Hayden, Kuehl, Katz Changing the Environment in Sacramento

COLOR THEM GREEN: With Earth Day celebrating its quarter-century anniversary, this may be a good time to take note of some efforts by Valley-area legislators to add a shade of green to the state’s code books.

Topping the area’s environmental roster is Democratic state Sen. Tom Hayden, whose progressive district straddles the Santa Monica Mountains but who is definitely not a fence-sitter when it comes to Earth-friendly causes.

From the man whose past legislation has tackled ocean pollution, pesticide poisons and other health risks this year comes a bill with softer edges--one that calls for integrating environmental lessons into public school classrooms.

The bill has its roots in goals outlined by the state Department of Education, which apparently believes, as Hayden does, that it’s a good idea to start teaching children about ecology at an early age. Word is, though, that the bill--which this week won a nod from the Senate Education Committee--may be advancing a little too quickly for the department’s bureaucratic tastes.

On the Assembly side, newcomer Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) has swiftly fallen into step with advocates for the Santa Monica Mountains. She is carrying legislation to halt the threat of landfill expansion there, targeting the Calabasas Landfill in particular.

Freshman Assemblyman Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles) is carrying the ball on another Santa Monica Mountains Conservancy bill and this week won rare bipartisan support for it.

Knox’s proposal directs the agency to turn its attentions inward toward the core of Los Angeles by designating the mountainous region between the San Diego Freeway and Griffith Park as an “urban wild” in need of study and, ultimately, protection.

GOP Assembly members James Rogan of Glendale and Paula Boland of Granada Hills, who often end up on the other side of the fence from their Democratic colleagues, lowered the partisan barrier in the Assembly Natural Resources Committee to cast votes in favor of Knox’s bill.

But in the Assembly, it is Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) who has emerged as the delegation’s don of green and animal-rights causes.

In years past, Katz has led efforts to help clean up the Southland’s air and ground water and protect its mountains, canyons and wildlife.

This year, Katz is carrying a bill to protect dolphins and other marine mammals from being captured and displayed in inhumane conditions.

Although some might question what a legislator from a landlocked district is doing behind a “Free Willie” bill, Katz views it as a natural.

Besides, someone has to stand firm on the 25th Earth Day in the face of a stepped-up conservative assault on environmental regulations, he says.

“All our efforts are now threatened by right-wing extremists who don’t understand that protecting our environment is necessary. The public needs to keep pressure on elected officials . . . (or) we will be on a path to destroy our planet, not save it.”

So there.

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COLOR THEM BLUE: From the beginning, political pundits predicted that a $171-million bond measure to build new police stations and expand others would fail to draw enough voter support to pass without an effective sales job by its advocates.

History has borne out this dire prediction. Since 1981, three bond measures to raise money to hire additional officers and two measures to upgrade police communications systems have failed to get the 66% majority needed.

It’s clear that this message has been heard by supporters, namely the Los Angeles City Council, which voted to put the measure on the June ballot in hopes of easing crowded conditions in police stations citywide.

City and police officials have responded by assembling the machinery needed to run a good old-fashioned, get-out-the-vote campaign.

Housed in donated offices in Downtown Los Angeles, Citizens for a Safer L.A. has employed a small band of highly effective campaigners, including PR specialist Geofrey Garfield, the police union media consultant who, in the midst of a recent contract dispute, helped design a controversial billboard campaign showing a woman confronted by a gun-wielding, masked man.

The main campaign strategist is Parke Skelton, who most recently worked on the failed City Council campaign of former school board member Roberta Weintraub.

Also on the team is longtime Democratic fund-raiser Diane Sherman, who helped former Councilman Michael Woo raise $6 million in his failed mayoral bid in 1993.

The campaign also employs Global Strategies, a polling firm that specializes in gauging voter support for such bond measures.

But the lead spokesman for the measure will be Councilman Richard Alarcon, who led the charge to put the measure on the ballot and if successful would be rewarded with a new police division for his northeast San Fernando Valley district.

This may seem like a formidable group, but opponents of the bond measure are not shaking in their boots.

After all, opponents include Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn., the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. and the United Organization of Taxpayers--the core group that got voters to approve Proposition 13 back in 1978. They argue that the bond measure would do nothing to put more police on the streets.

Close says his group is not going to put together an expensive campaign, like the one supporters are developing. Instead, opponents will concentrate on speaking out at debates and other public forums.

“We will be low-budget, but effective,” he said.

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VYING FOR THE VALLEY: Assemblyman Katz is wading into the increasingly heated race for the vacant 5th District City Council post by endorsing Mike Feuer over Barbara Yaroslavsky in the June 6 runoff.

Feuer, the former head of a free legal-services agency, drew 39% of the vote in the April 11 primary, compared to 21% for Yaroslavsky, the wife of city councilman-turned-county-supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky.

Katz is scheduled to announce his endorsement today in a news conference to be held in front of a vacant, quake-damaged condominium in Sherman Oaks.

Feuer is expected to use the locale and Katz’s backing to try to lock up the support of Valley voters, who are expected to play a key role in the runoff.

Political pundits say Feuer and Yaroslavsky are splitting the liberal-Jewish vote in the Westside section of the district, making the Valley vote that much more important.

“Katz believes that Mike will be the best thing for the Valley,” said Feuer campaign manager Cynthia Corona.

During his mayoral bid in 1993, Katz received 16% of the Valley’s vote, according to city figures and poll results.

But it remains to be seen whether Katz’s support will make a difference.

After all, Yaroslavsky has been endorsed by Mayor Richard Riordan, who won overwhelming support from Valley voters when he was elected in 1993. Nonetheless, during the primary election, she came in dead last among voters in Sherman Oaks.

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IF THE FORM FITS . . . For those who sweated and cursed their way through Income Tax Hell to meet Monday’s deadline, here’s some comforting news: Even the bigwigs in Washington who made up those forms in the first place have difficulty filling them out.

A survey shows that only three of the 36 members of the House Ways and Means Committee, which writes the nation’s tax laws, prepared their own returns. The situation is no better in the Senate, where only one of the 20 members of the Finance Committee acknowledges sitting down with a pencil and calculator at tax time.

San Fernando Valley-area lawmakers, too, call in the likes of H & R Block for aid as mid-April nears.

Reps. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills), Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), Howard (Buck) McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) and Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale) all use outside accountants to prepare their returns, according to staffers. Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) does his form himself, an aide said.

Overall, the Internal Revenue Service estimates that about half of filers use outside help, even though the forms supposedly are written on sixth- and eighth-grade reading levels.

For those who tackle the forms themselves, the IRS acknowledges that it is no routine exercise. For the 1040, the most common form, the IRS estimates 3 hours, 8 minutes for record keeping; 2 hours, 53 minutes for learning the law; 4 hours, 41 minutes for preparing the forms, and 53 minutes for copying, assembling and mailing the mass of paperwork.

That’s a grand total of 11 hours and 35 minutes--and a compelling argument to those attempting to simplify the tax code.

Craft reported from Sacramento, Martin from Los Angeles and Lacey from Washington.