Meddling Alleged in Tug of War Over Naval Hospital Site : Property: Long Beach wants the nearly 70 acres to build a shopping mall, but Lakewood, which has its own mall, supports a bid by the County Office of Education to move its headquarters there.

In a harsh attack, Long Beach officials have accused the Lakewood City Council of waging a “malicious” and “devious” campaign to sabotage a plan to build a shopping mall where the Long Beach Naval Hospital stands.

The U.S. Navy plans to close the hospital at the end of the year and dispose of the property, about 70 acres in east Long Beach, just across the street from Lakewood’s boundary.

Long Beach is trying to acquire the site for a mall, which could generate hundreds of jobs and millions of dollars in sales taxes for the financially strapped city, officials said. The city would tear down the hospital to make way for the mall.

Developing the site would help the city rebound from the pending closure of the Long Beach Naval Station, the hospital and related facilities, officials said. The closures, the result of federal defense cutbacks, are projected to cost Long Beach’s economy an estimated $1 billion a year. At one time, the naval station and hospital accounted for about 17,000 military jobs and 1,300 civilian jobs.

But the Lakewood City Council is supporting a bid by the Los Angeles County Office of Education to acquire the property for a new headquarters and training center. The agency provides special-education classes, teacher training and other services countywide.

If successful, the bid would forestall competition for Lakewood Center Mall, which produces about $3 million a year in tax revenue for Lakewood. The mall at Del Amo Boulevard and Clark Avenue is about three miles from the hospital at 7500 E. Carson St., Long Beach.

Long Beach officials accuse Lakewood officials of instigating the competing proposal. They point out that the wife of Lakewood Councilman Robert G. Wagner is on the county Board of Education, the governing body of the county Office of Education.

“I believe that the opposition of the city of Lakewood . . . was the primary reason for the application by the Los Angeles County Board of Education,” Long Beach City Manager James C. Hankla said this week.

The city manager, a former chief administrative officer of Los Angeles County, said he based his opinion on sources he would not identify.

Hankla said he is not accusing Lakewood of anything illegal, but said the city’s leaders did not act in a neighborly way.

Long Beach Councilman Les Robbins, whose district includes the naval hospital, called the move “calculated,” “malicious” and “devious” during a council meeting May 18. The council voted unanimously to have Mayor Ernie Kell meet with the Lakewood City Council to persuade its members to withdraw their support for the county proposal.

But Lakewood officials deny that they prompted the application by the Office of Education.

Board member Michaelene D. Wagner said her husband, Councilman Wagner, and other Lakewood officials had nothing to do with the decision to apply for the property. The application was submitted on April 21.

“Lakewood was definitely not orchestrating any of this,” said Michaelene Wagner, who voted to acquire the site. “When I came home from my county board meeting, I told my husband . . . we were going to apply for the property. He said ‘That’s nice.’ That was the extent of the conversation.”

The Lakewood City Council passed a resolution May 11 supporting the bid, citing the services the Office of Education provides.

“By approving the application, the federal government can play a positive role in rebuilding Southern California’s most important asset--a well-educated community,” the resolution said.

The resolution made no mention of the proposed Long Beach mall. But since then, Lakewood officials have made it clear they are concerned about a mall being built so close to the Lakewood Center Mall.

Lakewood relies heavily on sales tax for its $20-million general fund, which pays for law enforcement, fire and other city services. Sales taxes account for about $6.6 million of the general fund, and Lakewood Center Mall accounts for about 45% of the sales tax.

Lakewood officials say the proposed shopping center would take shoppers away from existing malls, which already are hurting.

“Why would I want to see my tax base eroded more than it is with the recession and such,” Mayor Larry Van Nostran said this week in an interview. “We have an elected responsibility to defend the citizens of Lakewood. If the situation were reversed, they’d do the same thing.”

But Long Beach officials note that Lakewood Center Mall has long enjoyed the business of Long Beach residents, and the city has a right to develop a mall for those shoppers.

Long Beach officials also said they would not have intervened as Lakewood did, especially since the Navy property once belonged to Long Beach.

The city sold about 34 acres of the property for a token $1 to the federal government for the naval hospital, which opened in 1967. The city also lent another 35 acres, which automatically reverts to Long Beach.

The city will have to buy back at market value the 34 acres, on which the hospital was built, officials said. A property appraisal has not been completed, Hankla said.

Until last month, only Long Beach and two American Indian groups had expressed interest in the property, officials said.

The County Office of Education became involved after it mysteriously received information on the property a couple of weeks before the April 5 application deadline.

“We don’t know how or why we got the letter,” said Marilyn T. Gogolin, director of administrative affairs for the County Office of Education. “We’ve never received a letter before (about surplus property). . . . Some phantom sent it to us.”

But Gogolin said her agency jumped at the opportunity because it had been looking for years for a large building to consolidate its offices, which are at two locations in Downey and another in Bell Gardens.

Long Beach officials have mounted a campaign to take the County Office of Education out of the competition.

They have contacted county Supervisor Deane Dana asking his support for the proposed mall. Dana has declined to get involved in the dispute, spokesman Dennis Morefield said.

But Long Beach has won the support of Rep. Steve Horn (R-Long Beach), who sent a letter in the city’s behalf to Adm. Frank B. Kelso, acting Navy secretary.

City Manager Hankla plans to meet this morning with Stuart E. Gothold, county superintendent of schools, to ask that his agency drop its plan for the naval hospital.

And Mayor Kell will try to persuade the Lakewood council to change its position.

“Normally another city doesn’t get involved in the doings of another city,” Kell said. “I just don’t think they thought it through.”

But Van Nostran, the Lakewood mayor, said there is little chance of a change of heart.