Ex-Jockey Gives Rein to a Dream : Recreation: The feisty developer of an equestrian center in Lake View Terrace keeps building despite tangled battles with officials.

Resting on Edward Joseph Francis Milligan’s desk in the Hansen Dam Equestrian Center is a small plaque that reads, “Never mind the dog, beware of the owner.”

It is a warning that officials of the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department and the U. S. Army Corps of Engineers should have heeded before agreeing to do business in 1989 with the feisty former jockey.

“I’m a tough little Irishman . . . one tough little (S.O.B.),” is the 62-year-old Milligan’s self-description.

This will come as no news to those who have been dealing with him in the seemingly endless, complicated quarrel over the agreement under which Milligan is supposed to build a recreation center for the horsy set on land that city parks officials lease from the Corps of Engineers in the Hansen Dam flood plain in Lake View Terrace.

Milligan, who peppers his speech with folksy sayings and expletives, has been locking horns with officials for more than three years over development of the center, which he still does not have a lease to operate.

Officially, Milligan was evicted from the site in March, 1992, because he would not remove two mobile homes that he set up on the property without written approval from the corps.

But the city never enforced the eviction, to allow negotiations to continue. He is still there--living with his wife and adult daughter in the mobile homes--and he continues building the equestrian center that he promises will be “world-class.”

He already has built 10 riding arenas and boarding stalls for 200 horses. Within the next two months he hopes to complete a restaurant and bar, a tack shop and a hay and feed store. Future plans include three show arenas, a warm-up arena and a grand prix arena, a conditioning track and a cross-country course.

All these things were in his proposal that city park officials accepted in 1989, he said.

“They invited us to bid on this and we did. We said what we were willing to do, and that’s what we have done,” snapped Milligan, whose bright blue eyes, spare, 5-foot-8 frame and engaging smile are reminiscent of an Irish Catholic priest in a Bing Crosby movie.

“I will not be intimidated by the Corps of Engineers.”

Even his supporters describe him as prickly.

“He’s an acquired taste,” said Lewis Snow, president of Lake View Terrace Home Owners Assn., one of two groups representing area residents who back his plans, saying he is cleaning up what used to be an eyesore.

“He’s a hard bargainer. But because he is one tough S.O.B., he’s caused the corps to become tough S.O.B.s on their own. But once you get past his tough exterior, he’s really a hell of a nice guy.”

“He’s persistent and feisty,” said Phyllis Hines, second vice president of the Lake View Terrace Improvement Assn., the other, but older, homeowners group in the area. “But he’s also very open and congenial.”

Not everyone who has crossed paths with Milligan shares that last sentiment.

Jackie Tatum, general manager of the Recreation and Parks Department, declined to share her opinion on Milligan except to say that his hesitancy to “conform to the rules” has left the city in a “rather compromising position with the corps.”

A spokesman for the Corps of Engineers was equally reticent, saying he “didn’t want to share” his opinion of Milligan.

Members of the Valley Horseowners Assn., a group of local horse owners, have tried to block the city’s contract with Milligan, accusing him of being a “Little Caesar” who intimidates those who board horses with him and who wants to create a facility catering to the wealthy rather than middle-class riders.

Milligan denied those charges at a hearing by the city parks commission and has in turn sued the group for libel. The case is pending in Los Angeles Superior Court.

Milligan jokes that it will take an act of Congress to resolve the problem. And in fact, Congress, or at least one congressman, is indeed taking a hand.

At the request of Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), Milligan met Wednesday with officials from the city and Berman’s office to try to work out the differences over use of the site. A Berman aide, Rose Castaneda, said after the meeting that Milligan appears to have “made every effort to comply with federal regulations,” and Berman is setting up a meeting next week of city officials and the Army Corps to hear the Army’s response.

“We’re optimistic that this can be resolved,” Castaneda said.

Milligan contends that the prolonged contract talks are a classic example of the old adage about the right hand not knowing what the left hand is doing. In this case, he said, city officials wanted him to clean up an aging, run-down facility on land leased by the city, but didn’t realize that the Army Corps--which owns the flood plains behind federal dams--would want to sign off on every spadeful of dirt turned.

“They sold me the Cadillac, but they didn’t have the pink slip,” is Milligan’s condensed version of the wrangle. “They told me to go ahead and start building while they processed the documents. That was December, 1989, and they are still processing the documents.”

While city officials generally approve of his plans for the center, corps officials have the final say on all matters and still have not approved any of the construction, even though Milligan has already spent more than $2.2 million on landscaping, horse arenas and stables.

The only thing that the corps has approved was a fee schedule in June, 1991, for users of the new stables and outdoor stalls he built without approval.

“I’m no closer to my 30-year lease than I was in 1989,” he said.

Milligan’s determination to build his equestrian facility is founded on his love for horses. He grew up around horses at stables owned by his father in Philadelphia. In 1945, at the age of 14, he moved to California to become a jockey, telling people that he was 16.

He said he was under contract to musician Harry James and James’ wife, actress Betty Grable, to ride their horses in races in 1947 and 1948, the golden era of horse racing.

“Back then it was the sport of kings,” said Milligan, his eyes lighting up. “It was very exciting and very fun. I met a lot of celebrities and a lot of ‘The Boys,’ ” referring to organized crime figures.

But he never made it as a jockey. Instead, he became a car salesman and then turned to training horses. After several years of that, he began designing and building ranch homes in the San Dimas area in the 1960s.

His successful real estate developments allowed him to return to his real love, horses. In the 1970s he designed and built the Malibu Riding and Tennis Club. He built and managed the Los Angeles Equestrian Center in Griffith Park from 1976 to 1985 and the Huntington Central Park Equestrian Center from 1985 to 1989.

In 1989, after no one responded to three previous city requests for bids to take over the neglected Hansen Dam equestrian center, a tentative agreement was reached with Milligan to rehabilitate the property.

City officials had tried for the previous five years without success to attract a private developer to run the center. It had been around since the 1940s and by the mid-1980s had become run down after rising insurance rates left the former operator with little money for improvements and maintenance.

Last month, the city’s Recreation and Parks Commission voted unanimously to give Milligan a 30-year franchise to build and operate the equestrian center if he would agree to certain conditions imposed by the corps to settle the long quarrel over Milligan’s mobile homes that led to the “eviction” that was not enforced.

Milligan was asked to secure the mobile homes so they would not float away during a flood, pay additional rent for the land they occupy, allow no more than four people to live on the site and provide a plan for evacuating the inhabitants in case of flooding.

But Milligan says his mobile homes do not need securing because they are above the flood line, that he shouldn’t have to pay any additional rent for the land he lives on because he is already leasing the entire site, that in addition to his family living on the site caretakers should be allowed to live there, and that all inhabitants including the horses are already above the flood line so no evacuation plan is needed.

“They have put up every possible delay and roadblock in my way,” Milligan says of the corps. “But I want my equestrian center. I want what I said I was going to create.”

Milligan says he is willing to go to court to complete his center--which he envisions some day as a training facility for U. S. Olympic hopefuls--but he prefers negotiations to litigation.

“Someone’s ass is going to fry, and you can bet it’s not going to be mine,” he said.

While Milligan said he sometimes grows tired of battling the bureaucrats, he will fight to the end to build his dream.

“I’m either the stupidest son-of-a-bitch, or the shrewdest,” he said with a wink.