Officials Say City Panels Lack Members From Area : Politics: Three council members say the Valley is not represented on ‘power’ commissions. Mayor’s office counters that few names are submitted.

The San Fernando Valley gets no respect. At least, that’s the way it looks to some local officeholders who have reviewed Mayor Tom Bradley’s recent appointments to the citizen panels that help run City Hall.

Bradley’s office counters that it’s their own fault.

Of the 12 people newly appointed by Bradley to as many commissions since July 1, only two--or 16.6%--are from the Valley, which has 35% of the city’s population and 40% of its registered voters.

Valley elected officials find it especially galling that four of the city’s most powerful agencies--the police, fire, public works and water and power departments--are run by commissions that do not have a single Valley member.

The mayor’s recent appointments are “consistent with his policy of neglecting the Valley. It’s nothing new,” said Councilman Hal Bernson, who represents the northwest Valley. Similar laments were voiced by council members Joy Picus, who represents the southwest Valley, and Joel Wachs, who represents much of the east Valley.

But a top Bradley aide recently blamed the council members from the Valley. They have failed to provide the mayor with ample lists of home-grown candidates for commission posts, said Bradley press aide Vallee Bunting.

The administration “recognizes that there could be more Valley representation on the commissions,” Bunting said. “But there have not been huge numbers of nominees for commissions submitted to us by Valley council members.”

Bunting said that in 1990 the mayor asked Picus to recommend a candidate for the Civil Service Commission.

“She gave us the name of a former Picus aide, Clare Bronowski, who lives in Venice.” Bronowski was appointed.

Bunting also observed that “in response to the complaints,” the mayor recently appointed Valley resident Shelly Suzuki to the Recreation and Parks Commission.

Wachs contends this is not enough and that the real problem lies with Bradley’s use of commission appointments for political gain.

“Bradley’s commission jobs go where the wealth is, where the campaign contributions come from, to the Westside--all at the expense of the Valley and the harbor,” Wachs said. “People feel left out. . . . His record’s terrible.”

Wachs, who has filed papers to raise money for a possible run for mayor next year, said Bradley’s policy has left the Valley without a voice on powerful city panels that oversee issues involving housing, transportation, utility rates and redevelopment.

In the annual midsummer appointments shuffle at City Hall, now coming to an end, the Valley also lost representation on two other influential citizen panels--the Board of Zoning Appeals and the commission that oversees the Community Redevelopment Agency.

Tarzana resident and engineering executive Nikolas Patsaouras resigned from the zoning post, and Granada Hills resident and land-use consultant Norman Emerson left the redevelopment agency, city records show.

Patsaouras was replaced by a South Los Angeles resident, Emerson by a Hollywood resident. After the changes, the five-member Board of Zoning Appeals and the seven-member CRA panel have one Valley member each.

The two new commissioners from the Valley are Norma Jean Vescovo of Van Nuys, named to the city’s Commission on Disability, a low-level panel, and Suzuki of Arleta who was appointed to the powerful parks panel.

Picus said the selection of Suzuki, 36, an executive in a family-owned import business and a Valley native, was a welcome exception to what she called Bradley’s pattern of neglecting the Valley in his appointments.

But Suzuki is the only Valley resident appointed recently to a “power commission,” Picus complained.

Wachs and Picus also denied that Valley lawmakers have been lax in recommending candidates and are thus largely to blame for the Valley void on the commissions.

Bradley appoints so few Valley residents that they have stopped submitting Valley candidates for openings on the city’s 41 commissions, they said. Wachs said he made the effort in the past, but no more because “it’s not worth it.”

Picus said that a recommendation from her would be the “kiss of death” for a candidate because of her past complaints about the mayor’s appointment policy.

To get around this, Picus said, she has taken to a subterfuge--submitting names through others in hopes of increasing candidates’ chances. Picus declined to give examples.

In an interview, Patsaouras said that Valley issues get a fairer hearing at City Hall when commissions include Valley residents.

“Mostly people think the Valley is still lily-white, suburban and middle-class--a shocking misconception” that affects the way commissioners from other parts of the city vote, Patsaouras said.

Because they believe that image, he said, commissioners may unfairly dismiss the complaints of Valley homeowners who urge City Hall to stop commercial incursions into their neighborhoods.

“But I live in the Valley,” Patsaouras said. “When I first moved there 20 years ago, it was rural. Now it’s like a highway at rush hour outside my window. So when people from the Valley come and say, ‘Our neighborhood is being destroyed by commercial uses,’ I know what they’re talking about. I experience it myself.”

Suzuki, a native of the East Valley, said she expects to bring a heightened sensitivity to recreational issues in which the Valley has a stake, such as improvement plans for the Hansen Dam and Sepulveda Basin recreation areas, the crown jewels of the Valley’s park system.

In 1988, reports that only 16% of the city’s commissioners were from the Valley helped secure passage of a City Council policy statement urging the mayor to make his appointments more equitably, but the motion was not legally binding.

A recent review by The Times of 200 Bradley commission appointees currently in office found that 38 were from the Valley, raising the Valley share to only 19%.

The terms of about 35 commissioners expire each July. Most commissions have five members, with commissioners serving five-year terms and one member’s term expiring each year.

This year, only 12 new commissioners were named by Bradley, while 27 others were reappointed--only four of these from the Valley.

The four are Anne Finn of Sunland-Tujunga area, the widow of former councilman Howard Finn, to the Handicapped Access Appeals Board; Carol Billone of North Hollywood, to the Human Relations Commission; Raquelle de la Rocha to the Civil Service Commission, and David Leveton of Encino to the Transportation Commission.

Elected officials say the representation problem is acute in the four council districts located entirely in the Valley, as opposed to the three districts that include Valley areas but lie mostly outside it. City records show that only 20 commissioners--10% of the total--come from the all-Valley districts.

Yet these districts have 28% of the city’s population. If commission seats were apportioned strictly by population, they would provide 64 appointees.