City Woos, Then Sues, Man Behind Puck Pushers and Pipeline

In politics, today’s enemy is tomorrow’s ally. For example, take the hard-fought efforts by the city of Los Angeles to lure the owners of the L.A. Kings hockey team to help build a modern sports and entertainment complex at the Los Angeles Convention Center.

For weeks, city leaders such as Mayor Richard Riordan and council members John Ferraro and Rita Walters have been trying to get Kings owners Edward P. Roski Jr. and Philip F. Anschutz to agree to leave Inglewood for downtown L.A.

The downtown arena would be home to the Kings as well as the Lakers.

But just last week, the city filed a suit to block the construction of a controversial, 132-mile oil pipeline that would bisect the city, from the northeast San Fernando Valley to the refineries in Wilmington.

Among those named in the suit are Anschutz, the Colorado billionaire and a partner in the Pacific Pipeline project. Anschutz is a key player in the pipeline project because he is the largest stockholder in the Southern Pacific Railroad Co. The pipeline will run mostly along the railroad rights of way.

Charles McLean, a Pacific Pipeline spokesman, said Anschutz has made no attempt to link the suit and the arena project.

“A lot of people have said, ‘Why don’t you link it?’ ” he said. “We are not going to do that. They are two unlinked things.”

Besides, McLean said, there is no need to link the two because Anschutz feels confident that the city’s suit will not succeed in blocking the project.

However, if the city were to gain a favorable ruling in court on the suit, perhaps not everyone would be surprised to see a link suddenly emerge.

Clash of the Chambers

On most issues, the area’s two main business groups see eye to eye. The Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. is concerned about workers’ compensation, high taxes and the sluggish economy, and so is the United Chambers of Commerce of the San Fernando Valley.

But the organizations have repeatedly parted ways when it comes to illegal immigration.

When VICA voted in 1994 to oppose Proposition 187, the controversial ballot initiative aimed at restricting a host of public services to illegal immigrants, investment consultant Guy W. McCreary of North Hollywood disagreed. A strong supporter of the measure, McCreary jumped ship to the United Chambers of Commerce and encouraged that group to support 187. It did.

Today, the two groups are clashing again on a related issue. VICA has opposed a congressional proposal to allow states to restrict illegal immigrants from public schools. The United Chambers, with McCreary again in the lead, has endorsed the measure.

Although they are both business groups, the memberships of VICA and the United Chambers differ. VICA’s members range from one-person companies to large corporations such as Rocketdyne. The United Chambers is composed mostly of small operations.

Overall, VICA says the 425 employers in its membership provide jobs for 250,000 people. The United Chambers represents 21 local chambers of commerce made up of more than 6,000 businesses.

Down the Drain

During this week’s bitter battle to adopt a new set of sewer fees, Los Angeles Councilman Mike Hernandez made it clear that he believes the changes are unfair to low-income, inner-city families who live on small lots.

Under the proposal spearheaded by Councilwoman Laura Chick, smaller lots will pay higher fees while residents with bigger lots, such as those in the Valley and the Westside, will get a break.

For Hernandez’s East Los Angeles constituents, the new rates mean an annual sewer bill increase of about $11.35.

Realizing he was going to lose the vote, Hernandez amended Chick’s proposal to call for two studies on ways to reduce the fees for all city residents.

But according to city experts, Hernandez’s ideas may do little, if anything, for his cause.

One idea is to establish a fee for each time a private truck dumps sewage from other cities’ septic tanks into the Los Angeles sewer system. Such trucks currently pay an annual permit fee of about $1,700 for unlimited dumping. The increased income from such a fee, Hernandez argues, can go toward lowering residential sewer rates.

Such a fee has been in the works for years but was bogged down by community protests over the location of the dumping site--the most likely candidate being the Donald C. Tillman Water Reclamation Plant in Van Nuys.

Sanitation officials estimate that the fee could raise $100,000 per year. But they add that the fee would barely cover increased costs for personnel and equipment.

The other idea is to stop charging apartment buildings with five or more units the commercial rate for sewer fees and instead use the new residential rates.

But Shahram Kharaghani, the city engineer who devised the new residential rates, said that charging large apartments at that rate may actually increase their fees rather than reduce them.

Strangely enough, after Hernandez added those two amendments to Chick’s measure, he still voted against it.

Signing Off

When Rick Rollens arrived in Sacramento in the mid-’70s, he was part of a trio of legislative staffers known around the Capitol as the Valley Boys.

As a graduate of Granada Hills High, Pierce College and CSUN who worked for former state Sen. Alan Robbins, the Valley Boy moniker was apt for Rollens at the time.

Now, though, you would have to call him a Capitol Man, one who is changing careers. Rollens, who earns a six-figure income as secretary of the Senate, is leaving for the private sector.

Although no announcement has been made, he is expected to continue being seen around the corridors of the Capitol working as a lobbyist.

The move came about because, Rollens said, he needed to cash out his state retirement money to pay for expensive treatment for his autistic, 5-year-old son.

Rollens’ early days as a Robbins staffer were recalled Wednesday as part of a goodbye tribute on the Senate floor. Rollens eventually worked for another Valley legislator, Sen. David Roberti, and finally for the full Senate as secretary, an elected position.

Robbins went to prison for accepting a bribe. But Rollens thanked the former Van Nuys legislator for hiring an out-of-work 23-year-old years ago--and also for making Rollens practice his pitiful penmanship, which turned out to be useful training. As secretary of the Senate, his signature is ubiquitous on official documents.

Rollens, who acts as rules guru and chief parliamentarian for the Senate, was praised for his knowledge and fairness.

“I just find him a first-class person,” said Sen. Newton Russell (R-Glendale).

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QUOTABLE: “This is one council member who will not sit here and allow this council to institutionalize economic apartheid.”

--Councilman Rudy Svorinich Jr., debating new sewer rates