Council Members Decline to Add Fuel to the Williams Flap Fire

SOUNDS OF SILENCE: Maybe you can’t always fight City Hall, but you can usually get a quote out of it.

Not so Thursday, when several politicos in residence remained uncharacteristically mum on the hottest topic of the day: the controversy surrounding Police Chief Willie L. Williams, who was reprimanded by the Police Commission for allegedly lying about free hotel rooms in Las Vegas.

Did Williams tell the whole truth or didn’t he? Do city officials still repose full confidence in his leadership of the city’s men and women in blue?

An aide to Councilman Hal Bernson, a frequent police booster, said her boss had nothing to say on the controversy surrounding Williams.

“Right now this is a personnel matter between the chief and the commission,” said Francine Oschin. Bernson is “not going to get involved at this point.”

Instead, the councilman was out with Williams at a luncheon Thursday in Universal City honoring law-enforcement officers. The controversy never came up.

Councilwoman Laura Chick, one of the most outspoken members on public-safety issues, and Councilman Richard Alarcon, the author of a $171-million bond measure to build police facilities, were also silent.

Council President John Ferraro issued a brief statement through aide Gayle Johnson suggesting that “we return to normalcy in our city . . . if that’s possible.” The statement declared that “too much has been said already. It’s too bad this matter was spilled out into the public arena.”

Joel Wachs said the same, though he did it live.

“Everyone ought to de-escalate this whole thing and put it into perspective,” the councilman said.

He said the council has yet to see the Police Commission’s report, but from what he has seen in the media, the affair “doesn’t justify the kind of widespread attention that it seems to be getting.”

Only Marvin Braude of the six council members who represent the San Fernando Valley was willing to take an immediate stand.

“I feel very strongly about it. I know Chief Williams very well,” said Braude, head of the council’s Public Safety Committee. “I have no reason to think that he’s not telling the truth.

“Of course, I haven’t seen the report of the commission, but I have no reason to think this outstanding police officer would do something like that. There’s an American principle of the presumption of innocence.”

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THREE’S COMPANY: The runoff for the 5th District City Council seat was supposed to be a race between two contenders: Barbara Yaroslavsky and Mike Feuer. But now it seems that state Sen. Tom Hayden is just as much a part of the campaign as the two hopefuls.

Hayden became embroiled in the campaign after Yaroslavsky issued a campaign mailer aimed at Republicans that accused Feuer of supporting “Tom Hayden’s proposal to limit homeowners’ property rights.”

What got Hayden mad is that there is no “proposal to limit homeowners’ property rights.” When pressed, Yaroslavsky explained that the mailer refers to the Santa Monica Democrat’s past efforts to impose rent control on single-family homes.

Although Hayden was a big supporter of rent control and tenants’ rights in Santa Monica in the ‘70s, he insists that he never pushed for such an idea and is angered at being used to tie Feuer to well-known symbols of liberalism--Hayden and rent control.

In response, Hayden has issued several letters to Yaroslavsky, demanding an apology. But Yaroslavsky has yet to oblige.

Hayden has sought to increase the pressure on Yaroslavsky by sending a staff member to each public debate.

At a recent forum in Westwood, Hayden’s researcher, Rocky Jaramillo Rushing, stood in front of the 60 or so people in the audience and asked Yaroslavsky to explain her mailer and publicly apologize to Hayden. The request sparked grumbling and protests from some audience members, who simply wanted to talk about potholes and traffic problems in Westwood. One audience member called Rushing a “bum” when he continued to press Yaroslavsky for refusing to apologize. Later, Hayden’s field deputy, Sandy Brown, who is also a member of a Westside homeowners group, chimed in, calling Yaroslavsky’s mailers “gutter-style tactics.”

But it’s not over yet. Hayden vows to continue to send representatives to every public debate until Yaroslavsky apologizes for the mailer.

“Just as sure as Feuer and Yaroslavsky will be there, so will we,” Rushing said.

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NO TASTE FOR THE JUICE: Add to the deep divisions between Northern and Southern California a serious lack of interest in the O.J. Simpson trial up north.

