Pete Knight’s Office May Lack Frills, but It Looks Pretty in Pink

PRUDENT PETE: Now here’s a tightfisted politician who puts his money where his mouth is. Or doesn’t, depending on how you look at it.

Republican Assemblyman William J. (Pete) Knight revealed this week that, during his first year in the Legislature, he spent less money operating his office than any other Assembly member.

In fact, Knight actually returned more than 40% of the money he was allocated in 1993 to run his offices in Sacramento and Palmdale.

“I guess it’s just my nature,” Knight said. “I don’t believe in spending money just because we have it. It’s really not our money to spend anyway.”

According to data distributed by the Assembly Rules Committee, Knight spent $141,019.43 on office supplies, staff salaries and other expenses in 1993, the most recent year for which totals are available. Most members spent well over $200,000.

Knight, whose Palmdale district enthusiastically returned him to the Capitol with 69.71% of the vote Nov. 8, has long espoused conservative Republican fiscal views. He is a no-nonsense lawmaker who thrives on trying to cut government with proposals to abolish various state boards and commissions.

One would think Knight’s frugality might set an example other Republicans would love to follow.

On the contrary, he has taken some heat from fellow GOP members because the taxpayer funds he declined reverted back to the Assembly operating budget. And that was under the control of then-Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, the Democratic nemesis of staunch conservatives.

There’s another consequence to Knight’s refusal to spend all the office funds he can get his hands on, which affects the assemblyman on a more personal level.

He’s got to live with pink. Pink blinds, pink carpet, pinkish walls.

For whatever reason, the retired Air Force colonel was assigned to what was regarded around the Capitol as a “woman’s office” ever since a former assemblywoman had it decorated to excess years ago.

Knight did have the pink overhead lights removed, said aide Matt Rexroad, since they made everyone appear sunburned. But he has refused to spend taxpayer money on remodeling the rest.

“He’s living with the pink,” Rexroad said Thursday, even though “Pete Knight is not a pink kind of guy.”

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HONEST DAVE: At the same time California’s campaign watchdog agency announced it will levy a $500 fine against former state Sen. David A. Roberti, it praised him for turning himself in.

It seems that Roberti’s campaign dropped the fine print from a 1992 campaign mailer that should have told voters who paid for its distribution.

The mailer carried an endorsement of Roberti by Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar), leaving the impression that it was Katz who sent it to 27,000 Democratic households in the San Fernando Valley.

But it was Roberti’s campaign organization that wrote, printed and paid the $8,000 to distribute the mailer, according to a statement released Thursday by the Fair Political Practices Commission.

At the time, Roberti was battling charges that he was a carpetbagger and opportunist who rented a tiny duplex in Van Nuys just so he could establish residency in time for the 20th Senate District election.

The backing of Katz, who won reelection this November by a whopping 70% margin, was crucial to Roberti’s chances to win the support of Valley Democrats.

“The mailer gave the clear indication that it came from Assemblyman Katz,” said the FPPC.

But Roberti got credit--and lots of it--for pulling a George Washington by admitting his sin to the FPPC before the agency had a chance to catch wind of it independently.

“On May 1, 1992, Senator Roberti himself wrote the Commission pointing out the violation, thereby initiating enforcement review of this matter,” the FPPC said. “It appears that Senator Roberti was not personally involved in putting the mailing together and only became aware of the violation two days after the mailing had been sent.”

With so little in dispute, one wonders how long the FPPC might have taken to settle the case had the facts been murkier.

At any rate, the commission said it would fine Roberti only $500 out of a maximum penalty of $2,000.

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HAL’S PAL: The cozy relationship that has recently developed between Northridge businessman Walter Prince and Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson goes to show that there is a lot of truth to the old expression “Politics makes strange bedfellows.”

Prince, who owns a Northridge building-maintenance firm, has for years been the thorn in Bernson’s side, the untiring critic who seemed to enjoy bashing the councilman’s every move.

He first attacked Bernson in 1989 when he launched an unsuccessful recall campaign against him for the councilman’s efforts to redevelop property near Prince’s company headquarters. Prince even shelled out $55,000 of his own money to underwrite the recall effort.

In 1991, Prince unsuccessfully challenged Bernson’s reelection campaign, criticizing Bernson’s support of the massive Porter Ranch development. This time Prince shelled out $30,000 for the campaign.

Bernson claimed Prince was waging a “blood vendetta against me,” and Prince said that if Bernson won the election--which he did--he would “go out and shoot myself.”

But the relationship between the two took a 180-degree turn when Bernson appointed Prince to a citizens panel a few months ago that was assigned to consider using redevelopment powers to rebuild quake-damaged neighborhoods in Bernson’s district.

Although the plan was abandoned last month, Prince and Bernson grew closer during the project. Bernson even publicly thanked Prince for his participation, calling him “an intelligent man.”

Still, Prince said he has worked with Bernson just once and would not yet call himself a Bernson ally. “We’ve only dated twice,” he joked. “We haven’t even kissed.”

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HOWARD’S BILL: With the one-year anniversary of the Northridge earthquake and the deadline for 1994 income taxes both approaching, Rep. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City) this week reintroduced a bill to permit disaster victims to deduct their casualty losses from their federal income taxes.

Current law already permits victims of federal disasters to deduct their personal losses if damages exceed 10% of their adjusted gross income, plus $100. In other words, a family making $50,000 a year would have to suffer $5,100 in damages to earn the tax relief.

Berman wants to wipe out the 10% threshold, a step that one estimate said would cost the federal treasury about $22 million a year.

Showing the bipartisan appeal of the idea--at least within the earthquake zone--Reps. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), Howard P. (Buck) McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale) and Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) all signed on to the tax relief proposal as co-sponsors. Last session, the bill never got past the Ways and Means Committee, which was bogged down in President Clinton’s health reform package.

In reintroducing the bill Thursday, Berman said: “Every dollar taxpayers have to send to Washington is a dollar not spent in their devastated local communities. They could spend that money putting contractors and builders to work--or they could use it in local stores to buy items to replace damaged possessions.”

The bill itself does not mention the Northridge temblor. But the good news for those in the San Fernando Valley whose lives are still suffering aftershocks from last year’s quake is that Berman’s bill, if approved, would apply to all federal disasters on or after Jan. 17, 1994.

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ZEV’S DIGS: When Zev Yaroslavsky left his City Council seat last month to become the newest county supervisor, he initiated a scramble to see who would get his highly coveted office space on the third floor of City Hall.

The space is desirable because it provides a large office for the council member and a private conference room and is only steps away from the chambers where the council meets three times a week.

The winner of the office scramble was Councilman Mike Hernandez, who beat out Councilman Richard Alarcon because Hernandez has been in office longer. The custom at City Hall is that seniority rules when it comes to office assignments.

Alarcon gets the consolation prize: Hernandez’s old digs, which are slightly more spacious than the offices Alarcon now occupies and provide the councilman with his own private bathroom.

The downside, however, is that Alarcon will be moving into an office that is about to undergo noisy earthquake rehab work.