Zappa Sends GOP a Message With Hefty Donations to Democrats

Gail Zappa has dished out more than $458,000 to the Democratic Party over the past few years--and that’s no lumpy gravy.

Zappa, widow of rock musician Frank Zappa, this week said the Clinton scandal has not diminished her support for the Democrats one iota. In fact, Zappa ripped the Republican congressional leadership as “politically immature,” and said the pending impeachment proceeding against the president is nothing but a GOP vendetta.

Zappa, one of the top political donors from the San Fernando Valley and the entertainment world, doubts women voters will sour on Democrats in the wake of Clinton’s tryst with White House intern Monica Lewinsky, as some political experts predict.

As for herself, Zappa, in her very blunt manner, said she doesn’t care about what Clinton did with Lewinsky.

“In rock ‘n’ roll, this isn’t even a hiccup. This is nothing,” Zappa said. “The government has no business being near your underpants.”

The Studio City businesswoman runs the production business started by her husband, and acquired a lump of cash when she sold some of his master recordings. The Grammy-winning Frank Zappa, whose counterculture hits included “Valley Girl,” “Lumpy Gravy” and “Don’t Eat the Yellow Snow,” preferred to influence the political process with the biting commentary in his songs.

Gail Zappa said she contributes because she has the money. Among her top political concerns: preserving women’s right to abortion and protecting artists’ freedom and free speech.

“It’s a pity that other people are not as generous,” she said.

No Business Like It

“Access Hollywood” never showed up when Dan Quayle or Bob Dole stumped for GOP congressional candidate Randy Hoffman. But Quayle and Dole weren’t decked out in a slinky burgundy get-up with silver stiletto heels.

Heather Locklear was.

Enter “Access Hollywood”--and ABC, and a few other media outlets new to Hoffman’s campaign for the 24th Congressional District.

Locklear headlined a Thursday morning fund-raiser for Hoffman at the posh Sherwood Country Club, stepping in at the last minute for House Speaker Newt Gingrich, who was stuck in Washington and had to cancel his appearance.

Locklear didn’t make a speech--or say much of anything at the $98-a-plate fund-raiser.

Still, she dazzled star-struck Hoffman supporters--mostly wing-tipped Republican businessmen--who lined up to have their picture taken with the television star. A few even got a hug. (At least one went through the picture line twice.)

Locklear, who plays the wicked seductress Amanda on “Melrose Place,” said she’s been a friend and neighbor of Hoffman’s for years: “I support him for all the issues he stands for,” Locklear told a small crowd of reporters, with Hoffman at her side.

And unlike the questionable values of her TV persona, Locklear said in real life she’s more like Hoffman, a firm believer in family values and a strong community.

“Amanda is probably a Democrat. But Heather is a Republican,” Locklear said.

Hoffman, former president of a high-tech company in San Dimas, is trying to unseat Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), whose district includes the west San Fernando Valley and a portion of Ventura County.

Gingrich was able to call in long-distance Thursday morning to declare his support for Hoffman--but cracked that the audience probably wasn’t too disappointed with his absence.

“I don’t think any of you can complain,” Gingrich quipped. “You get my voice and her looks. That’s a lot better deal than swapping it the opposite way.”

Playing Ball?

It’s been a splintered season for players in the West Valley Girls Softball League, with many players moving to other leagues, playing soccer instead, or staying home altogether this fall when the league turned down a city offer to provide temporary playing fields.

Now the city, which the league sued earlier this year for alleged inequality of playing fields for girls and boys, is putting together another proposal. In September, the American Civil Liberties Union, which represents the league, upped the ante by expanding its federal lawsuit to include all girls in the city.

The city’s proposal would not only suggest several fields for temporary use in the coming spring season but may include an overall larger settlement offer, Deputy City Atty. Dion O’Connell said. “We’re hoping to send the ACLU a package by the end of next week,” he said.

The league, for its part, is poised to begin registration for the 1999 season, President David Berman said. In the interim, Berman said, he and some other West Valley parents have been dutifully rising at dawn--on Sundays--to drive their daughters to 8 a.m. softball games in the Conejo Valley.

Porking It Out

Rather than build a new 911 center for the Valley in West Hills, City Councilman Richard Alarcon has suggested tucking the new facility into the Anthony Building in Sun Valley, a spot he has also proposed for a second Valley police bureau.

Nothing doing, said a spokesman for Councilman Hal Bernson, whose district includes the former Hughes Missile Systems site in West Hills, the site the council approved for the emergency communications center two years ago. The city paid about $1 million for the property.

“We’ve already spent a lot of money buying the property and working on the design of the proposed facility,” said Ali Sar, a spokesman for Bernson. “We have a project going, and we don’t want to change in the middle of the game.”

The city is wrangling with the Department of Water and Power over the price of the Anthony Building--appraised at up to $55 million, but to hear Alarcon tell it, potentially within reach of a more palatable $30 million.

“We’re family,” he said of the city’s relationship with the quasi-autonomous DWP. “So we should be able to get a better deal.”

Should the 911 center be included, the city may be able to use roughly $20 million in bond money earmarked for the emergency facility toward purchase of the building, Alarcon said.

The city’s chief administrative officer, its legislative analyst and other staff members are assessing whether the Anthony Building would be a viable location for a 911 center and are expected to give the council an update Monday.