A Tug of War Over Fernando

Poor Fernando. And I don’t mean Valenzuela.

This is another Fernando. They put him on a pedestal, and then they neglected him. Perhaps there had always been something forlorn about his expression, but there’s no doubting it now. His bronze skin is stained with guano and his marble base is scarred with graffiti. His left eye is crusted with some ugly goop, possibly a chemical reaction to years of weather and neglect.

Erected in 1968 in the Van Nuys Civic Center, the broad-shouldered, muscular man in the loincloth was conceived by a handful of San Fernando Valley potentates as an idealized symbol of the Valley’s first inhabitant. He was, in fact, a 6-foot, 11-inch replica of the tiny desktop “Fernando” statuettes that a group called Fernando Award Inc. had been bestowing annually on “men of outstanding civic leadership” since 1958.

From the start, there was snickering. The Fernando file at the Los Angeles Cultural Affairs Department contains this Dec. 23, 1968, memo from a peeved arts coordinator Curt Opliger:

”. . . the pedestal and plaques are just as they were initially submitted without any changes recommended by staff or commission. . . . The front still has the Nazi eagle clouds and the whole bit. It still looks much like a bowling trophy.”

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Fernando might be heartened to know that Jennifer Easton, the current curator of the city’s public art, takes a kinder view. To Easton, the sculpture calls to mind the imagery produced by the New Deal’s Works Progress Administration, with the eagle aptly reflecting the Native American theme. Opliger’s Nazi crack, she speculates, may reflect some xenophobia over sculptor Henry Van Wolf’s German roots.

Easton has given this some thought lately because Fernando has suddenly become a popular fellow. When directors of Fernando Award Inc., the statue’s owner, recently petitioned the city’s Cultural Affairs Commission for permission to move the statue from the dowdy Van Nuys Civic Center to well-manicured Warner Center Park in Woodland Hills, it sparked a battle.

Proponents of the move included people such as attorney David W. Fleming, who is not just a past president of Fernando Award Inc. but also a recent recipient.

Fleming, whom Mayor Richard Riordan dubbed “Mr. San Fernando Valley” upon appointing him to the Fire Commission, explains that he and his fellow Fernando honorees want to move the statue to a location that is more visible and less disagreeable. “I was there one night and some guy was urinating on it,” Fleming recalled.

Their objective, Fleming explains, is to increase public recognition of the Fernando program and thereby foster “the spirit of volunteerism.”

And in the meantime, he noted, they can redo the archaic wording on the pedestal suggesting the Fernando is for men only.

Now, understand that the Fernando doesn’t tend to go to retirees who deliver meals-on-wheels or Neighborhood Watch captains who spend weekends scrubbing out graffiti. It goes to the big kahunas. Fleming once donated $1 million to Valley Presbyterian Medical Center, where he is chairman of the board.

Other past Fernando recipients include auto dealer H.F. (Bert) Boeckmann II, current president of the Police Commission, and Boeckmann’s wife, Jane. The Boeckmanns have donated oodles to Pepperdine University and political causes.

So Fernando isn’t taken lightly at City Hall. The Cultural Affairs Commission itself is chaired by another Fernando honoree, doughnut mogul Arthur S. Pfefferman.

But last month the commission discovered that Fernando had pals in Van Nuys as well. The Mid Valley Chamber of Commerce and Councilman Marvin Braude, who represents the neighborhood, argued that Fernando should stay put. To abandon one part of the Valley for another, it was argued, was not in keeping with the Fernando spirit.

In the end, only Pfefferman and another commissioner voted in favor of Fernando’s relocation, while three commissioners voted no. Action was deferred.

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The Fernando group, Fleming says, never intended to abandon Van Nuys Civic Center. They always planned to replace Fernando with an obelisk. And they never wanted to start a turf war either. So now Fleming says it’s “very possible” that Fernando will be left in Van Nuys and the white marble obelisk will go up at Warner Center Park.

Fleming and friends envision “a little Washington Monument,” featuring a bas relief of Fernando on its four sides.

No, Fernando Award Inc. isn’t turning its back on Van Nuys. In fact, Fleming told me, the group has another project in mind to enhance the decor the courthouse in the Civic Center: Imagine, if you will, a lobby graced with the portraits of past Fernando recipients--a gallery in honor of Fleming, the Boeckmanns, Pfefferman and the rest.

Civic leadership is beautiful thing.