Where Car-Chase Culprits Are Going, They Won’t Need a Car

Car chases are such a common occurrence in Southern California that a local television network actually aired a special recently that showed the most dramatic high-speed pursuits.

Most of the videotaped chases ended in a spectacular crash or a spin-out in the freeway median.

Dramatic or not, Assemblyman Robert Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) wants to put the brakes on such dangerous road races with a new law that gives judges the power to impound for 30 days the car of anyone who has initiated a high-speed chase.

“Drivers are gambling with their lives and the lives of innocent people by fleeing from peace officers knowing that if they are able to escape, they are free from any prosecution or penalties,” Hertzberg said after Gov. Pete Wilson signed the legislation into law this week.

The law takes effect in January.

The one hole in the law is that it doesn’t address speed demons who lead police on a high-speed chase with a stolen car--which happens quite often.

According to the California Highway Patrol, the state had 6,333 reported high-speed chases in 1996. Of the 4,148 chases that ended in an arrest, 872, or 21%, were charged with stealing the car they sped off with, according to the CHP.

Law enforcement officials acknowledge that the law does not affect car thieves because a judge cannot impound a stolen car used in a high-speed chase.

They also concede that in most cases once a fleeing suspect is arrested, he or she is not likely to have access to a car any time in the near future. Often, the suspect is already facing charges of evading a police officer and reckless driving and thus will probably be in jail longer than 30 days.

On the Ban Wagon

City Councilman Richard Alarcon wants to be the scourge of gangs in his northeast San Fernando Valley district. Now, dramatically broadening his horizons, Alarcon apparently also wants to be the scourge of the military strongmen in the Southeast Asian nation of Myanmar (formerly Burma).

This week, Alarcon introduced a motion to look at the possibility of restricting city business with Myanmar, whose military regime has been widely condemned for human rights abuses, including torture and forced labor.

Such moves against other countries are not without precedent. In the 1980s, Alarcon’s motion points out, the city curtailed its involvement with companies that did business with the apartheid government of South Africa. Locally, the city of West Hollywood has already banned contracts with firms that do business in Myanmar, even though no council members there knew of any contract that would actually be affected.

“So many jurisdictions throughout the country have taken action that by adding L.A. to that message, we might have impact,” said Alarcon, who brought forward his motion at the request of the Santa Monica-based activist group Burma Forum. “If I felt we were just entering into international politics without having real impact, I would never have introduced it.”

But as far as impact is concerned, how many companies are we talking about here in L.A.?

“I don’t think there’s a huge number,” Alarcon acknowledged, but he added that calls of concern over the motion had come in from at least two major oil companies, Unocal and Arco, which have dealings with Myanmar.

Task Master

As Gertrude Stein might have said if she were a bureaucrat, “A task force is a task force is a task force.”

What a task force is not, however, is an ad-hoc committee. And for a primer in the crucial distinction between the two, we can thank City Council members Cindy Miscikowski and Richard Alarcon.

The pair met in committee this week to discuss the city’s on-again, off-again moratorium on gas-powered leaf blowers. A passel of residents, gardeners, police officials as well as a man wearing a dust mask and carrying a vacuum cleaner for effect debated the ban’s merits and the difficulties of enforcing it.

To solve the problems, someone recommended forming yet another panel--an “ad hoc committee”--purely to deal with the leaf-blower crisis. But Alarcon suggested a “task force” instead, saying it “would be freer and get to the heart of the issue quicker.” Miscikowski agreed.

So what’s the difference?

A whole lot of trouble, apparently. An ad-hoc committee would be an official city entity, Alarcon says, and therefore be bound by all the regulations governing public meetings in terms of giving notice, being open to all and other such rules. A task force, on the other hand, can operate without such encumbrances but accomplish the same thing.

“It was a technicality,” Alarcon said.

Ah. But as Stein might have added, passing the buck is passing the buck is passing the buck.

Word of Mouth

The orchestrated cheers and chants were reserved for City Councilman Mike Hernandez in council chambers Tuesday on his first day back at work after his arrest on drug charges.

But the spontaneous zinger of the morning was aimed at council President John Ferraro by none other than Leonard Shapiro of Granada Hills, a perennial gadfly who enjoys speaking on almost every agenda item imaginable.

As Shapiro approached the lectern to address the council, Ferraro jokingly told him that his time was up before Shapiro had even reached the microphone.

“Mr. President, your time is up, too, but you don’t know it!” Shapiro shot back.

The audience gasped and tittered.

“Geez,” said Councilman Joel Wachs, looking around as if for the heat trail left by a missile. “Wow! Slash and burn.”

Quotable:

“They finally realized I meant business.”

Councilman Joel Wachs, on a deal that exempts the proposed downtown sports arena from voter approval.