Mall negotiations in Carson now headed in the right direction--sort of.

KISS AND MAKE UP: Last January, the owners of the South Bay Pavilion in Carson were none too happy with the behemoth that proposed to become their neighbor.

Carson Mall Partners, owners of the pavilion, sued the city of Carson over the Metro 2000 project, a 180-store outlet mall planned just across the San Diego Freeway. Carson Mall Partners wanted to block the project, fearing that bargain-hunters would create a traffic chokehold.

Now, all is better in the land of Ikea. A settlement is near.

“Some things have been agreed upon and pretty well worked out,” said City Administrator Lawrence G. Olson. “Nothing has been signed. It’s headed in the right direction.”

The city approved the sprawling complex in December and agreed to fund about $17 million in infrastructure, such as roads and sewers, Olson said. The developers of Metro 2000, meanwhile, are responsible for coming up with a plan to clean up the site, which is a former toxic waste dump.

But a separate environmental impact study on Metro 2000 failed to take into account potential traffic problems along Avalon Street, according to Carson Mall Partners’ lawsuit. Among the group’s demands during the subsequent settlement negotiations: an extra cloverleaf on-ramp to the northbound San Diego Freeway, said Mayor Michael I. Mitoma.

“We said ‘That is nuts,’ ” Mitoma said. “We can’t do it.”

Instead, the city has agreed to have an extra lane added to the northbound ramp to the freeway, which is subject to Caltrans approval, Mitoma said.

So what was gained out of all of this?

“Several thousand dollars in legal fees were spent,” Mitoma said.

An attorney for Carson Mall Partners didn’t return phone calls.

*

ATTENTION AL GORE: No Tupperware, no snow cone.

Every Tuesday, those might as well be the orders that students at Arlington Elementary School in Torrance get from the school’s eco-conscious Parent-Teacher Assn.

On what the school calls “Trashless Tuesdays,” all students have to bring lunch without plastic bags or any item that would create trash. Parents monitor the kids as they eat their lunch to make sure they are following the rules. The reward: a snow cone to all students who follow suit.

“We’re trying to get kids to get creative when it comes to trash,” said Joey Sheldon, the PTA’s environmental co-chairwoman. “But you have to give them an incentive.”

To be trash-free, kids carry food in plastic containers and lunch buckets and boxes, and their parents give them the family silverware as eating utensils, Sheldon said. Students who don’t bring their lunch aren’t eligible, she said.

The school has other environmental events in the works for Earth Day on April 22. In addition to the old standards like tree planting, students will make art sculptures out of trash. Last year, entries included dinosaurs and a flower sculpture made from plastic soda bottles.

But the “Trashless Tuesdays” have had the greatest impact, helping cut waste in half on those days, Sheldon said. Of course, students still have to discard the paper holder from the snow cones.

Students “nag us about that, ‘You’re not recycling,’ ” Sheldon said. “But the paper holder is it. If they want straws or napkins, we tell them ‘no-no.’ ”

*

EVE OF DESTRUCTION: “Gardena’s Councilman Fukai Threatens Destruction of Treasurer.”

That was the headline on a press release that Gardena City Treasurer Lorenzo Ybarra sent out last week following a recent encounter with Councilman Mas Fukai, who is running for reelection. (Ybarra supports one of Fukai’s opponents, Steven Bradford).

In the release, Ybarra said that Fukai came up to him after a candidates’ forum on March 29 and yelled “I am going to destroy you!” and then “I am going to get you! You have been giving people information!”

Fukai, however, denies Ybarra’s version of the meeting.

“It’s silly,” he said. “I’ve been on the council for 20 years, and it’s the silliest thing I have ever heard.”

Fukai said that he talked to Ybarra after the meeting, but only to dispute Ybarra’s account of city finances. Ybarra said that an independent audit showed Gardena lost $1.2 million in the general fund in 1993 and $2 million in 1992. Fukai challenges that, saying the city is in much better financial shape.

For now, the two aren’t talking to one another.

“If he wants to get press, he should be able to get better press than this,” Fukai said.

*

TO THE HIGHEST BIDDER: The Terraces, a mammoth center in Rancho Palos Verdes, was renovated five years ago, with a new white paint job, teal awnings and a maze of walkways.

Problem was, many shoppers had a tough time finding the shops. Now the Western Avenue center is two-thirds empty, with Trader Joe’s and a movie multiplex among its only tenants.

Thanks to an auction earlier this month, The Terraces may be getting a new lease on life. The winning bidder, an as-yet unidentified investment group, bought the center for $9.2 million.

The new owners “feel they got a good value based on the price,” said Grubb & Ellis broker Charlie Meyer, who represented the seller, another investment group he would not identify. “They are not scared of the vacancy factor.”

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

“The research is very solid. If the kids have a good foundation in Spanish then they can be successful. If they have poor tools in Spanish, then they develop poor tools in English, and the youngster is handicapped all the way through.”

--Lennox Supt. Kenneth L. Moffett, on why he insists that teachers be able to teach primary students in Spanish.