Runner Wants Cities to Weigh in on How L.A. County Is Run

The state Senate Local Government Committee has a reputation for being a killing field for bills that ruling Democrats don’t like, especially bills that call for dividing up various government entities.

That’s why freshman Assemblyman George Runner (R-Lancaster) expected the stonewall treatment when the panel heard his bill that could lead to the breakup of L.A. County.

But the committee is a much different place than it was last year, having been softened up by the various Valley secession bills that have passed its way.

The county measure passed right through the committee last week and could be taken up by the full Senate as early as today.

Runner’s bill would allow cities in the county to review at their own expense the fiscal health and efficiency of a county in which five supervisors are responsible for delivering services to 9 million or so residents spread over 4,083 square miles.

If the study reveals rampant inefficiency, can secession be far behind?

Runner would love to see his measure evolve into a big deal.

“Can you imagine the whole state of Michigan being represented by five people?” he asked in an opinion column on the subject.

His view is that any study of county efficiency is bound to conclude there is none to be had in a jurisdiction in which each supervisor represents almost 2 million people.

“The basic premise we’re motivated by is a definition of local government,” Runner said. In Los Angeles County, “it’s not efficient because it’s so large.”

In case you were wondering, the current system of five supervisors was set up in 1852, when the county’s population was 10,000, less than what you would encounter on the Ventura Freeway some mornings.

Fightin’ Words

Just when it appeared that the fiery rhetoric had died down between the City Council and Mayor Richard Riordan over charter reform, a veteran politician came back from retirement to reignite the war of words.

The dispute began last summer when Riordan and the council came up with competing ideas for overhauling the 72-year-old charter that acts as a blueprint for the city bureaucracy.

Riordan led and largely funded the creation of an elected panel because he said it could operate independently of council influence.

But the council opted for an appointed advisory panel because council members worried that Riordan would bankroll a slate of handpicked candidates who would create a charter that gives the mayor more authority.

In fact, Riordan did bankroll a slate of candidates but most of his hopefuls were defeated by candidates endorsed by city labor unions. Since then, the ongoing snipping between the council and Riordan has died down.

But this week, former councilman and county supervisor Ernest E. Debs fanned the flames when he visited the council and urged them to continue fighting Riordan’s efforts to increase the mayor’s authority.

“Seventy-two years ago, the charter was written to make the City Council the governing body of the city,” he said. “Don’t let them take that away.”

The 93-year-old Debs, who retired as a county supervisor in 1974, added: “Look at the East Coast cities that have a strong mayor. You can see all the corruption there.”

The comments drew applause from several council members.

Drawing Card

Even years after the fall of communism, it seems sort of un-American to have to go to the former Soviet Union to find trained animators to work in the distinctly home-grown movie business.

But that’s the current situation, one that Assemblyman Scott Wildman (D-Los Angeles) and Glendale College are trying to rectify.

A Wildman bill moving along nicely through the state Legislature would authorize the college to devise a curriculum to train new animators and retrain pencil artists in the field of digital animation. The studios that use the animators would play a role as well.

The two-year pilot project would cost $300,000. If the curriculum passes muster, it could be used by community colleges around the state.

It’s a hometown issue for Wildman because much of the animation business is based in and around his Burbank-Glendale district.

And it is booming.

Wildman aide Monica Norton said 80,000 new jobs were created in the field between 1995 and 1997, with a 20% annual growth projected in the coming years.

Because the technology is growing even faster than the workload, half of today’s animation work force will be out of work by 2002 unless they are retrained.

The studios will play a part in curriculum development. That, Wildman said, means it will be relevant.

Wildman said he was turned on to the issue while meeting with the Private Industry Council soon after he was elected.

The bill is supported by other local business groups, too. Opposition comes from the Community Colleges Board of Governors because the money is slated to come from their budget, and they have no say over it.

Teed Off

The long-disputed plan to build an 18-hole golf course on the banks of the Big Tujunga Wash became embroiled in a labor dispute this week to the chagrin of project supporters and the glee of opponents.

But just about everyone else who has been following the dispute felt, well, confused.

For nearly 10 years, a Japanese firm, Cosmo World, has been trying to get City Hall approval to build a golf course near the Big Tujunga Wash but has been blocked by environmentalists who want to protect the wash and its native plant life, particularly the endangered slender-horned spineflower.

The project appeared to gain steam last year, when Foothill Golf Development Group took over the project from Kajima International. Foothill redesigned the project to preserve more of the wash and the spineflower habitat.

But just as it appeared that the project was about to be approved by the City Council this week, the Hotel Employees & Restaurant Employees Union, Local 11, joined the opponents in urging the council to kill the project.

The union jumped into the fray because it is in a bitter dispute with Kajima over firings at Kajima’s New Otani hotel in downtown Los Angeles.

But Mark Armbruster, a lawyer for Foothill Golf, insisted that the union has no business in the golf dispute because Kajima is not involved in the project any more. At the most, he said, Kajima has a lien on the golf site due to a financial dispute with Cosmo World.

So is the union trying to stick it to Kajima by trying to kill off the golf course project, thus making it harder for Kajima to collect on the lien?

David Koff, a senior research analyst for the union, said there is much more to the union’s strategy than that.

First of all, he said the lease on the project is not a public document, so it is uncertain what role Kajima may have.

“No one has seen the relationship that Kajima has to the project,” he said.

And even if Kajima’s only role is as a lien holder, Koff said the union is taking every opportunity--including the golf course dispute--to tell people about Kajima’s track record, as the union sees it.

“Our experience with Kajima from the New Otani hotel and in other places is that as a company it is bad news for local communities,” Koff said.

He added: “We are monitoring Kajima projects everywhere.”

For example, the union has also been making its feelings known about Kajima during the dispute over the controversial Belmont Learning Center project near downtown Los Angeles. It turns out the school board has chosen Kajima to build the school.

Koff admits that the disputes over the golf course and the learning center have little to do with the union’s chief agenda.

“You can’t get away from the fact that our interest in Kajima grows out of our conflict at the New Otani,” Koff said. “But we have all of this information about Kajima. What should we do, not use it?”

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QUOTABLE: “If we don’t have the blower, we’re not going to make the same money. Pretty soon, like a lot of people, we’re going to have to go to welfare.”

Gardener Jesus Castanada, on why he opposes a city ordinance banning leaf blowers