Alarcon Silences the Trust Fund Flap : New Councilman Uses a Diplomatic Approach to Diffuse Problem Created by Predecessor

The Lopez Canyon Community Amenities Trust Fund was designed for a specific purpose. It was created by the Los Angeles City Council in 1991 to offer public amenities to residents in three northern San Fernando Valley communities. Those areas would be most affected by the council’s decision then to continue operating the Lopez Canyon Landfill for five more years.

Lopez Canyon takes in about 4,000 tons of garbage a day, an amount equal to one-fourth of the city’s total trash output and two-thirds of the waste collected by city workers.

Surrounding neighborhoods have long bemoaned the heavy-equipment noise and odor associated with the sprawling, 392-acre city-owned dump. That is why the council set up the $5-million fund to make improvements in the lives of those who live in the Lake View Terrace, Kagel Canyon and Pacoima communities.

About $700,000, for example, purchased a headquarters in Pacoima for an anti-gang program operated by the LAPD. Even that was opposed by Lake View Terrace residents who complained that Pacoima shouldn’t benefit from the fund. Another $250,000 was used to install air conditioning for Brainard Elementary School in Lake View Terrace.

It was therefore odd that former 7th District Councilman Ernani Bernardi, who had been instrumental in setting up the trust fund in the first place, would seek to use a huge chunk of its remaining funds in a way that would offer no benefit at all to the dump’s neighbors. Just two days before the end of his term, Bernardi wanted his council colleagues to transfer $1 million from the fund to establish the Ernani Bernardi Scholarship Trust Fund for students at Mission College in Sylmar. The City Council mapped out how the Bernardi scholarship fund would be administered, and was about to consider a transfer of $1 million from the Lopez Canyon monies.

His successor in the 7th District, Richard Alarcon, could have allowed the raid on the trust to go forward, which would have been both the easiest and the wrong thing to do. Alarcon also could have launched an undiplomatic broadside about the scholarship fund, Bernardi, and the council vote without ever getting the council to change its collective mind on the matter. Fortunately, he did neither.

Instead, Alarcon urged his council colleagues to slash the scholarship fund by nearly 75%, preserving the bulk of the trust’s fund’s remaining dollars for the Lopez dump’s neighbors. Moreover, the recipients of the scholarship would have to perform community service in the neighborhoods around the dump. All the while, he heaped praise on Bernardi’s long years of public service. The council went along, 13 to 0. Not a bad day’s work for a freshman council member.