Breaking Into the Top 10: ‘Tujunga Twist’ by the Foothill Group

When Los Angeles lobbyists talk about the Top 10 list, they are not referring to David Letterman’s nightly inventory of wacky one-liners.

In City Hall, the Top 10 list is issued quarterly by the city’s Ethics Commission, showing the 10 organizations that spent the most on lobbying in City Hall.

In the most recent list, for April through June, the San Fernando Valley is well-represented.

Foothill Golf Development Group, a firm that has long struggled to get city approval to build a golf course near the environmentally sensitive Big Tujunga Wash, spent $116,788 on lobbyists, by far the most of all companies during the period.

Despite the cash outlay, the golf course project was rejected by the City Council last month amid intense pressure from a local labor union, which opposed the project due to a labor dispute it has had with one of the lien holders on the project land.

Now it appears Foothill Golf will have to open its checkbook to pay for lawyers. A week after the council rejected the project, Foothill Golf filed a $215-million claim against the city, charging that the project was illegally rejected.

If the city doesn’t respond to the claim by the middle of October, Foothill Golf can file a lawsuit.

Also making the Top 10 is the Health Care Headquarters Assn., a group of five health maintenance organizations, four of which are located in the Valley. The group has spent $52,000 on lobbyists to persuade the city to give the HMOs a $15-million tax break. Some HMOs have threatened to move out of Los Angeles unless the tax break is approved.

Mayor Richard Riordan and Councilwoman Laura Chick support the request, but city officials are still trying to rewrite the tax code to benefit the HMOs. A proposal is expected to be released in September, officials say.

Also making the list was Royal-Clark Development, which has spent about $51,000 for lobbyists and other representatives to get city approval for a 242-acre development in Sylmar, which would include an 18-hole golf course, 46-lot residential development and 1.8-million square feet of commercial and industrial space. That project is still in the pipeline.

Finally on the list is Home Depot, which spent $46,000 on lobbyists in hopes of opening a new store in Van Nuys. However, Home Depot killed the project in the face of intense pressure from neighbors who feared the store would attract traffic and loitering day laborers.

Silent Treatment

Violence at Pacoima’s Hubert Humphrey Memorial Park has long nagged at City Councilman Richard Alarcon--and his political ambitions. While crime there has statistically dipped as it has elsewhere in the city, gang violence has kept the park on a special dusk curfew. The worse the situation has become, the more constituents have looked to Alarcon for answers.

The crisis reached a peak last weekend, when 18-year-old football player Jaret Harris was shot to death at the park.

Alarcon scheduled neighborhood meetings and held a news conference during which activists, ministers, city officials and police joined him in condemning the killing and vowing to fight to keep the park open.

Several dozen residents of the park area attended the news conference. Still smarting from the shooting days earlier, they grew increasingly frustrated with officials’ response to the situation and came up next to reporters to aim pointed questions of their own.

Alarcon would have none of it.

“I’m sorry, but this news conference was called so that members of the media can ask their questions,” he said. “We need to let them do that. You’ll have your chance on Saturday” at a community meeting.

He repeated that response several times.

“Man, he just told me I wasn’t in the media,” one man muttered to a friend as they left. “But last I checked, the media don’t live here.”

Where There’s a Willie . . .

If Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) gets his way in Sacramento, there will never be another Willie Williams case in California.

What Hertzberg wants to avoid is having a police chief who hasn’t passed the Peace Officers Standard Training test required of all officers.

Williams, who started out with the safety police in Philadelphia, arrived here uncertified even in his own state. The plan was for him to bone up and take the test.

In the meantime, the Legislature had to pass a special bill just so Williams could carry a gun.

He never did take the test and no one could force him to.

This failing rankled many an officer, so much so that law enforcement groups asked for legislation to prevent its reoccurrence.

The bill, which passed its final committee test this week, now goes to the Senate floor.

It would require anyone coming in from another state to pass the test within two years.

“I call it my Willie Williams bill,” Hertzberg said.

Fast Company

Thirty years ago, state Sen. William “Pete” Knight (R-Palmdale) set the world speed record of 4,520 mph.

That feat was reason enough for his colleagues to give him a standing ovation Thursday.

There’s a bit of irony in a body that moves so, shall we say, deliberately . . . applauding a speed demon.

But not so slow as to be in Sacramento on the anniversary of the record in October.

“At least I hope we won’t be here,” said Senate President Pro Tem Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward).

The session is scheduled to end Sept. 12.

Quotable

“I see the San Fernando Valley lurking in the front row.”

--Sen. Patrick Johnston (D-Stockton)

Chairman of the Senate Appropriations Committee to Assemblymen Bob Hertzberg and Tom McClintock just before calling the secession bill for a vote.