School Violence an Overrated Subject, Students Say

The students speak: The Los Angeles City Council’s Ad Hoc Committee on Violence in Schools convened a hearing last week, billing it as an event at which students would be “speaking out on the random violence that has infested their school campuses.”

Only thing is, the students didn’t follow the script.

One after another, they patiently explained that there was in fact very little violence on their campuses. While violent acts may occur in neighborhoods near the schools, and some classmates occasionally bring guns on campuses, they said they generally felt safe at school.

“I don’t think Dorsey High is an unsafe place,” said Uwani Martin, a senior at the Crenshaw-area school.

Gayane Kadzhikyan, 17, and Jose Barba, 18, seniors at Hollywood High, echoed Martin. Despite some ethnic tension and occasional fights, they said, the school is safe.

And how about the effectiveness of hand-held metal detectors to check for weapons?

“They don’t deter crime,” Martin said, “but make politicians and parents feel comfortable.”

So, was the hearing, which took place Monday, a waste of time?

No, Martin said. “I’ve never been to City Hall before. I’m glad I got a chance to come.”

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A cut below: When President Clinton came to Los Angeles recently to endorse Michael Woo and get his famous haircut, Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) spent the entire day with the presidential entourage. Along with some other Democratic lawmakers, he accepted Clinton’s invitation to return to Washington on Air Force One.

As he boarded the plane, Beilenson recalled, “There was Christophe”--the Beverly Hills stylist to the stars who gave Clinton his $200 runway trim. The decidedly un-Christophean Beilenson took some ribbing from his staff but insisted he had not received a haircut on the plane as well.

“I got one yesterday from Mary at Scissorsmith” on Capitol Hill, Beilenson said last week. He paid $20. “It seemed to me, until recently, to be an awful lot,” he said. “I feel much better knowing that it’s possible to pay so much more.”

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Go to your (back) room: Though they had a long agenda awaiting them, the Santa Monica City Council spent a good bit of the early evening on Tuesday behind closed doors discussing “personnel matters.”

At least one subject of that session became apparent when a chastened Councilman Robert T. Holbrook started the public meeting with a mea culpa. As reported here last week, Holbrook and council colleague Asha Greenberg had put an item on the agenda to discuss forming a committee to help the council select a new city attorney.

That selection process has not been going Holbrook and Greenberg’s way; they are, after all, the only two council members not aligned with the renters-rights group that controls most aspects of city politics. By making the process public, they appeared to be hoping to gain more leverage in the hiring, and forcing a greater consideration of public safety issues.

But hiring the city attorney is a personnel matter. Under government rules, that means it is one of the few things that can legally go on behind closed doors--excluding the public.

Holbrook said it was decided that even talking about how to hire a city attorney is top-secret stuff. So Holbrook removed the topic from the agenda and apologized for violating the sanctity of the back room.

And the search goes on. . . .

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Hold your fire!A local affiliate of the National Rifle Assn. that had endorsed Tom LaBonge in the 13th District Los Angeles City Council race has withdrawn the endorsement--at LaBonge’s request.

“I never wanted it and we’re glad to get it retracted,” said LaBonge, adding that he had no idea why the Westside Firearms Assn. had ever backed him in the first place.

A spokesman for the group said the endorsement was the result of a misunderstanding.

Robert J. Durio, the spokesman, said the group had only recently learned that LaBonge was a gun-control advocate who supports a statewide ban on the sale of semiautomatic weapons and cheap handguns known as Saturday night specials, as well as the federal Brady Bill, which would impose a waiting period to buy handguns.

An endorsement from the gun lobby is a potential kiss of death for any politician in the politically progressive 13th District.

LaBonge’s opponent, Jackie Goldberg, has long been a staunch gun-control advocate.

A strategist for LaBonge had earlier accused the Goldberg camp of dirty tricks in connection with the endorsement.

Goldberg scoffed at the accusation. LaBonge didn’t press it when the matter came up last week during a joint appearance with her at a forum in Hollywood.

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Tables update: City officials will have a public hearing June 9 in Venice to weigh the fate of the small, concrete picnic tables on Ocean Front Walk that have caused more than a tablespoon of controversy.

Twelve tables donated by merchants in 1990 were bolted to the ground near the Muscle Beach athletic complex. At the beginning of this year, some other merchants decided to have 15 more tables placed just to the north.

Problems surfaced as the latest tables were being installed. Someone who didn’t like them complained to the California Coastal Commission, which has authority over all--and this means all-- permanent development along the coast. The commission informed the Los Angeles Recreation and Parks Department, which supervises the boardwalk, that the tables were illegal because a Coastal Zone Development Permit had not been obtained.

A public hearing is an initial step necessary to obtain a permit. So city officials are now “filing for a permit after the fact,” a recreation and parks supervisor said.

Sometime after the hearing, the commission will conduct its own public hearing and then make a decision.

Three things can happen: The tables will stay, they will be banished altogether or they will be moved, the supervisor said.

The June 9 hearing will be at the Westminster Recreation Center, 1234 Pacific Ave., at 7 p.m.

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Council meetings this week:

* Beverly Hills: 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, 450 N. Crescent Drive (310) 285-2400.

* Culver City: no meeting.

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

* Malibu: no meeting.

* Santa Monica: no meeting.

* West Hollywood: no meeting.

Staff writers Lee Harris, Ron Russell, Alan C. Miller and Nancy Hill-Holtzman contributed to this report.