Weeks ago, Northern California--including the state’s policy makers in Sacramento--ceased to obsess, or even care, about Marcia’s hairdo, Kato’s career and O. J.’s clenched-jaw courtroom persona.

The double-murder trial rarely rates small talk anymore, and practically no one in the Capitol has it on the tube these days.

Which may explain at least in part why the Assembly Judiciary Committee was so ho-hum in reaction to Assemblywoman Paula Boland’s bill this week to recoup some of the costs of the Trial of the Century. Being out of touch, they just didn’t get it.

With Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich at her side, Boland, a Granada Hills Republican, pitched a plan to sell TV rights for high-profile trials to the highest bidder, thereby cutting taxpayers in on a piece of the action now going to TV stations, court reporters, even hot dog vendors.

Antonovich, who clearly had not lost his obsession with the trial, drew his best doomsday scenario for the legislators: The county’s trial cost was $5 million but was expected to reach $8 million--and in the event of a retrial could easily hit $16 million.

And here Court TV was making fistfuls of money by charging $35 a second for feeds from the Simpson trial, Boland and Antonovich complained.

“The amount of profit will be half a billion dollars from the O. J. trial,” Antonovich said. “That’s bigger than the gross national product of Grenada.

“It’s a soap opera. It has now exceeded ‘All My Children.’ It’s the longest-running live daytime news show. And it’s being financed by taxpayers.”

There was talk of L.A. County Sheriff Sherman Block needing to cut his budget by $28 million and even the suggestion that jail inmates may be set free because the county was diverting so much of its budget to the trial.

But darn if those Judiciary Committee members didn’t get stuck on that First Amendment.

“We’ve got a great little circus here and it would be wonderful to sell it but I don’t think it’s in the public’s interest to sell a trial,” said Assemblywoman Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica).

“I do not believe the government has the right to make the media pay for news,” said Assemblyman Jim Battin (R-La Quinta).

After a two-hour debate, committee members turned down the bill, with 10 voting against it and three for it.

Boland, however, vows to press ahead. She has requested a special hearing on the issue in Los Angeles--on her turf, where awareness of the excesses of the trial in the face of threatened budget cuts registers loud and clear.

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BREAKFAST SPECIAL: Los Angeles County stumbled in Sacramento this week in an attempt to call attention to its budget woes.

Figuring--quite accurately in some cases--that one way to reach a lawmaker’s heart is through his or her stomach, the county invited the local legislative delegation to a breakfast briefing on its fiscal plight.

Invitations were sent to the Assembly and Senate on Supervisor Gloria Molina’s stationery by fax, and then by Federal Express the next day. This left more than one staff member grumbling that the county seemed to have an awful lot of money to spend on overnight delivery.

Luckily, the county was offering only a continental breakfast and not the chef’s special.

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FOSTER CARE: The U.S. Senate, not the House of Representatives, confirms presidential appointees. On that, the Constitution is clear. But the Founding Fathers never said the House can’t have its say.

Trying to do just that, Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) has joined with more than 50 House colleagues in urging Senate Majority Leader Robert Dole to bring to a vote President Clinton’s nomination of Dr. Henry Foster as surgeon general.

The controversial nomination--which has raised the abortion controversy because of Foster’s past as an obstetrician-gynecologist--is expected to be approved today by the Senate Labor and Human Resources Committee. Then Foster’s name goes to the Senate floor, where Texas Sen. Phil Gramm, a candidate for the Republican presidential nomination, has vowed to mount a filibuster. Dole, the GOP presidential front-runner, is still mulling whether to allow the Foster nomination to come to a vote and how he might respond to Gramm’s threat.

That’s where Waxman & Co. come in.

“Mr. Dole, it is too early to let Presidential politics quiet the important voice of the U.S. Surgeon General,” their letter said. “Dr. Foster is right when he said he had a right to be heard and a right to a vote.”

This column was reported by Henry Chu and Hugo Martin in Los Angeles, Cynthia H. Craft in Sacramento and Marc Lacey in Washington, D.C.