Beverly Hills: The Return of the Hillgreen Monster

So Hillgreen stirs once again [Westside, June 25]. This Los Angeles street made news a couple of years ago by seeking annexation into Beverly Hills.

The annexation request came at a time when Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky was pushing a massive expansion of Twentieth Century Fox and Abe Knobel was chairman of a citizen’s ad hoc committee studying the project.

For a period, the committee took on all the appearances of a rubber stamp for the project. Curiously, Knobel soon vacated the position.

Coincidentally, Yaroslavsky was soon ramrodding the Hillgreen annexation through L.A. City Council.

It would have given Hillgreen residents, of which Knobel was a prominent one, a windfall conservatively estimated at $150,000 per home, at a cost to Los Angeles and Beverly Hills of millions of dollars.

Claims of safety and security advantages were overshadowed by the obvious financial benefits to Hillgreen homeowners. Rejection by the Beverly Hills City Council tabled the gambit.

But here comes the greed monster again!

I hope Beverly Hills will continue to reject this self-serving request, and the L.A. City Council will reverse its former decision, putting this request where it belongs--in the trash heap.

ALLAN RABINOWITZ, Los Angeles