Mansion Fighters Bring in the Big Political Guns

Raising the ante: There was a time when wealthy Beverly Hills residents who got embroiled in neighborhood disputes would just go out and hire an expensive lawyer-mouthpiece.

That’s not enough for actor Jack Lemmon and some of his neighbors who oppose plans for a huge mansion near their homes in the lush northwest corner of the city. To prepare for their Aug. 3 appeal before the City Council, the residents, led by Lemmon and developer Stuart Ketchum, have hired a political consulting firm to help rally sentiment against the project.

Cerrell Associates, a Los Angeles firm with offices in Sacramento and Washington, recently sent out a slick campaign-style circular to 12,000 registered voters in the city. In true campaign-mailer tradition, it screams “Stop the Land Rape of Beverly Hills” and urges residents to appeal to the council to stop the development of the “Manoukian Entertainment Compound.” It also features a Perot-style graphic that compares the size of the estate to those of typical neighborhood houses. (Also in true campaign-mailer tradition, the graphic exaggerates the proportions of the project.)

The nearly four-acre property on Tower Road is owned by London resident Robert Manoukian. The development was originally planned at 59,000 square feet, but has been pared back to about 36,000 square feet, plus a 10,000-square-foot basement. The proposal received Planning Commission approval in April after Manoukian agreed to 81 conditions, regulating everything from construction procedures to the number of parties that can be held each year.

Manoukian attorney Murray D. Fischer said opponents are trying to wage a political campaign when the merits of the project will be decided in accordance with city laws.

If the council is going to review the project using criteria other than city regulations, Fischer said, “I feel sorry for any other person that desires to build something . . . in accordance with applicable codes. What it really means is the codes mean nothing and your next-door neighbor can tell you what can and cannot be built.”

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Whatever happened to ‘No, thank you’? State Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica), not exactly a fixture on the Legislature’s reception and fund-raiser circuit, was recently the surprise recipient of an invitation from the state’s biggest utility companies “for a superb evening of cruising and dining” later this month at the National Conference of State Legislatures in San Diego.

“We will board the luxury yacht The Entertainer beginning at 5:45 p.m. for our gourmet dinner and entertainment cruise of San Diego Harbor,” reads the letter on Southern California Edison Co. stationery.

Hayden turned down the invitation with a scolding letter. The interests of Edison’s customers, he said, are not “served by this kind of extravagant wining and dining of susceptible politicians.”

A better form of lobbying, suggested Hayden, would be for Edison to provide politicians with a ride in an electric vehicle and ask them to pass laws that advance the cause of non-polluting cars. “Then, I would have something to toast you about--on dry land, of course,” he said.

Jim Cassie, spokesman for cruise co-sponsor San Diego Gas & Electric, replied that his company does, in fact, plan to have some vehicles fueled by compressed natural gas available for demonstration rides at the convention. And he said the utility works hard “to make sure ratepayer dollars are not used for lobbying-type activities such as the dinner cruise.”

Hayden refused to let up. “The whole affair still casts an appearance of extravagant collusions between politicians and those they regulate,” he said.

Lew Phelps, Edison vice president of corporate communications, said Hayden “is trying to turn a small desert lizard into Tyrannosaurus rex.”

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Street-fightin’ man: Street Cats may be gone, but its feud with West Hollywood continues. Few departures have made the city’s officials happier than that of the street patrol group, whose aggressive sidewalk fund raising near gay bars irked merchants and often put leader Don Fass at odds with City Hall.

Fass--a former radio journalist whose resume also boasts stints in the human-potential and humanistic psychology movements of the 1970s--packed up the group’s familiar donation table on Santa Monica Boulevard in March and trooped off to San Francisco, saying he was targeted by an official harassment campaign.

Doubts about the group’s nonprofit status and whether it really patrolled the streets had led West Hollywood officials to investigate. Merchants contended that the fund raising was little more than panhandling.

Fass, 49, maintains that the group used the money to prowl the streets--stopping about 40 crimes in progress in more than two years--by buying cellular phones and an old Postal Service Jeep. But critics said patrols were rare.

Now the group faces a similar storm in its new home.

A San Francisco newspaper reported last week that merchants in the heavily gay Castro District are accusing Street Cats of soliciting money without providing the promised patrols.

The news story reignited the hostility between Fass and his West Hollywood critics. Fass admitted phoning a city staffer quoted in the story, calling her a name and threatening to sue for libel.

Meanwhile, a recorded message on the Street Cats’ toll-free telephone line says the group was maligned by “some very corrupt West Hollywood officials.”

“We’re going to get these corrupt sons of bitches in West Hollywood once and for all--with media, with lawsuits--and they’re going down,” the recording vows.

“We’ll be back,” Fass said in an interview. “Let’s show them that we’re not afraid of them, that we’re not leaving town.”

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Standing fast: Newly elected Los Angeles Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, a longtime champion of liberal causes, held true to political form last week when she voted against supporting the death penalty for those found guilty of drive-by shootings.

Goldberg, whose district includes Hollywood, was on the losing side of the vote on a measure that endorsed a state Senate bill to categorize drive-by shootings deaths as murders with “special circumstances.” The designation would allow the death penalty to be imposed.

“You are adding a death penalty to a measure that is aimed primarily at the young, the poor, African-Americans and Latinos. That’s historically how the death penalty has been used in this country. It has not been used evenhandedly,” Goldberg said.

Goldberg supported a proposed amendment by Councilman Mark Ridley-Thomas that would have put the council on record as backing life sentences without the possibility of parole for those convicted on drive-by killings.

Such a sentence “has the same effect as the death penalty. It removes the individual from ever doing this again,” she said.

The Ridley-Thomas amendment failed and the council voted 11 to 3 to support the Senate bill. Joining Goldberg and Ridley-Thomas was Mike Hernandez.

Veteran Westside Councilmen Marvin Braude and Zev Yaroslavsky voted with the majority, perhaps reflecting a shifting attitudes among constituents who once were dyed-in-the-wool liberals but now are increasingly concerned about the city’s crime problem.

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Whew! Karen and Arnold York won’t have to be nice to the Malibu City Council after all.

The publishers of the weekly Malibu Times were put on the spot recently when a citizen group in charge of drawing up Malibu’s General Plan designated their Las Flores Canyon neighborhood a residential area. The decision, if allowed to stand, would have forced the Yorks, whose paper has been highly critical of the council and the General Plan, to ask the city’s permission to continue publishing from that location.

In arguing against the residential designation, Arnold York said it would place the paper in the untenable position of having to rely on the goodwill of City Hall.

Last week, the council came up with a Solomon-like decision. It grouped several properties along Las Flores Canyon Road, including the Yorks’, into a Specific Plan district that will allow the paper and other business uses in the district to remain, while maintaining the residential designation for the rest of the canyon.

“I don’t think (the citizen group) understood how strongly we felt this was a First Amendment issue and how uncomfortable we felt about asking permission,” Arnold York said Thursday. “I’m relieved that we were able to amicably settle it.”

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Council meetings this week:

* Beverly Hills: no meeting.

* Culver City: 7 p.m. Monday, Interim City Hall, Trailer No. 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.