The Court Battle Finally Ends--With No Love Lost

Game, set and match: The long fight is over for Bob Cowan of Brentwood Park, who woke up last Tuesday to the sound of jackhammers dismantling his neighbor’s illegal tennis court.

Cowan had accused his neighbor, Sid Askari, of playing the system for seven years in order to keep playing tennis.

As detailed in a Times story last November, Cowan and some of his neighbors cried foul on several points. First, Askari’s back-yard court extended eight feet too close to Cliffwood Avenue, according to city zoning laws. Second, it was constructed without a building permit. Third, Cowan, who lives across the street from the court, complained about the noise.

But what really irked Cowan was the lengths to which Askari was going to try to legitimize the court.

Aided by some of the top legal and lobbying firms in Los Angeles, not to mention about $40,000 of his own money, Askari, a banker, seemed to have turned City Hall’s cumbersome bureaucracy to his advantage.

The Board of Zoning Appeals discussed the court at no less than three public hearings. Councilman Marvin Braude’s staff made multiple visits to Askari’s residence to look at the court. And Askari successfully sued the zoning panel last year, then filed a related appeal with the City Council.

And as the dispute dragged on, Askari continued to play tennis. To prove it, and to refute Askari’s claim that the court was a “play area” for his children, Cowan took pictures from a rooftop.

Whether Askari ran out of recourse, resources or will is unclear. He declined to comment last week.

Cowan, meanwhile, was all too eager to gloat.

“The little man finally wins,” he said. “There is a God, maybe.”

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Point that gun the other way!Tom LaBonge, who is locked in a tight race with Jackie Goldberg for the Los Angeles City Council 13th District seat that Michael Woo is vacating to run for mayor, got an endorsement he didn’t want last week.

It came from the Westside Firearms Assn., a local affiliate of the National Rifle Assn.

That’s right, the NRA.

The 13th District is one of the most liberal in the city, of course, so the endorsement was as welcome as a skunk at a picnic.

LaBonge strategist Rick Taylor hastily disclaimed the endorsement, calling it a dirty trick by the Goldberg campaign, which he said “knows as well as anyone that Tom LaBonge is opposed to guns on the streets.”

He said LaBonge had received a questionnaire from the group and had thrown it away.

“We didn’t seek their endorsement and we don’t want it,” Taylor said.

His accusation elicited a sharp denial from Goldberg, who said she had never even heard of the group.

“Who are they kidding?” she said. “They think I’m going to spend time inventing phony endorsements for my opponent? I’ve got more important things to do.”

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Double duty: Santa Monica Mayor Judy Abdo supports the Ocean Park Community Center in more ways than one. She is on the board of the social service agency. And when it’s time to hand out grant money at City Hall, Abdo votes to give a lot of it to the center, nearly $800,000 this year.

While Abdo is certainly not the first Santa Monica council member to play this dual role, she may be the last.

After months of trying to cajole or embarrass Abdo into acknowledging a conflict of interest and stepping aside on votes involving the community center, Councilman Ken Genser has set his sights on changing the city ethics law to make her conduct illegal.

In arguing for tightening the law, Genser said he could not fathom how Abdo, or anyone, could fairly balance an obligation to raise funds for the agency with a duty to the city and the electorate.

Abdo strenuously objected to the idea, while agreeing to go forward with a broader study of the city’s ethical guidelines. She said the change Genser sought would essentially make it impossible for council members to sit on nonprofit boards, robbing both the city and the boards of a meaningful relationship.

The jabs from Genser were not unexpected. Abdo had, after all, handed him an embarrassing defeat late last year when he, too, wanted to be mayor. The real surprise on the ethics vote was that Abdo got no support from her other council allies, who sided with Genser on this one.

Mayor Pro Tem Tony Vazquez recalled that he was asked to serve on several boards just after being elected to the council. Figuring they were looking for “a direct link to council funding,” Vazquez said he declined to serve. “I always thought that was a conflict,” he said.

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Identity crisis: You form a city, they put you on the map. Simple, right?

