Last-Minute Gift From the Heart

Christmas mail: Opponents of the Santa Monica Civic Center Specific Plan dropped off a last-minute Christmas gift for the City Clerk on Thursday.

The “gift” is likely to be a New Year’s headache for the City Council.

With five minutes to spare before City Hall closed for the holiday, members of the group turned in petitions with enough signatures to qualify a ballot measure that would let voters decide on a City Council-approved plan to revamp the Civic Center area.

The deadline for presentation of the petition had just been extended

to Monday, but group members said they felt they deserved the holiday off.

By their count, members of the group, Citizens for a Better Civic Center, turned in 8,574 signatures, almost 3,000 more than the 5,666 valid signatures needed to put the matter on the ballot. City Clerk Clarice Dykhouse accepted the petitions and will turn them over to the county for verification Monday.

The signatures were collected by about 50 volunteers, a dozen part-time paid workers and State Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Santa Monica) at markets around the city in the last 23 days, two of them rainy.

(One dogged slow-growth advocate, Merritt Coleman said he logged 100 hours in his quest to bring the Civic Center plan to the scrutiny of the general public.)

Group leaders were understandably eager to dispel the frequently repeated criticism that they are a small band of malcontents who oppose all development.

“We are clearly neither ragtag or small,” said Mike Feinstein.

That was also the message from Hayden, who said in a written statement that it is time for the City Council to rethink its view that the plan is popular.

“You have misjudged the temper of Santa Monica voters,” Hayden said.

Hayden is calling on the council to rethink its plans, which opponents believe will bring too much traffic congestion to the heart of the city. If city leaders decline, the matter will either be the subject of a special election or on the June ballot, depending on what the council decides.

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House with a history: OK, so it isn’t the same address as Norma Desmond’s famous Sunset Boulevard estate. Fact is, there is no 10086 Sunset Blvd., the address immortalized in the movie--and now the musical--about a forgotten silent screen star and a jaded screenwriter.

But along the 10000 block of one of the world’s most famous boulevards, there is one even-numbered address. And the house at 10000 Sunset, just west of Beverly Hills, has its own film lore.

The house can claim a real screen legend as a resident--Judy Garland. Along with her then-husband, Academy Award-winning director Vincente Minnelli, Garland brought future Academy Award-winner Liza Minnelli home there as a baby.

Another Academy Award-winner, Jennifer Jones, also resided at the house.

True, no bodies have been found in its swimming pool, as at Desmond’s fictional abode. But billionaire Howard Hughes took a dip or two when he rented the property, according to its current owner, real estate investor Stanley Black.

Coincidentally, the house, now most notable to passers-by for its bronze statuary, played a role in the 1950 film version of “Sunset Boulevard.” In an early scene, car repossessors chase doomed screenwriter Joe Gillis (William Holden) up the house’s driveway. That leads to his encounter with Desmond (Gloria Swanson).

The actual mansion used in the film was on Wilshire Boulevard and has since been demolished.

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Community college-bound: Speaking of addresses, Beverly Hills High School has always touted itself as a place where most of its graduates go to college. For years, at least 90% of graduates have been college-bound.

But a closer look at where the graduates have been going of late reveals something new. More than a third of the 1993 graduating class--170 of 455--enrolled at Santa Monica College. The 1992 graduating class sent a similar percentage there. Indeed, some locals have started referring to Santa Monica College as “Beverly by the Sea.”

Among the 1993 graduates, another 17 students went to other community colleges, increasing the total bound for community colleges to 41% of those surveyed.

Most of the rest--238 students, or 52% of the class--enrolled at various four-year colleges; 21% of the class entered the UC system; 19% enrolled at private four-year schools; 7% went to state universities outside of California and 5% enrolled at a university in the Cal State system.

By comparison, just 25% of the Class of 1989 (the earliest single year for which figures are available) went to community colleges.

Officials with the high school and Beverly Hills Unified School District offered two reasons for the shift toward community colleges--the economy and the increase of foreign-born graduates.

As an example of the effect of economic trends, the officials note that rising tuition costs--combined with decreasing amounts of financial aid--have caused students who would have otherwise gone to private colleges to focus on such schools as UCLA. That, in turn, has kept out students who would have qualified for UCLA in the past.

Meanwhile, limited English-language skills have kept some of the district’s foreign-born students from getting the grades and test scores required for admittance to four-year colleges. Also, the cultures of some of these students encourage them to stay at home until they are older.

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Council meetings this week:

* Beverly Hills: no meeting. (310) 285-2400.

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

* Los Angeles: no meeting. (213) 485-3126.

* Malibu: no meeting. (310) 456-2489.

* Santa Monica: no meeting. (310) 393-9975.

* West Hollywood: no meeting. (310) 854-7460.

Contributing to this week’s report were Times staff writers Steven Herbert and Nancy Hill-Holtzman.