With the LAPD on Trial, Chick Comes Out as Public Defender

THINK BLUE: A red ribbon signifies support for the fight against AIDS. A yellow ribbon signifies support for the release of hostages.

Councilwoman Laura Chick is now modeling the latest symbol of support: the blue ribbon.

The tiny ribbon-shaped pin that has adorned her lapel recently represents her support for the men and women of the Los Angeles Police Department in the face of harsh criticism from the O.J. Simpson defense team.

Chick, a devoted cop supporter, is incensed that Simpson’s attorneys, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., et al., are insinuating that the LAPD has either framed Simpson for the double murder or bungled the evidence so badly that the entire case should be thrown out.

What really boils her blood, however, is that at the same time, a local television news station has taken the opportunity to run a series on “problem cops,” those few bad apples who misuse their authority to abuse innocent citizens.

“I’m so outraged over this,” she said.

But Chick is not alone in her campaign to back the cops. At her request, the board of directors of the Police Protective League, which represents the rank and file of the LAPD, voted Wednesday to back Chick.

League Director Dennis Zine said the union wants each of the city’s 4,800 sworn officers to wear one of the blue ribbon pins on their uniforms. The group has pins left over from the days when they wore them in support of the department following the Rodney G. King beating.

But before the union is allowed to wear the pins on their uniforms, they must get approval from the Police Commission, Zine said. Already, he said, the union has the endorsement of one of the commissioners.

As for the television news series, Zine said his group is also upset. But he added that he knows enough about TV news reporters to realize its probably nothing personal but simply an attempt to increase ratings.

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MAXIMUM DEBATE: Few people deny that $4.25 an hour is not an impressive wage. Working full-time at that rate brings in the grand total of $8,840 a year. But raising the minimum wage is not a clear-cut proposition.

President Clinton has proposed a 90-cent increase spread over two years, boosting the minimum wage to $5.15 per hour. Yet San Fernando Valley-area lawmakers, most of whom once toiled at the minimum wage themselves as youngsters, are divided on the sagacity of such a move.

Take Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), who pays the minimum wage to entry-level employees at his chain of Western wear stores and once earned the minimum wage in high school while working at his father’s grocery.

Clinton’s proposal, McKeon says, would ultimately hurt the poor by forcing employers to raise their prices and trim their employee rosters.

“I know from my own business experience that raising the minimum wage cuts jobs and increases prices,” McKeon said. “Small businesses run on a pretty small line.”

Yet Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) considers that argument flawed.

“The Republicans have been making this argument since the minimum wage was established in the 1930s,” said Waxman, who as a student worked in a sweater factory at the minimum wage. “The bottom line is that people are struggling to live on the salaries they are making.”

A Capitol Hill newspaper has come up with a novel way of ending this longstanding debate--by increasing the minimum wage by the same percentage as congressional salaries.

Members of the House make $133,600 a year.

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MAXIMUM DAMAGE: Federal disaster czar James Lee Witt thought things were bad when he arrived in Northridge in the hours after last year’s earthquake. But after a trip to Kobe, Japan, last week, he called that quake “the most devastating thing I have seen since I’ve been in disaster and emergency management.”

That’s quite a statement coming from a man who travels the country responding to floods, tornadoes, earthquakes and other natural disasters as head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

During the Japanese trip, Witt said, he saw thousands of homeless people in the streets, twisted buildings and huge piles of rubble. He said the damage to steel-framed buildings and elevated highways mirrored the structural damage in Southern California, but on a far greater scale.

Witt plans to prepare a report on what this country might learn from Japan’s quake. And in a swap of information, he will host Japanese disaster experts in Washington in the coming week to show them the inner workings of FEMA.

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COLOR HIM GREEN: There are tens of thousands of fraudulent immigration documents on the streets of Los Angeles, and one of them features the name and photograph of Rep. Elton Gallegly (R-Simi Valley).

So authentic is Gallegly’s fake alien registration card that an attendant at a San Fernando Valley-area appliance store recently accepted it as a legitimate form of identification.

For the record, Gallegly is an American citizen and says he is not trying to pull the wool over anybody’s eyes. In fact, the Immigration and Naturalization Service provided Gallegly with the illegal document at his request.

“I use it as a prop to show folks the quality of an actual counterfeit document that was available on the street,” said Gallegly, who sometimes pulls the card out during television interviews to make his point.

There are more than two dozen official variations on the so-called green card. Gallegly says such documents are available on street corners for as little as $25.

So convincing are the forged cards that even vigilant employers are fooled when trying to comply with immigration laws. Gallegly’s document, for instance, was accepted without incident when a store clerk asked him for a second form of ID during a recent credit card purchase.

Gallegly, who used to represent a portion of the Valley before redistricting moved his entire district to Ventura County, is pushing for a counterfeit-resistant card featuring a hologram or magnetic strip that could be verified much like a credit card is checked at the local department store. Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) supports a tamper-proof Social Security card for the same purpose.

“If we can protect a $2 charge at K mart, we should be able to protect American jobs by helping businesses find fraudulent documents,” Gallegly said.

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THE LANGUAGE OF LAW: There was a time when the House Judiciary Committee was made up completely of lawyers--Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead (R-Glendale) and Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) among them.

Then Gallegly, a former real estate executive, arrived on the scene as the only member of the panel without a JD.

Now comes a member who is about as non-lawyerly as one can be--Rep. Sonny Bono (R-La Quinta), the former pop star and restaurateur.

Complaining about the complicated legal terminology thrown around during a recent debate on the crime bill, Bono remarked: “Boy, it’s been flying in this room like I can’t believe today. . . . We have a very simple and concise bill here, and I think it would be to everyone’s pleasure if we would just pass this thing, and now certainly everyone has demonstrated their ability in legal knowledge, and wouldn’t it be nice now if we vote on this thing and move on?”

The committee’s ranking Democrat, New York Rep. Charles E. Schumer, was not amused.

Reminding Bono that the committee makes laws, not sausages, attorney Schumer said: “We have to talk about the law. That is what we’re here to do. . . . If that is too much legalese for the gentleman, so be it, then we can’t have discourse in this committee.”

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THREE’S COMPANY: For two weeks, Assembly members Paula L. Boland (R-Granada Hills), James Rogan (R-Glendale) and Sheila James Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) spent some intense time together on a task force charged with solving the Assembly speakership problem.

Now the trio will have even more opportunities to get to know each other.

Boland, Kuehl and Rogan have all been appointed to the Assembly’s Natural Resources and Public Safety committees. The panels meet weekly, so the three lawmakers will have plenty of time to figure out how to work together on issues ranging from Santa Monica Mountains parkland to criminal sentencing.

In addition, Boland and Rogan are on the Education Committee along with a third San Fernando Valley Assembly member, Barbara Friedman (D-North Hollywood).

And there’s yet another of the Assembly’s 26 committees in which Valley-area members come in a threesome. Kuehl and fellow freshman Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles), both lawyers by training, and former Palmdale Mayor William J. (Pete) Knight (R-Palmdale) have all been tapped to serve on the influential Judiciary Committee.

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This column was reported by Martin in Los Angeles, Lacey in Washington, D.C., and Chu in Sacramento.