Not for little West Hollywood. Approaching its ninth birthday, the city still doesn’t exist in the minds of the post office or the phone company.

But the plucky city’s struggle for respect is finally paying off.

After years of complaints, the U.S. Postal Service is taking the first step toward giving West Hollywood its own ZIP code. It would be 90069, one of the four Los Angeles ZIP codes that now chop up the two-square-mile city.

Next month, the post office will ask residents if they like the idea. Postal officials later would see if it’s affordable.

Having four ZIP codes--they predate cityhood--confuses senders, slows mail and may even cost the city tax revenues, officials say. And those annoying yellow address labels correcting “West Hollywood” mail to “Los Angeles”--well, you can just imagine what that does for municipal self-esteem.

Meanwhile, Pacific Bell plans to undo some of the hassles caused when the new 310 area code was created last year and the boundary was placed right down La Cienega Boulevard, splitting the city.

For one thing, West Hollywood will soon appear on phone book maps and be listed among cities served. Now it’s ignored and simply treated as part of Los Angeles or Beverly Hills.

All resident phone numbers will be listed in both of the directories that cover the city. The city’s eastern half has been listed only in the 213 directory, while the western half is covered in the 310 Westside book.

Pac Bell also is giving everyone telephone stickers showing how to call the local Sheriff’s Department station in non-emergencies, since the two halves of the city have different sheriff’s numbers. The move is intended to keep flustered non-emergency callers from using the 911 line instead.

Credit is going to Councilwoman Abbe Land, who took on the Sisyphean job of reforming the post office and phone company simultaneously.

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Legal help: When last we looked in on the secret search for a new Santa Monica city attorney, the five-member liberal council majority was clearly placing highest priority on the political correctness of the applicants.

One popular candidate apparently won points by saying he didn’t see himself representing those who live “north of Montana.” That’s Montana Avenue, north of which live those malefactors of great wealth whose very success annoys the commoners who hold political power.

Two council members who--gasp--live north of Montana themselves have been pushing for an experienced municipal attorney with no ax to grind.

On Tuesday, council members Robert T. Holbrook and Asha Greenberg will implore the rest of the council to open up the hiring process by naming a committee of community members to evaluate the four finalists.

Since their plan is to have each council member appoint one panelist, the deck will still be stacked against them. But at this point, Holbrook said it couldn’t hurt to get help. He vows that his appointee would be someone “who knows a lot about law.”

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Public speaking: Laurence Greenblatt, a.k.a Melrose Larry Green, who finished 16th in a field of 24 in the April mayoral primary, remains a voice that will not be silenced. The Hollywood resident is a fixture at Los Angeles City Council meetings and can be counted on to speak up on the issues of the day.

Last week, Council President John Ferraro made a point of acknowledging Greenblatt as a “minor celebrity” and told him to take the microphone and let the council know what was on his mind.

Ferraro quickly had reason to regret his invitation. Greenblatt called upon him to apologize for describing mayoral candidate and fellow council member Michael Woo as a “snot-nosed kid.” The council president made that remark at a news conference at which he endorsed Woo’s opponent, Richard Riordan.

Ferraro declined to respond to the apology request. Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, however, quickly opined that Greenblatt was out of order because he was speaking on subjects that were not on the agenda.

Greenblatt, characteristically, was undeterred.

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Council meetings this week:

* Beverly Hills: no meeting.

* Culver City: 7 p.m. Monday, Interim City Hall, Trailer 1, 4095 Overland Ave., (310) 202-5851.

* Los Angeles: 10 a.m. Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday. 200 N. Spring St., (213) 485-3126.

* Malibu: 6:30 p.m. Monday. Hughes Laboratory, 3011 Malibu Canyon Road, (310) 456-2489.

* Santa Monica: 6:30 p.m. Tuesday. 1685 Main St., (310) 393-9975.

* West Hollywood: no meeting.

Contributing to this report were staff writers Nancy Hill-Holtzman, Ken Ellingwood, Ron Russell and Lee Harris, and correspondent Jeff Kramer.