Candidate Schiff Wants a Quack at Boland but She’s Elusive Prey

Members of the media are amassing quite a collection of rubber duckies, thanks to 21st State Senate District candidate Adam Schiff.

It seems Schiff has his feathers a bit ruffled because he says his opponent, Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland, is (rubber?) ducking five campaign forums pending in the Burbank-Glendale-Pasadena area.

After all, Schiff has been waiting a long time for the Granada Hills Republican to make it off the front page talking about San Fernando Valley secession and into the district talking about local issues.

So where’s Paula?

Her campaign advisor Scott Wilk said that although she and Schiff haven’t crossed paths, Boland has been busily attending gatherings throughout the district she’d like to call her own.

There are two competing views on the import of these often sparsely attended get-togethers.

As GOP consultant Allan Hoffenblum likes to say: “The only people who want debates are the League of Women Voters and candidates who are behind in the polls.”

An opposing view holds that those who refuse to debate are sitting ducks, so to speak, for negative stories that talk about “dissing” voters and running cynical campaigns based on name recognition alone.

Whatever the case, it looks like Schiff’s investment is coming home to roost.

Wilk says Boland is not afraid of being on a double bill with Schiff. He promises she will show up for a few debates.

He warns, however, that Schiff’s duck will be, um, cooked at these affairs.

“She’ll make duck-kabobs out of him when she skewers him with his liberal record,” Wilk said.

A former federal prosecutor--liberal?

We wait expectantly for the showdown or, alternately, for Schiff to cry fowl.

Pat on the Back

Former Glendale Assemblyman Pat Nolan, who was recently released from federal prison, was lauded this past Saturday night in Burbank as a martyr to the cause of conservatism and living proof that government prosecutors abuse their power.

The occasion was a dinner meeting of the California Republican Assembly, which presented Nolan with its highest honor--the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award--in recognition of his longstanding effort to move the Republican Party to the right.

That Nolan is now a convicted felon who pleaded guilty to a single count of racketeering was dismissed by speaker after speaker as a case of their hero getting the shaft from the criminal justice system.

“Pat Nolan did nothing wrong and broke no laws,” said state Sen. Ross Johnson of Irvine. “[Nolan] was then and he is now an honest man and an innocent man.”

Johnson and others blamed the charges on an aide who bore “false witness” against Nolan, along with those pesky prosecutors trying to make their chops on the GOP’s pal Pat. “If there is a God, one day she will pay the price for bearing false witness,” Johnson said.

A few speakers seemed aware of the irony of lock-’em-up-and-throw-away-the-key types sounding like they had just joined the ACLU. Indeed, GOP pollster and Coastal Commissioner Arnie Steinberg said that even when a special prosecutor is hounding a “sleazy” Democrat, it is wise to sound the alarm.

Speaking of alarm, Rep. Dana Rohrbacher of Huntington Beach went so far as to compare excess government power to communism. “Our government has gone berserk and it is as great a threat today as communism was.”

In due course, campaign aide Rhonda Carmody, who is charged with election fraud in Orange County, was introduced and cheered as the latest person being harassed by overzealous prosecutors.

After 2 1/2 hours of affectionate anecdotes about Nolan, who burned Jane Fonda in effigy when she came to the USC campus to speak during the Vietnam War, it was Nolan’s turn to talk.

He thanked all of his friends and family for sticking with him through his incarceration. Nolan is off to Virginia to join Watergate ex-con Charles Colson’s prison ministry.

Nolan continues to profess innocence, saying he only pleaded guilty to avoid the longer sentence he could have gotten if convicted. That way he could get out while his kids were still young.

Cop Out

Worried about the tarnished image of the Los Angles Police Department after the O.J. Simpson double-murder investigation and the Rodney King case, the Sagon-Phior Group of Sherman Oaks agreed to donate marketing and advertising services.

Hoping to turn the department’s image around, Sagon-Phior put together a billboard and bus ad campaign that promoted police as defenders of law-abiding citizens. The slogan of the campaign was “Together We Can Make It Happen.”

But it looks like some tarnish may remain.

It seems that the city’s administrative code requires the Los Angeles City Council to approve all donations to the city valued at more than $10,000. The council approval is required to protect the city from entering into any unwanted long-term obligations by accepting a gift.

The advertising services from Sagon-Phior are valued at more than $31,000, yet no one from the Police Department thought to get council approval before accepting the services.

To address the problem, the City Council is expected to vote today to retroactively accept the donation from Sagon-Phior.

Bank Job

It was a major embarrassment when, two years ago, the city of Los Angeles failed to be included in the federally funded empowerment zone program that was created in response to the 1992 riots.

As a consolation prize, federal officials helped the city set up the Los Angeles Community Development Bank, a federally funded lending institution designed to bring jobs and prosperity to some of the city’s most impoverished areas.

The loans, which were first issued in July, are expected to generate jobs in the neighborhoods that were rejected for the empowerment zone. That zone was to include Pacoima and parts of South-Central Los Angeles.

But so far there are no Community Development Bank offices in Pacoima--a fact that steams Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alarcon, who represents Pacoima and surrounding neighborhoods.

In a recent meeting with bank Executive Director C. Robert Kemp, Alarcon blew up, demanding that Kemp make progress on opening a full-time office in Pacoima or face the councilman’s wrath.

“I am sick and tired of waiting for this,” Alarcon said as he pounded his fist on a table.

But he may have to get used to waiting because the Community Development Bank is nowhere near opening an office in Pacoima.

“The majority of our emphasis is on getting into our regular headquarters,” said bank spokesman Richard Alaniz. “But our next priority is Pacoima.”

Although Alarcon has offered bank representatives space in his district office, Alaniz said the bank is looking to work out of a separate building in Pacoima because it wants to “establish an independent identity.”

Alarcon was ill and could not be reached for comment, but a spokesman said the councilman is likely to blow a fuse as soon as he feels better.

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QUOTABLE: “It’s really not free speech at all. It’s a $4,000 speech.”

Proposition 209 pollster Arnie Steinberg, talking about David Duke’s appearance at Cal State Northridge