CITY HALL ROUNDUP : San Pedro is electric with anticipation over its two new trolleys.

CLANG CLANG CLANG: They won’t zing, zing, zing your heartstrings and they sure won’t climb halfway to the stars. But two new electric trolleys will soon be making the rounds in San Pedro in a public transit experiment funded by several Los Angeles city departments.

The 22-foot trolleys, beginning service in late September, will run every 30 minutes along a 14-mile route between the World Cruise Center and the Cabrillo Marina. Along the way, the trolleys will carry as many as 23 passengers--at 25 cents a ride--to several stops, including Ports O’ Call Village and the Los Angeles Maritime Museum.

The electric vehicles are part of a three-year pilot project that will cost an estimated $1 million. The cost will be shared by the city’s departments of Water and Power and Transportation and the port.

The project, officials said, will not only promote tourism but also do so in an environmentally sound manner. The battery-powered vehicles, they said, will be 97% less polluting than conventional diesel buses.

Now, if someone could only do something about the port’s refineries, scrap yards and coal heaps.

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PLANE CRAZY II: A group of South Bay residents say their neighborhood quietude is being ruined by the incessant drone of aircraft. But aviation and city authorities contend that the residents are just hearing things.

Nearly 200 Palos Verdes Estates residents have signed a petition protesting noisy commuter propjets flying over their hillside community. They maintain that a Federal Aviation Administration change in LAX air routes on July 1 is the cause of the annoying buzzing in their community. The FAA admits that it switched routes, altering the kind of planes flying over these homes, but says it rescinded the change July 16 and everything is back to normal.

Despite FAA assurances that the numbers and type of planes flying the controlled routes over the peninsula are the same as they have been for years, petition author Lance Rubin and his neighbors say “that simply isn’t so.” They want their peace and quiet back but are finding little support from the city or the federal agency.

After talking with the FAA, Police Chief Gary Johansen said, “I’m convinced there’s no problem.” He said Rubin and his neighbors have become overly sensitive.

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BUD WARS: This spring’s rainfall has spawned its own version of the “Bud” wars in Manhattan Beach, pitting neighbor against neighbor.

As water-starved plants began flourishing after the rains, several homeowners began to complain that their ocean views were being blocked by the budding greenery. Residents demanded that the city enforce its longstanding landscaping guideline that trees and shrubs not exceed 42 inches in height.

But some of the residents began questioning why they were being singled out when others with equally tall trees or shrubs were not being required to trim their sprouting plants.

To settle the disputes and to cut down on complaints, the City Council last week modified its greenery guidelines so that only residents whose views are affected can lodge complaints. The amendment allows property owners to set their own standards rather than requiring everyone to crop their vegetation to 42-inch height limits.

“The premise we worked on was . . . people have different preferences,” said Patrick Kelly, director of the Department of Public Works. “The intent is to avoid neighborhood wars.”

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PAINTING BY NUMBERS: More than 130 volunteers put a new coat of paint on 20 school rooms, two restrooms and three offices at Trinity Lutheran School in Hawthorne. And they did it in five hours.

The classrooms desperately needed painting, but the church could not afford to have it done, said John Brewer, church music director. So the church bought the paint, the volunteers brought the brushes and the rollers, and the project commenced at 9 a.m.

After breaking up into color-coded squads and taking an hour for lunch, the volunteer crew finished the job within its self-imposed deadline. Appropriately enough, Brewer dubbed the redecorating occasion “Paint the School in 5 Hours” Day.

Not to be outdone, Trinity Lutheran Church declared the next day “Painter Recognition Sunday.” Amen.

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HOORAY FOR HOLLYWOOD: Inglewood’s production of “A Chorus Line,” which enjoyed a four-day run last week at Crozier Junior High School, was staged with professional lighting and new costumes all around, thanks to the generosity of Times readers.

As part of its federally funded summer jobs program, the city hired 34 low-income teen-agers to spend the summer under the tutelage of five show biz professionals who taught them how to sing, dance, act and build props.

After a Times story about the upcoming play mentioned that there was not enough money in the production budget to pay for lighting and costumes for everybody, donations started flowing. Among them: $3,000 from Hollywood Park for the lighting.

LAST WEEK’S HIGHLIGHTS

The Palos Verdes Estates City Council on Tuesday moved closer to modifying its business license fee to, among other things, tax individual real estate agents $274 per year to do business in the city.

Over the next few months, the city will circulate the proposed tax increases to the affected groups and then set public hearings for the end of October. Any changes to the city’s business license fees must be in place by Jan. 1, City Manager Jim Hendrickson said.

MEETINGS THIS WEEK

Avalon: 7 p.m. Tuesday, 209 Metropole. (310) 510-0220. Televised live on Channel 3 (Catalina Cable) and repeated Saturday morning.

Carson: 6 p.m. Tuesday, 701 E. Carson St. (310) 830-7600. Televised at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday on Channel 26 (Continental Cablevision) and repeated the following Wednesday.

El Segundo: 7 p.m. Tuesday, 350 Main St. (310) 322-4670. Televised live on Channel 22 (Paragon) and repeated at noon Wednesday.

Inglewood: 7 p.m. Tuesday, 1 Manchester Blvd. (310) 412-5280. No cable telecast.

Lawndale: 7 p.m. Thursday, 14717 Burin Ave. (310) 973-4321. Televised live on Channel 60 and repeated several times during the week.

Lomita: 7 p.m. Monday, 24300 Narbonne Ave. (310) 325-7110. No cable telecasts.

Los Angeles: 10 a.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday at 200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles. In San Pedro, (310) 548-7637; in Wilmington, (310) 548-7586; in Harbor City/Harbor Gateway, (310) 548-7664; in Westchester, (310) 641-4717. Televised live on Channel 35; meetings repeated individually at 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday and collectively on Sunday starting at 10 a.m.

Manhattan Beach: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, 1400 Highland Ave. (310) 545-5621. Televised on Channel 3 (MultiVision) at 7:30 p.m. on Wednesday.

Rancho Palos Verdes: 7 p.m. Tuesday, Hesse Park, 29201 Hawthorne Blvd. (310) 377-0360. Televised live on Channel 3; repeated at 7:30 p.m. the following Thursday.

Redondo Beach: 6:30 p.m. Tuesday, 415 Diamond St. (310) 372-1171. Televised live on Channel 8 (Century); repeated at 3 p.m. Wednesday and 6 p.m. Sunday.

Torrance: 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, 3031 Torrance Blvd. (310) 618-5880. Televised live on Channel 22 (Paragon), and replayed at 10 p.m. Wednesdays and Thursdays, and at 10 a.m., 3 p.m. and 8 p.m. on Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays.