Ceremony Sunday to Unite Vocal Valley Secession Advocates

It is expected to be the political and social event of the season. Everyone who is anyone will be there.

It’s the wedding Sunday of former Valley Congresswoman Bobbi Fiedler and political activist Harry Coleman at the Knollwood Country Club in Granada Hills.

Ironically, the ceremony will unite two vocal advocates for splitting the Valley from Los Angeles. They hope to spend many happy years together promoting the biggest, nastiest divorce since Donald and Ivana Trump.

It is a bipartisan event with a guest list that includes Republicans as well as Democrats, secessionists and anti-secessionists.

The guest list includes Los Angeles Police Chief Bernard Parks, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, former Assemblyman Richard Katz, Assemblyman Tom McClintock (R-Northridge), Congressman Howard Berman (D-Mission Hills), state Sen. Herschel Rosenthal (D-Los Angeles), state Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley), former Assemblywoman Paula Boland and Police Commissioner Herbert “Bert” Boeckmann.

Also on the list are City Council members Laura Chick, Hal Bernson, Cindy Miscikowski, John Ferraro and Richard Alarcon.

In case anyone was wondering: Katz and Alarcon, who are both candidates for the seat being vacated by Rosenthal, will not be seated next to each other at the wedding.

Pilots and Politics

Why have pilots and local aviation firms donated $6,000 to Republican congressional candidate Randy Hoffman?

Congressman Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), who must beat Hoffman to keep his job, believes the contributions have been made to his main opponent because Sherman has been a strong advocate of Van Nuys Airport curfews and noise restrictions, which many pilots oppose.

Sherman contends the pilots and aviation firms support Hoffman because they believe if elected he will be more lenient about airport noise.

“Let’s be honest, no one gives a contribution without knowing how the candidate stands on their issue,” Sherman said.

The contributions by Jet West International, Clay Lacy Aviation, Unitco Air and the Aircraft Owners & Pilots Assn. amount to only a fraction of the $424,000 that Hoffman has in his campaign war chest. But Sherman contends the $6,000 in contributions show which side Hoffman is on in the great airport noise debate.

No so, replies Hoffman, who says he got the donations because he has contributed to aviation safety by heading Magellan Systems, a firm that makes satellite navigation devices that allow pilots to pin-point their location anywhere in the world.

According to Hoffman, pilots are just thanking him with cash contributions.

“Virtually everyone in the aviation business is aware of my contribution to the aviation industry,” Hoffman said.

Hoffman adds that he supports the new curfews imposed on loud jets at the airport.

Warren Morningstar, a spokesman for the 340,000-member Aircraft Owners & Pilots Assn., said his group gave to Hoffman because of his expertise in navigation systems.

“We want to get someone in Congress with that kind of experience and knowledge,” Morningstar said.

Asked if the contribution had anything to do with Sherman’s support for new noise restrictions at Van Nuys Airport, Morningstar said, “Nah.”

Wasting Away

So, here’s the latest on the High Desert poop story.

County Supervisor Mike Antonovich this week managed to win yet another postponement of a vote on a plan by a company called Bio Gro, which is controlled by garbage collection giant Waste Management Inc., to truck 500 tons of treated human waste each day to a ranch near Lancaster, mix it with green waste from trees and lawn cuttings, and bake it in the sun until it has composted enough to be bagged and sold as fertilizer.

Antonovich, who along with his High Desert constituents vehemently opposes the proposal, has had little luck persuading his fellow supervisors to vote against the measure. Most of them are more than happy to see the stuff trucked far from their districts and baked, rather than dumped into the bay or wind up somewhere near the city of Los Angeles.

But Bio Gro recently got into trouble with another of its sewage operations in the High Desert, after El Nino-generated rains caused massive flooding on a property where the firm is now using sewage sludge in its wet, uncomposted form as fertilizer for a farmer’s fields.

After the floods, Antonovich persuaded supervisors to wait until this week to vote on the proposal so they can see what water officials plan to do. Then, after citing the company twice in March, the state Water Resources Board earlier in April ordered the company to quit spreading the sludge until mid-June, when it must file a flood control plan with state water officials.

Antonovich’s first motion at Tuesday’s board meeting, to put off the vote until next October, failed to even win a second from the board, which signaled its intent to approve the proposal nearly a year ago.

But his second idea--to wait until water regulators decide whether the company can resume operations in June--won a second from 3rd District Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, and support from the board. That happened in part, some wags said, because Yaroslavsky has been more kindly disposed toward Antonovich ever since the conservative 5th District supervisor lent his support to Yaroslavsky’s recent plan for a ballot initiative against expansion of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s subway lines.

Changing Places

Ken Bernstein, longtime planning and transportation deputy for L.A. Councilwoman Laura Chick, will move to the other side of the council podium in June.

Bernstein has accepted a job with the Los Angeles Conservancy, a historic preservation group. Bernstein will serve as the lead advocate for the group’s preservation efforts. In that job, he will very likely find himself lobbying before the same council where he now works.

The decision, Bernstein said, wasn’t easy. “I was really torn,” he said. The conservancy recruited him; he wasn’t looking, he added.

His aim? “To have historic preservation not viewed as an elite concern but as a central issue contributing to policy,” Bernstein said.

The organization is increasingly interested in preserving neighborhoods and not just buildings, he said. Moreover, the conservancy plans more work in the San Fernando Valley, where Bernstein grew up and still lives--one reason, he said, that he got the job.

Fiscal Fix

Every year, Los Angeles County receives nearly $3 billion from the federal government.

If that money were to ever diminish or stop, of course, the five supervisors and their patched-together empire of health clinics, hospitals, sheriff’s stations, courts and so on would be in a heap of trouble.

So every year, county officials make a pilgrimage to Washington.

After the Board of Supervisors meets Tuesday, about 20 people--including the five supervisors, their top aides and several department heads--will board a plane for the nation’s capital.

For the supervisors in particular, the opportunity to meet directly with other elected officials “is very important,” said county Chief Administrative Officer David Janssen.

“It demonstrates that [the supervisors] are interested enough in what they are doing to meet them on their own turf,” Janssen said.

All told, board members have individually and collectively set up about 30 meetings with federal officials, ranging from the California congressional delegation to cabinet heads. A meeting is scheduled at the White House, but Janssen said the county had not yet been notified whether President Bill Clinton or Vice President Al Gore will be present.

Among the topics for discussion will be the county’s desire to receive part of any settlement that is made with tobacco companies, and a request to be reimbursed for the cost of incarcerating illegal immigrants who commit crimes.

The county will also ask that the feds loosen requirements for providing health care to poor children. According to Janssen, California is not using $250 million of funds that Congress allocated for child health care in the state, because of restrictions on the use of the money.

Janssen said he doesn’t know the cost of the trip.

“It’s worth every penny though,” he said.