Plans to Fix Shootout Damage OKd

Moving to quickly heal the scars left over from last month’s bloody shootout in North Hollywood, the Los Angeles City Council on Friday approved two efforts to repair damage caused by the confrontation.

At the same time, the council voted to support legislation that would remove state restrictions and allow the city to adopt its own gun control laws.

The three separate motions come only weeks after two robbers armed with assault weapons shot up the neighborhood with armor-piercing bullets after a botched bank robbery. The incident ended with the shooting deaths of both robbers.

But the hundreds of bullets fired by the robbers and police shattered car windshields and windows and pierced walls and street signs.

One proposal, presented by Councilman Joel Wachs, instructs the city attorney’s office to speed up the process of paying claims filed by people whose homes, businesses or cars were damaged in the shootout.

“I just want to make people whole again,” said Wachs, who represents the North Hollywood community. “I don’t want people to have to go through 9 million legal hoops” to get paid.

A deputy city attorney told the council that the city has so far received 11 claims for damage caused by the shooting, ranging from $82 to fix a bullet hole in a window to $9,200 to buy a new car that was shot up in the gun fight.

A second motion by Councilman Richard Alarcon calls on the city to expand the so-called Handyman Program to pay local nonprofit groups to fix household damage in the area. The program is normally limited to making repairs for senior citizens, low-income homeowners and the disabled.

City officials who toured the neighborhood said they came across a family who had a shattered window that will cost $2,500 to repair and found a five-unit apartment building that sustained up to $1,500 in damage.

The council also unanimously approved a motion by Councilman Mike Feuer to support or sponsor legislation that would give the city the authority to adopt its own gun control laws.

The state currently has so-called “preemption” authority to adopt all gun control laws in the state. The National Rifle Assn. and other gun-owner groups strongly oppose eliminating that preemption, saying it would lead to conflicting laws throughout the state.

But Feuer said eliminating the state preemption would allow cities like Los Angeles to create tough gun control laws that he said would reduce gun violence on the streets.

“This is a debate about local control,” he said.

Feuer’s motion was adopted unanimously but only because the biggest critic of the proposal, Councilman Hal Bernson, was absent during the vote.

Bernson has argued in the past that eliminating the state preemption would allow cities to create a patchwork of gun control laws throughout the state. He said such a patchwork would create confusion among law abiding citizens but would not keep guns out of the hands of criminals.

Although Feuer’s proposal has been proposed and defeated in Sacramento in the past, he said he believes such legislation has a chance in the capital where “new members are being elected and the awareness of gun violence in our state has deepened.”

“There is a pretty good chance of getting it adopted in this session or the next session,” he said.

Feuer said he and the city’s lobbyists are studying various gun control bills in Sacramento to identify which legislation the city can support to eliminate the state preemption.

During the debate over the repair programs, Alarcon and Councilwoman Rita Walters had a brief but heated exchange over how many bullets were fired during the shootout.

While urging the council to adopt his motion, Alarcon said that “thousands and thousands of bullets were fired into homes.”

Walters, who worried that the repair program would take funding way from low-income and elderly residents, accused Alarcon of exaggerating for the sake of drama.

“There were not thousands of bullets shot into homes,” she said.

“There were thousands of bullets,” replied Alarcon.

Council President John Ferraro ended the debate by suggesting that the council instruct Chief Willie Williams to “count the shells.”