Mayor to State Views on LAUSD, Secession in Valley Talk

Expect Mayor Richard Riordan to deliver an upbeat message when he gives his annual State of the Valley address in Woodland Hills on Friday.

But Riordan will not shy away from the hot topics of the day, such as the troubled Los Angeles Unified School District and Valley secession sentiment.

Riordan has traditionally used the speech to highlight how the Valley has improved during his administration, but also to take advantage of the bully pulpit it affords him in front of hundreds of the Valley’s movers and shakers.

Sources say Riordan is planning to weigh in more heavily on the need for accountability and reform in the LAUSD.

Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. members are very interested to hear Riordan’s views on the unfolding school crisis, said Laurie Golden, a VICA spokeswoman.

Riordan can also be expected to urge Valley residents and business leaders to embrace charter reform, including plans for the creation of neighborhood councils to give residents more say on local issues, sources said.

Riordan will talk about the importance of charter reform and “how Valley residents need to continue to be confident” in its success, one source said.

The mayor provided a preview in comments at a breakfast for Valley civic leaders Tuesday, where he detailed the Valley’s role in the upcoming millennium celebrations.

“You in the Valley are my first love in Los Angeles,” Riordan said. “You are the volunteer capital of the world. You are the economic engine of the city.”

*

HARD OF HEARING: Whether it is jets taking off from Van Nuys Airport or cars on the Ventura Freeway, Los Angeles politicians this month are taking steps to reduce the level of noise plaguing Valley residents.

Later this month, the City Council meets to consider proposed new restrictions on noisy jets at Van Nuys Airport, something not lost on Riordan during his speech this week on the millennium celebrations at the airfield.

Riordan’s comments were repeatedly interrupted by jet noise.

The mayor wondered aloud whether he had been set up, as part of an effort to persuade him to support the noise regulations.

“I thought maybe you had arranged for this noise,” Riordan joked to the audience of Valley civic leaders.

City Councilwoman Laura Chick of Tarzana is not above arranging a little demonstration.

In an attempt to win council approval Wednesday of a motion to push construction of 42 sound walls along freeways in the city, Chick played a tape of traffic noise for her colleagues.

The first part of the tape had noise from an area where there isn’t a sound wall. The second, much quieter part of the tape was from an area with a sound wall.

“Quite a difference,” Chick said afterward. “We’ve had residents waiting many, many years to have their lives made more comfortable.”

But Chick failed to reach her objective. Colleagues demanded to know whether their districts would get sound walls, and sent the matter to committee for further study.

*

SAYS WHO?: In his speech this week on the Valley’s millennium celebration, Riordan, who sometimes can pass for Don Rickles, took a shot at the idea that Valley residents are culturally challenged.

At one point, he jokingly challenged one city official’s promise to organize a parade of 2,000 line dancers at the festival.

“I think you overlooked one thing: There aren’t 2,000 people in the Valley who know how to dance,” Riordan quipped.

*

ART APPRECIATION: For years, reporters breezily tagged Los Angeles the Capital of Smog.

Until last month, that is, when the City of Angels handed off its grimy crown to Houston, that muggy metropolis where air pollution this year exceeded federal health standards 44 times--once more than in the Los Angeles Basin. Then there’s L.A.’s long reign as Gang Capital of America, an unhappy reminder of the city’s violent streets and ethnic strife.

But Chick would have us recall a kinder, gentler side of L.A.’s freeway underpasses and cement retaining walls: “The city of Los Angeles,” she pointed out in a motion Tuesday, “is currently the Mural Capital of the World.”

Indeed, no less than the Getty Conservation Institute has dubbed L.A. such in recent years. Consider the 2,000-plus murals that dot our sunlit streetscape--and get ready for one more.

The city has earmarked $30,000 for a grand mural depicting the history of Canoga Park, to be designed in Lanark Park by the Social and Public Art Resource Center, a Venice-based group that wields a prominent paintbrush in the world of local muralists. At the behest of Chick, the City Council agreed Tuesday to set aside the money in a new account at the Cultural Affairs Department. Canoga Park, Chick told the council, is one of the city’s oldest communities. The mural will portray the area’s history “from the Native American Indians to the creation of the barrio until the present,” she added proudly.

It’s about time, barked Leonard Shapiro, a frequent (and loud) commentator at council meetings.

“Mural Capital of the World!” Shapiro guffawed from the audience podium, rattling off the city’s other ignoble titles in the violence and pollution categories. “I’m very glad to see we’ve finally got something to be proud of.”