Wilson Signs Bill to Swap Housing for High School

Gov. Pete Wilson has signed a heavily lobbied bill that just about slams the door on construction of new homes in the City of Industry but opens the way for building a long-sought high school in nearby Diamond Bar.

By signing the measure Tuesday, Wilson set in motion a precedent-setting arrangement to exempt Industry, an almost purely commercial and manufacturing community, from state requirements that would have forced the city to build about 112 homes for people of low and moderate means.

Instead, Industry will turn over $8 million a year to Los Angeles County housing authorities to build such housing within 15 miles of the small town, which was established in 1957 with no residential zoning. The new law, sponsored by Sen. Frank Hill (R-Whittier), will not take effect until the city transfers 70 acres at a cost of $1 to the Pomona Unified School District to build the high school.

The school will be built near the intersection of the Pomona Freeway and Phillips Ranch Road to accommodate 1,600 students. But it will not be completed for two to three years, Pomona Unified School District school board President Linda Stevens said.

For Diamond Bar, the legislation is “a home run,” Hill said. “For my 10 years in the Legislature, I’ve tried to figure out how to get a high school. . . . Now that dream is a reality.”

But far more was at stake than the high school.

At the heart of the issue was the fundamental nature of Industry, a two-mile-wide, 14-mile-long strip wedged between two transcontinental railroad tracks. The city was envisioned to be a purely commercial setting when it was incorporated 35 years ago. Although 60,000 workers hold jobs there, fewer than 600 people live there in housing that predates incorporation.

The state requires all cities to include a housing element in their general plans and mandates that a portion of city redevelopment funds be set aside to provide low- and moderate-income housing. Under the existing law, Industry probably would have had to build 112 housing units within the city limits, but Hill said his new law will allow far more homes to be built or rehabilitated.

But John Shea, president of J. F. Shea Co. and a member of the Industry Civic Planning Assn., which opposed the bill, argued against the exemption. Shea and others argued that keeping a lid on the number of residents ensured that local politicians would not have to worry about new voters, who might turn them out of office.

“It was a special-interest bill that benefits a few politicians that run the City of Industry . . . for their own special interest, and it’s going to deprive the City of Industry and this area of some much needed low-income housing,” Shea said.

Hill charged that the opponents merely wanted to take control of the City Council. With an additional 100 or so state-required housing units, they want to “get more voters in hopes of shaking up the City Hall. That’s what the fight is about,” Hill declared in an interview.

Kassy Perry, Wilson’s deputy communications director, confirmed that “powerful lobbying firms” were lined up on both sides of the issue. In the end, she said, the governor believes that the bill will create more much-needed housing than is required now.

But lobbyist Robert Naylor, a former state Republican Party chairman whose law firm was retained by the Industry Civic Planning Assn., challenged the wisdom of the measure. Naylor said he believes that under the state Constitution, the City of Industry’s housing funds cannot be spent outside the city. He also said the Constitution may bar the transfer of the land, technically under the control of Industry’s Redevelopment Agency, for such a non-redevelopment purpose as a school.

Also hired by the association to oppose the bill was the Los Angeles lobbying firm of Rose & Kindel, according to records filed with the secretary of state.

On the other side, lobbyists Joe Gonsalves, a former Democratic assemblyman, and his son, Anthony, represented Diamond Bar and the City of Industry in support of the legislation. Anthony Gonsalves said the city also hired Timothy Flanigan, who served as an aide to former Gov. George Deukmejian, to lobby Wilson to sign the bill.

In addition to the professional lobbyists, local residents seeking the high school had also pushed for Wilson to sign the measure.

Sue Sisk, president of the Diamond Ranch High School Booster Club, a club that has been pushing for the proposed school, said parents started a last-minute lobbying effort about two weeks ago when they learned that opponents had hired influential lobbyists to push for Wilson to reject the measure.

Among other things, the booster club picketed outside Shea’s Walnut headquarters, sent more than 2,200 letters to the governor and produced a four-minute videotape that included picketing footage.

“We love this school and it’s not even built yet,” Sisk said.

For some Diamond Bar residents, Wilson’s action was the climax of a decade of lobbying for a neighborhood high school. On Tuesday, the ecstatic supporters swapped phone calls and made plans to attend a celebration Friday in Hill’s Whittier office.

“This is a good day for our community and for our kids,” community activist Gary Neely said. “This was the last undeveloped piece of property large enough to put a high school. It was our last chance.”

Stevens said the district doesn’t have enough money to build all of the needed permanent classrooms at the site and hopes to receive state school construction funds. Currently, the school district has earmarked $10 million to help build the school from a $62.5-million bond measure passed last year.

It will pay the City of Industry only $1 for the land. Industry will also grade the land and pay for as much as $2 million of grading costs, which could total $4 million.

Students will probably come from Diamond Bar, an upscale Pomona neighborhood called Phillips Ranch and from South Pomona, where Garey High School is already overcrowded, she said.