Union Backs Off From Backing Schiff, Not So Gracefully

No battle is too small to fight in the high-stakes race between GOP Rep. James Rogan of Glendale and his Democratic challenger, state Sen. Adam Schiff of Burbank.

And for candidates casting themselves as tough on crime, nothing is worth more of a skirmish than the chance for a photograph with cops in uniform.

So it was with a touch of glee that Rogan’s reelection campaign pounded Schiff this week for touting an endorsement by the police union in posh, but tiny, San Marino. In fact, the 24-member San Marino Police Officers Assn. was neutral, according to Rogan’s campaign. So Rogan campaign manager Jason Roe hammered Schiff for “misleading voters.”

“I would call on him to pull all of his campaign literature and remove all of his endorsements until he can verify that he actually does have their support,” Roe said.

The union’s president, Det. Sean Heckers, confirmed it was staying out of the race.

“Nothing against Adam,” Heckers said. “Nothing negative. We’re not endorsing Rogan either.”

But wait a minute.

Schiff’s campaign, it turned out, had a Dec. 15 letter from a union official to Schiff saying, “it is with great pleasure that we announce our decision to endorse you in your race for Congress.” The letter from Matthew Bogaard, then the union’s secretary, patted Schiff on the back for his “commitment to law enforcement.”

Schiff campaign manager Ted Osthelder said he was “completely puzzled.”

“Maybe Jim Rogan is upset that Adam has more law enforcement groups endorsing him than Jim Rogan does,” he said.

Rogan’s campaign was equally baffled.

“Until I’ve talked with the Police Officers Assn., I’m not going to have anything to say,” Roe said. “I want to find out what happened there. I spoke to them yesterday, and they were emphatic about it.”

The union leader sighed when asked about the letter.

“Oh, what a mess,” Heckers said.

As it happens, he said, the union board members whose terms ended in December never mentioned the endorsement to the new board members.

“If we did send something off, and it’s in writing, and we did endorse him, then that’s mud on our face,” Heckers said.

So yes, the union did promise to work for Schiff’s campaign, but now it says it won’t. Nothing against Schiff; it just wants to stay out of the campaign.

“I’m not going to get into the middle of it,” Heckers said.

Too late.

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REVISING HISTORY: A lawmaker wants to rewrite state history, or at least the prominent role one disgraced San Fernando Valley politician played.

Alan Robbins wrote dozens of laws during his 18-year tenure as the Democratic state senator representing a district centered in Van Nuys.

That ended in 1991 when Robbins pleaded guilty to federal corruption charges for extorting payments from lobbyists and former business partners. He resigned and served 20 months in a federal work camp.

Now, Assemblyman Lou Papan (D-Millbrae) has introduced a bill to remove Robbins’ name from the legislative “tombstones” that top more than a dozen laws now on the books.

“He doesn’t think someone given Robbins’ history should be memorialized in legislation,” said Edward Randolph, a spokesman for Papan.

More common in Washington, D.C., than in Sacramento, the practice of “tombstoning” refers to placing the name of the author prominently in the name of a new law as it is included in state civil, business and vehicle codes.

So when citing state law regulating credit cards, one might refer to the Robbins-Areias Credit Card Full Disclosure Act. When looking in the state Business and Professions Code for the law on debt regulation, one will come across the Robbins-Rosenthal Fair Debt Collection Act.

In all, Robbins’ name is included in 15 state laws in the various state code books.

“He was prolific in tombstoning himself,” Randolph said.

Papan was bothered that Robbins’ name kept being cited in new legislation that referred to laws already on the books. So in April, he amended a bill and called for Robbins’ name to be struck from all state laws.

Bill George, an aide to Papan, said the reaction from other lawmakers has been nothing but positive. The bill is expected to be heard in the next few weeks in the Senate Rules Committee.

Robbins, who now lives in San Diego, was unaware of the effort to remove his name from the legislative books.

He questioned the motives and the impact of Papan’s action.

“I don’t know what he’s thinking,” Robbins said. “It’s hard for anybody to change history. History is history.

“I did some things that were wrong and I acknowledged them publicly,” he said. “I served some time in a work camp. But at the same time, if I was the author of a bill, I was the author. You can’t change that.”

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ALL IN THE FAMILY: When the Los Angeles City Council agreed Wednesday to hire an architect to design the proposed North Valley police station, it gave the contract to a former elected official with close ties to Mayor Richard Riordan.

Chet Widom’s architectural firm was given the $895,000 contract to design the station.

Widom was elected with Riordan’s support to the Charter Reform Commission, which in 1998 drafted new rules for city operations that voters approved last year.

As vice chairman of the commission, Widom was one of the leading voices on the panel for many of Riordan’s proposals to give the mayor more power in City Hall.

Widom’s company was recommended to receive the contract by the Riordan-appointed Public Works Board.

Widom said his firm and others originally submitted their qualifications and were interviewed by Department of Public Works officials about 10 years ago when the project was first proposed. It was shelved after the city ran out of money.

Public works officials said because Widom’s firm had been selected in 1990 for the project, the firm was simply asked in October to resubmit its qualifications and was selected after it and one other firm were interviewed.

The action was cleared as proper by the city attorney’s office, a representative of the public works board said.

“The argument for charter reform is that we were selected six months ago and it’s taken six months just to get the paperwork done and get it approved,” Widom said, adding that he plans to complete the designs in nine months.

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HOT DOGGED PURSUIT: Mort Diamond, a retired hot dog vendor and paralegal, is what you might call a perennial candidate, and he’s proud of it.

Asked why voters in the West Valley’s 3rd Council District should support him over the other three declared candidates, Diamond noted that this will be the fourth time he has run for the seat.

“It shows my interest in the district. It shows I won’t give up so easily,” Diamond said. “Where were the other ones during the last 12 years?

Diamond, 68, is not just a candidate for the Los Angeles City Council seat being vacated by Laura Chick next year because of term limits. He is also an author. He has just written a book about what he calls the “hot dog wars” he faced as a street vendor in Canoga Park.

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TWICE BURNED: Studio City Republican Bruce Bialosky has tried twice to organize a Los Angeles fund-raiser for the U.S. Senate campaign of Mayor Rudolph Giuliani of New York City.

But for the second time, Giuliani on Monday left Bialosky in the lurch, canceling another trip to California. Bialosky, an accountant active in the San Fernando Valley secession movement, had hoped to raise $75,000 for Giuliani at a fund-raiser scheduled for Wednesday in Bel-Air. Giuliani put off the trip to meet with doctors about treatment for prostate cancer. He canceled another trip in February after four white police officers were acquitted in the killing of an unarmed black man, Amadou Diallo.

With Giuliani still undecided about staying in his Senate race against Hillary Rodham Clinton, the latest cancellation was fine by Bialosky.

“Until he’s decided whether he’s moving forward, I don’t think it would be appropriate to ask anyone to make a contribution to his campaign,” Bialosky said.