On Welfare Reform, Kuehl and McClintock Agree Disagreeably

On those rare occasions when Assembly members Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica) and Tom McClintock (R-Northridge) are on the same side of a controversial vote, it bears looking into.

That happened Monday, when the liberal Democrat and the conservative Republican voted against the welfare reform bill, which passed the Assembly 66 to 11.

Although their vote was the same, their thinking was not.

Kuehl said she liked the work requirements in the bill but didn’t support the package because it failed to provide an adequate safety net for the children of welfare parents who are dropped from the rolls.

For example, Kuehl said, the bill includes vouchers to pay the children’s portion of the rent if their parent is expelled from the welfare rolls, but there is no provision for food vouchers.

McClintock thinks the state’s reform package is a “giant step backward from the welfare reform we won at the federal level last year.”

He complains the children of a welfare parent kicked off the rolls because of new time limits would continue to get full benefits, ergo, the family would still be on welfare, though payments would be lower.

The GOP hard-liner is so opposed to the bill, he has written a 22-page critique and is urging Gov. Pete Wilson to veto the bill. This is unlikely because the welfare reform package is the product of high-level negotiations in which the governor participated.

“I disagree with most of what he says in his treatise,” Kuehl said.

Kuehl added that welfare recipients in California are standing at the edge of a cliff. According to her, she and other Democrats have been generally saying: “ ‘Let’s build a bridge to there.’ The Republicans are saying, ‘Why don’t you find a rope and see if you can swing over.’ Mr. McClintock said, ‘Take a good run and see how far you can jump.’ ”

McClintock, by the way, was the only Republican in the Assembly to vote against the bill.

The only other member of the Valley-area delegation to vote against the bill was Sen. Tom Hayden (D-Los Angeles).

Voting yes were Assembly members Tony Cardenas (D-Sylmar), Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks), Wally Knox (D-Los Angeles), George Runner (R-Lancaster), Jack Scott (D-Pasadena) and Scott Wildman (D-Los Angeles).

In the state Senate, William “Pete” Knight (R-Palmdale), Herschel Rosenthal (D-Van Nuys), Adam Schiff (D-Burbank) and Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) voted for the plan.

Dog Days

Gini Barrett, the wife of former Assemblyman Richard Katz, appeared before the City Council’s Public Safety Committee this week for what seemed to be a routine hearing to confirm her appointment by Mayor Richard Riordan to a second term on the city’s Animal Services Commission.

But because Councilman Nate Holden is on the committee, nothing the panel does is routine.

It seems Holden was still upset with the Animal Services Commission for its handling of the death of an Encino pug dog named Pal, which was found skinned alive in its owner’s backyard in April.

The Animal Services Department had concluded that the dog was probably the victim of a coyote attack. But Holden agreed with the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, which is of the opinion that the dog was killed by a sadistic human attacker.

During the confirmation hearing, Holden grilled Barrett about her involvement in the dispute. He asked if she was involved in the department’s efforts to file animal cruelty charges against the dog’s 84-year-old owner for waiting nearly seven hours before seeking medical care for the animal.

Barrett told Holden she wasn’t involved in that decision. The city attorney’s office declined to file such charges.

But Holden didn’t back down. He said he thinks Barrett has a problem listening to conflicting viewpoints, particularly about animal attacks.

“It sounds to me like you think, ‘It’s my point of view or no point of view at all,’ ” he told her.

Not wanting to make waves, Barrett diplomatically disagreed, and Holden went along with the other panel members to confirm Barrett’s appointment.

Wasted Time

J.P. Ellman, a former legislative analyst from Reseda and head of the Public Works Commission, is scheduled to resign her post Tuesday after four grueling years on the powerful panel.

The commission oversees some of the city’s most fundamental services: garbage collection, street lighting, paving and street sweeping.

Ellman hasn’t said what her plans are after she leaves. But based on her recent comments, it sounds like she may prefer anyplace to City Hall.

During one of Ellman’s last commission meetings this week, Vince Varsh, a sanitation engineer, gave the panel a verbal report on the ongoing dispute over a plan to charge septic-waste haulers a fee to dump at four designated sites, including the Tillman reclamation plant in the Sepulveda Basin.

Currently, haulers dump in sewer maintenance holes with little, if any, oversight by the city. But the plan has been vehemently opposed by environmentalists who say the basin would be ruined by a septic-waste disposal sight.

Varsh told the commission that a City Council panel had ordered a whole new set of studies on a plan.

When Ellman heard the report, she blew a fuse.

She said that the plan to charge and regulate septic-waste haulers had been in the works since she came to City Hall four years ago. Her panel approved the plan and the fees nearly a year ago.

Ellman noted with frustration that she will leave City Hall with the plan still in limbo.

“This is totally amazing to me,” she said. “It’s totally unbelievable.”

Apparently, for City Hall, it’s totally typical.

Drawing Conclusions

Advocates of splitting up L.A.’s school district are busy dreaming up their own version of a Times billboard ad that deals with the breakup.

You know the billboards they mean. They report the first few lines of a story then leave out the conclusion, directing readers to the newspaper to get the full story.

The ad says: “LAUSD breakup would leave the Valley without. . . . “

The cliffhanger got the attention of the breakup group, Finally Restoring Excellence to Education, or FREE as they prefer to be called.

So the group decided to have some fun by asking supporters of splitting the district to dream up their own ending for the billboard teaser. A contest was launched in the latest newsletter.

To get folks properly motivated, the newsletter published a tongue-in-cheek Top 10 list of things the Valley would be without if it broke away from the problem-plagued LAUSD:

“Low test scores and high dropout rates . . . Classrooms with no textbooks and supplies . . . Free condoms . . . Tainted strawberries . . . Travel visas to attend school board meetings . . . “

You get the idea.

Readers’ suggestions will be published in the next newsletter.

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QUOTABLE: “We’ll have a happy mayor and a lot of unhappy cops.”

An anonymous LAPD supervisor on the appointment of Bernard Parks as chief