With His Office All Packed Up, Beilenson Leaves a Branch Behind

For visitors to Washington, there is a new site to see: The Anthony C. Beilenson Tree. The skinny willow oak sapling stands on the west side of the Capitol, where it meets the Mall.

“My nice former staff found out about the possibility of designating a tree in honor of departing members,” Beilenson said.

“But these things worry you a bit because they suggest you’re not around any longer, and of course I am,” mused the 10-term lawmaker, who is merely freshly retired, not deceased.

Beilenson’s staff and the staff of his good friend, former Rep. Gerry Studds (D-Mass.), got together and arranged to purchase the trees, which were planted by congressional gardeners last December. They stand about 25 feet apart.

“It’s as nice a gesture as one can make for someone like myself and [Studds] who were strong environmentalists and care a great deal about things of this sort,” Beilenson said.

“We had a little tree-planting ceremony when Gerry was still in town. Some of his staff, some of my staff were there. We each made a few comments and threw in the last few shovelfuls of dirt,” Beilenson said, “along with some 1996 pennies. The Capitol architect’s office said that’s what someone is supposed to do in such circumstances. I’m not sure why.”

In 1996, 11 such trees were planted for various departing members.

There is no particular significance to the species of tree planted in memory of Beilenson and Studds.

“They were suggested to us as the kind of tree that belonged there,” Beilenson said.

Frederick Law Olmsted, the designer of New York’s Central Park, also had a hand in landscaping the Capitol grounds. Some of the new plantings replace trees from his original plan that have died.

“At the moment they’re not much larger than we are, but a good bit thinner and somewhat taller,” the tall, slender Beilenson noted. “Right now, they’re not very impressive.”

No plaque or label tells visitors to whom the trees are dedicated. That comes in about five years, when the trunks are thicker, Beilenson said.

Like a proud parent, Beilenson will track the development of his tree.

“My staff and I will come back and picnic every year to see how it’s doing.”

By the Numbers

Valley VOTE has rejected out of hand a proposed secession bill compromise floated by Assemblyman Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar).

Cardenas’ proposal, unveiled at a joint news conference with Councilman Richard Alarcon Monday, would require two-thirds of Valley voters to agree before the city would be split up.

A simple majority should rule, the homeowner and business group decided at its regular meeting. No surprise there.

Valley VOTE has steadfastly preferred putting the Valley in charge of its own destiny. Besides, it’s far too early in the negotiations to accede to Cardenas’ or anyone else’s plans--including the call for a citywide vote put out by state Sen. President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward).

“We can see only a disadvantage to a two-thirds Valley-only vote,” said Henry Coleman, a Valley VOTE member and president of a North Hills homeowners group.

If all this sounds familiar, it’s because the debate over who should vote on a municipal divorce raged on all last summer, when former Assemblywoman Paula Boland’s bill was on the table in Sacramento.

Ultimately, however, the folks at Valley VOTE and Boland herself agreed to a citywide vote in hopes of salvaging the legislation.

In other words, it’s pretty hard to bluff when everyone has seen your cards.

What was surprising is Cardenas’ sudden maverick effort that came just days after he delivered the message that he and colleagues Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) and Tom McClintock (R-Northridge) were working together on a bill on which they all could agree.

Cardenas said he was protecting his northeast Valley district’s voice in the decision. The district has a lower voter turnout than elsewhere in the Valley. So a two-thirds, or supermajority, vote would mean that his constituents would have to be wooed for a secession movement to succeed.

Valley VOTE, meanwhile, favors the McClintock bill or Boland II, as it is called.

Radio Waves

Eleventh City Council District candidate Cindy Miscikowski recently gave a challenge grant of $3,500 during National Public Radio station KCRW’s recent pledge drive.

It was an act that has cranked up the volume of the campaign. The district’s other major candidate, Georgia Mercer, views the grant as a none-too-subtle attempt by Miscikowski to plug herself on the popular radio station.

It also qualifies as an illegally high contribution to Miscikowski’s campaign, the Mercer camp argues. (Miscikowski and Mercer have both maxed out by lending themselves $25,000.)

The Mercer campaign has generated two news releases on this issue, as well as a complaint, as yet unadjudicated, filed with the city Ethics Commission.

The first missive called for Miscikowski to report the contribution as radio advertising. Mercer campaign manager Samantha Stevens said the pledge was obviously advertising because it was offered as a “challenge grant.”

That means the amount and the donor’s name are repeated throughout a specified time slot, as listeners are urged to contribute to match it.

Regular pledges, by contrast, are mentioned once. Of course, there’s always the “anonymous donor” option.

In an updated release, Stevens revealed that it was Miscikowski’s spouse, attorney-lobbyist Doug Ring, who called in the pledge from his car phone.

That’s not unusual, Miscikowski says, because she is on the radio station’s board and the couple routinely pledge in her name. Miscikowski dismisses Mercer’s charges as “absolute silliness. . . . Let them go to the Ethics Commission.”

Her always-quotable consultant Rick Taylor suggests that “only an idiot” would confuse charity with political shenanigans. “I question Georgia’s commitment to public radio here in Los Angeles,” Taylor said.

The raising of the issue does, however, serve to bring Ring’s name front and center in the campaign. Although Ring gave up lobbying the city a year ago, he is, rightly or wrongly, viewed as the ultimate City Hall insider-wheeler dealer.

Taylor has tried to suppress Ring’s name by insisting that to raise it in connection with his wife’s campaign for office is sexist.

Counters Stevens: “I want to point out the only time [Ring’s] name has appeared in the press during the campaign is when the reference was attributed to either Miscikowski or a campaign spokesman.”

Trash Talkin’

Dr. Keith Richman, the head of a medical association who is running for a seat on the elected charter-reform panel, may be the first candidate in political history to ever use a trash truck to try to garner votes.

On Saturday, a truck bearing a banner that reads “Don’t Trash Charter Reform--Vote for Keith Richman,” will cruise the streets along with Richman’s supporters as they campaign door to door throughout the northwest San Fernando Valley.

This is not Richman’s first high-profile campaign tactic, but it may be his strangest.

Last month, he took out a half-page ad in The Times promoting his ideas for rewriting the 72-year-old charter that acts as the city’s constitution.

He followed that by sending out letters touting his candidacy to more than 6,000 patients of the Keystone Health Medical Group, an association of physicians he formed in the Valley.

“We are trying to bring attention to the importance of charter reform,” said Gary Washburn, who is managing Richman’s campaign.

No joke. Washburn said that in the next few weeks, Richman also plans to campaign with an antique firetruck bearing a banner that reads “Don’t Burn Charter Reform--Vote for Keith Richman.”

Richman had planned to use a dump truck this weekend--with the motto “Don’t Dump Charter Reform”--but the company that owns the truck needs it to haul away asbestos.

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QUOTABLE: “He was taken in and taken out by his handlers as if they were handling someone who’s been in storage.”

--State Sen. and mayoral candidate Tom Hayden on Mayor Richard Riordan’s campaign kickoff in Studio City