Alarcon Could Get Campaign Mileage Out of GM Site Overhaul

The development agreement to rejuvenate the long-vacant General Motors plant site in Panorama City was greeted as good news this week by neighbors and nearby businesses who have watched the empty lot become a dusty weed patch.

But the agreement could also be good news for Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon, whose election campaign three years ago included a promise to attract new business and jobs to the economically beleaguered area.

The $100-million project, which would include retail stores, a theater complex, an industrial park and a police substation, is scheduled to open in the summer of 1997.

That could be perfect timing for Alarcon, who will face reelection in July of next year. If the project goes as scheduled, Alarcon will have an outstanding visual symbol for his campaign: a spankin’-new development that will create 2,000 jobs.

But if the project fails, it could provide perfect fodder for challengers trying to capitalize on flaws in Alarcon’s first term.

Already, some city officials have expressed skepticism over the project, saying it is overly optimistic to expect the city to build a police substation in the project while the city faces a projected $250-million deficit next year.

In fact, Mayor Richard Riordan, who himself faces reelection next year and has campaigned on a platform of revitalizing the economically troubled city, now appears to be distancing himself from the project.

The mayor has been unusually silent about the development agreement.

When the pact was announced Monday, Riordan did not appear with the other key figures at the event. Instead, he sent Rocky Delgadillo, head of Riordan’s business retention team, to comment on the project.

Riordan also did not issue a statement on the development, even though his media relations office routinely releases comments on almost every issue involving the mayor, including when he donated an old typewriter to the Smithsonian Institution.

Cabin Fever

A group of gay Republican activists has branded Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) as “hostile” to gay interests in its analysis of 1995 voting records. McKeon, however, is not alone. The review by the Log Cabin Republicans considers more than half of House Republicans “hostile,” “antagonistic” or “non-supportive” when it comes to gay rights.

The Log Cabin Republicans gained attention last year, when Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) returned a $1,000 donation the group had made to his GOP presidential bid. This week, the organization ranked congressional Republicans on a scale from “leader” to “antagonistic.”

To arrive at the ratings, the group looked at a handful of issues, giving lawmakers points for supporting the Ryan White CARE Amendments Act of 1995 and for opposing an amendment that would repeal a domestic partnership law in the District of Columbia. The group also boosted lawmakers who have policies in their congressional offices expressly banning discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation.

The ratings offer some surprises. McKeon, for instance, scored lower on the scale than Rep. Randy Cunningham (R-San Diego), who last year decried “homos in the military” on the House floor, and House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Tex.), who once referred to gay Rep. Barney Frank (D-Mass.) as “Barney Fag.”

For his part, Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale) received a “tolerant” rating.

McKeon fell in the ratings primarily because he supported an amendment to a defense bill proposed by Rep. Robert K. Dornan (R-Garden Grove) that discharges soldiers found to have HIV, the precursor to AIDS.

The Log Cabin Republicans is one of many groups that issue such ratings. McKeon spokesman Armando Azarloza dismissed the way they are put together, relying on just a handful of votes.

“I don’t think Buck is hostile to any constituency,” Azarloza said. “He is only hostile toward those who want big government and big taxes.”

Honorable Mention

His friends call him Hal. City Hall staffers respectfully refer to him as Councilman Bernson, the head of the powerful Planning and Land Use Committee.

But Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson has taken on a new title: hizzoner.

On Sunday, the Chatsworth Chamber of Commerce unanimously selected Bernson as honorary mayor of Chatsworth.

The newly anointed mayor was not available to comment, but his assistant chief deputy, Francine Oschin, said Bernson was “honored and humbled” by the distinction.

The title does not afford Bernson any additional powers. Unlike an elected mayor of an incorporated city, Bernson cannot declare a state of emergency after a natural disaster or draft a budget.

And while the mayor of Los Angeles can live in the Getty House, the official resident of the mayor, Bernson gets no such perk.

However, Oschin noted that even though Bernson does not have an official mayoral residence, he does have the Chatsworth Metrolink depot, the train station to be officially dedicated April 20.

At the dedication, city officials will unveil a bust of Bernson that will remain at the depot to honor him for the years of work he has given to building the station.

Mercy Mission

Intisar and Dania Saab, the wife and daughter of an Encino man jailed in Lebanon who was profiled in The Times recently, toted their family photo album around the nation’s capital this week.

In meetings with lawmakers, diplomats and human rights activists, the Saabs showed photographs of Khodr I. Saab in various poses--smiling, eating, hugging his daughter.

Saab now sits in a Beirut jail on charges of defrauding a former Lebanese prime minister, Saeb Salaam, in a series of Southern California real estate deals. Saab was arrested at the Beirut airport last May while visiting his Lebanese father. The family is pressing for his release, saying that a dispute handled in U.S. Bankruptcy Court should not be rehashed in Lebanon’s courts.

To make their case, the Saabs referred to legal documents and business records. The photo album was designed to humanize their plight--so they pulled it out at the State Department s well as the offices of Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and Amnesty International.

“I want people to see my father and maybe feel what I’m feeling,” said Dania Saab, 25, who organized the lobbying trip. “I don’t want them to think about this as just a case. He is a father and he’s not with his family.”

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Martin reported from Los Angeles and Lacey from Washington, D.C.