Funds for Landscaping Looked Better to Hayden Before Quake

A CASE OF AMNESIA? In the weeks before state Sen. Tom Hayden was struck by a bolt of lightning and suddenly decided to run for governor, he busied himself and his staff by blowing the whistle on California’s lack of earthquake preparedness.

In news releases dramatically billed as “Faultline--a series of earthquake investigative reports,” Hayden staffers aired evidence that California is ill-equipped to weather big-time temblors such as the one that struck the San Fernando Valley last month.

Bulletin: Beverly Hills and Santa Monica are among the slowest cities to comply with a 1986 earthquake retrofitting law. Bulletin: California’s state universities dedicate only meager sums to shore up buildings. Bulletin: Caltrans spends more on freeway landscaping than on seismic safety.

On the latter point, an outraged Hayden declared that “the state spent about $220 million on landscaping over the four years since the devastating Loma Prieta earthquake. Amazingly, during that same time frame, Caltrans spent only $175 million on making state highways safer from earthquake damage.”

But wait. Back up a minute to Dec. 2, 1993. On that day, Hayden was on the other side of the fence. In a letter to Franklin E. White, the head of Los Angeles’ Metropolitan Transportation Authority, Hayden spoke out in favor of a Caltrans plan to landscape a portion of the Ventura Freeway in Agoura Hills.

“The landscaping project will greatly enhance the natural scenic views of this region which will be enjoyed by millions of travelers using the Ventura Freeway,” Hayden wrote. “We wholeheartedly support the City’s Freeway Landscaping project and urge the California Transportation Commission to approve the funding necessary to carry out the project.”

The request apparently forgotten, the Santa Monica Democrat even brought up the issue Wednesday in his gubernatorial statement, again hammering away at Caltrans for spending more on landscaping than on seismic retrofits.

Amnesia, maybe?

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IN A VACUUM: Although nearly half of the 41st Assembly District’s electorate lives in the San Fernando Valley, no Valley champion has surfaced yet among the political wanna-bes looking to succeed state Assemblyman Terry Friedman (D-Brentwood) as he retires to seek a Superior Court judgeship.

To date, all the 41st District suitors hail from the Westside-Santa Monica end of Friedman’s mountain-straddling bailiwick.

“It infuriates me that all the candidates are from the Westside,” former Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus said this week. “This happens time and time again.”

But the affront to her Valley sensibilities was not sufficient to goad Picus into running for the Friedman seat herself. “It makes me mad, but not enough to run,” said Picus, who represented the West Valley for 16 years and made it her forte to complain about the Valley’s disenfranchisement at City Hall.

Maybe what’s needed, Picus ventured, is for a Valley civic group to begin grooming home-grown talent for public office.

Meanwhile, former Los Angeles school board member Roberta Weintraub added her name to the list of Valley residents with political experience who are not running for the 41st District seat. Weintraub said her own life was turned upside down by the recent earthquake--which virtually totaled her Sherman Oaks home.

As of Thursday morning, the candidates for the Friedman seat--all Westsiders--were attorney Bill Rothbard of Pacific Palisades, a close friend of Friedman; attorney Roger Diamond, a homeowner activist in the 1980s campaign to block oil drilling in the Pacific Palisades; Santa Monica resident Sheila James Kuehl, attorney for the Southern California Women’s Law Center who played the hapless Zelda in the 1960s sitcom “The Many Loves of Dobie Gillis,” and attorney Edward Z. Tabash of Malibu, a leading spokesman for the California Abortion Rights Action League.

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CLOTHES HORSE: So what did the 1993-94 California Political Almanac, a production of the Sacramento Bee, have to say about state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles), who is now seeking the seat held by state Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys)?

“Rosenthal is a horse racing fanatic who owns all or part of several horses. He even dresses like a racetrack tout in mismatched slacks and plaid jackets that look as though a horse once wore them.”

For the record, Rosenthal said it has been years since he has owned any racehorses.

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FUNNY MAN: Attorney Bob Hertzberg, a close political associate of Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina and a leading light in Jewish community affairs, has pulled the plug on his candidacy for either the seat held by state Assemblywoman Barbara Friedman (D-North Hollywood) or the one held by Roberti.

Hertzberg caused a bit of a stir during his brief, abortive political career. It started with a boasting Hertzberg flashing his $100,000 campaign fund around, telling three other candidates who also were eyeing the same seats that he had more political bucks and chits to call on than they did. “He was trying to intimidate,” said one of those who was approached.

Hertzberg capped this performance by telling Los Angeles school board member Julie Korenstein, one of the other political hopefuls, that they were both so well qualified they really should flip a coin to decide who should run. According to her political consultants, a dumbfounded Korenstein declined the proposal. Hertzberg said later that he was not trying to intimidate anyone and as for the coin-toss--”I was just joking.”

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DISASTER EXPERT: U.S. Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon, whose district suffered the brunt of the earthquake damage, has been named to a bipartisan congressional task force on natural disasters.

The panel will examine the federal response to such calamities and study alternate ways of paying for billions of dollars in emergency aid.

“California has seen its share of natural disasters in the last year and can better gauge the effectiveness of the federal emergency response system,” said McKeon, a Republican from Santa Clarita. “There are many areas where we can improve.”

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MAN WITHOUT A STAFF: Retired city firefighter Don Wallace will have to overcome a new obstacle in his bid to replace retiring county Supervisor Ed Edelman. Last week, Wallace learned that his opponent, Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, had amassed $700,000 to win the seat--70 times more than Wallace. With only $10,000 in his campaign coffers, Wallace said this week that he was been forced to lay off political consultant Kevin Harrop because he cannot afford another $30,000 to retain Harrop through the June 7 primary. Wallace said he will run his own campaign and rely on volunteers to help him canvass the 3rd District, which includes Hollywood and portions of West Los Angeles and the San Fernando Valley.

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Times staff writers James Bornemeier in Washington and Tracey Kaplan in Los Angeles contributed to this report.