish the Project Area Committee.

That decision was sharply criticized Monday by Don Eaton, another Project Area Committee member. The redevelopment agency “wants a rubber stamp,” Eaton told the council committee.

Not so, said Erin Egge, Ferraro’s press secretary. “We were running up against a wall,” Egge said after Monday’s meeting, adding that there was no communication between the Project Area Committee and Ferraro’s office or the redevelopment agency.

“We were locking horns, and somebody had to say enough was enough. John did that,” Egge said.

Ferraro wants a general election held to elect a totally new committee, Egge said.

Egge said it would not be fair to allow the present Project Area Committee to hold a so-called special election, in which the eight sitting board members would be able to select new members themselves.

But Weller and her supporters said special elections are permitted under the board’s bylaws and have been used in the past. The difference now, Weller said, is that the pro-redevelopment agency faction does not want a board dominated by the agency’s critics.