Proposal for King Beating Site Criticized

On the gritty patch of dirt where Rodney G. King was beaten by police, Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon wants to build a high-tech library and community banquet hall staffed by gourmet chefs.

The site, which would be called Peace Gardens, would also include landscaped gardens, a patio and an outdoor stage.

The proposal drew immediate fire from parks officials, who said the project would interfere with other plans, and public employee union leaders, who called it a “preposterous white elephant” in an era when cash-strapped city and county governments are laying off workers by the hundreds.

Although few details had been worked out by Tuesday, Alarcon and his chief of staff said they were very serious about the plan. They said the city’s General Services Department is now appraising the value on the wedge of land dubbed “Rodney King Corner”--a tract of less than an acre at Foothill Boulevard and Osborne Street where King was clubbed by Los Angeles Police Department officers in 1991.

Alarcon will chair a public works committee meeting on the proposal at 2:30 p.m. today at the Van Nuys Women’s Club.

Although some residents of the area already have embraced Alarcon’s Peace Gardens concept, officials from the city Department of Recreation and Parks, which owns part of the land involved, said Monday they had received no information or formal proposal from Alarcon regarding the plan.

Parks officials also said the proposed site would create traffic problems for people traveling to the 10 1/2-acre swimming and recreation lakes project the parks department plans for the neighboring Hansen Dam Recreation Area.

“That area will be a major parking and exit area for the lakes,” said Jim Andervich, assistant general manager at the parks department. “Any type of structure built there would cause problems.”

Alarcon’s staff members said meetings and negotiations with the parks department are being planned.

Parks officials are not the only ones skeptical of the proposal. The idea of building a multimillion-dollar library and banquet hall during a time of fiscal uncertainty and layoffs, such as those experienced recently in Los Angeles County, is “preposterous,” said Ophelia McFadden, general manager of Local 434 of the Service Employees International Union in Vernon, which represents some Los Angeles County employees.

“It’s a miscarriage of justice to put up a new library when the county is in such a state of disarray,” McFadden said.

Although the peace park would be a city--not county--project, McFadden said: “When one government entity is in trouble, the others should help it out, not spend money building some white elephant.”

McFadden said she considered it irrelevant that some money used to pay for Peace Gardens would come from specific government grants, such as the $450-million federal Community Development Bank fund allotted the city after it failed to win empowerment zone status.

Alarcon said he wants to lease the banquet facility for parties, receptions and conferences, turning the facility into a revenue-generator for the city. He said he got the idea after attending a June conference in Austin, Tex., where that city owns and operates a successful banquet facility.

More than $3 million has already been allocated for a new public library in the Lake View Terrace area by the Lopez Canyon Community Amenities Trust Fund, federal grants and a small grant from the city’s Cultural Affairs Department.

But whether the library would be incorporated into Alarcon’s proposed Peace Park would be up to the City Council and other city agencies.

Alarcon said it has not been determined how other construction costs, including the banquet hall, could be covered. Money might come through a mix of government grants and private investment, Alarcon said.

One idea is to use Community Development Bank funds to train chefs and banquet hall staff members, copying the successful culinary arts program at Mission College in Sylmar, Alarcon said.

Before construction could begin, the city would first have to obtain land for the project, which would occupy a 2.3-acre site now divided between parkland and a privately owned parcel of 1 1/2 acres at 12002 Osborne St.

That tract recently was listed for sale for about $825,000 by a commercial real estate broker, said Barry Simon, senior management analyst with the parks department. The city would have to purchase that site, then obtain permission from the parks department to develop the next-door, .85-acre site it owns at Foothill Boulevard and Osborne Street.

The parks department purchased that property in 1990 for $690,000, Simon said.

“That property was acquired for park purposes,” Simon said. “It is supposed to remain with the parks department in perpetuity.”

Some Lake View Terrace residents said it would be a shame if land-use conflicts short-circuited the library project.

“Why handicap the library site because of the parks department?” asked Ray Jackson, president of the North East Valley Community Improvement Assn. “The parks department can put the lake entrance off of Dronfield Avenue,” situated just south of the proposed Peace Gardens, added Jackson, a member of the library site selection committee appointed by Alarcon.

Phyllis Hines, land-use co-chairwoman of the Lake View Terrace Improvement Assn., said she learned of the Peace Gardens proposal at a meeting with Alarcon about three weeks ago.

“Our vision for this project goes far beyond just a library,” Hines said. “We’d like to include a learning resource center with the library, and hopefully, the banquet facility would generate some money for the city. Wouldn’t it be nice if we could be self-sufficient?”