Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1980's

Wind Continued from page 2) crash. I just went over a jump and popped it. At this point, I really don't know what I'm looking at. I might need more surgery." Roeseler will miss th e SCORE Off-Road Champ ionship at Riverside International Raceway in Riverside, California, but he still plans to co mpete on th e U.S. Trophy Team for the ISDE in Poland, Sep tember 21-26. Pat Pipes, central California motocross promoter, says that a -pu bl ic hearing on a proposed 4000-acre OHV park in the Sierra foothills east of Fresno, California. off Highway 41 will be held before the Madera County Board of Supervisors at the Government Center, 209 West Yosemite Street, Madera, California, at 10:30 a.m. Tuesday, August 18. Pipes says that speakers in favor of the proposed riding area are scheduled to be heard and that a large turnout in favor of the park will help offset any opposition groups that might be present. We reported in oui July 29 issue that William Burbank IV had been convicted of 12 counts of fraud for the transfer of funds from th e Burbank famil y-owned Sure-Fire Distributing Co. th at was destroyed in a 1984 fire to a dummy co mp any. Burbank informs us that he 's filed an appeal. " Everything looks promising and I'm sure I'll be vindica ted," said Burbank in a telephone call from his Asheville, North Carolina, home. • L.A. Law: Cowboy justice in Tinseltown Urgent Dateline .. . Los July 21, 1987 ... Angeles L.A . City Council flaunts Brown Law . . . unanimous 16 vote for resolution s~pporting twiT! California " W ildern ess" acts . .. Council president ramrods through resolut ion against recreat ionists, sportsmen, elderly, handicapped, ch ildren, underprivileged .. .overwhelming testimony opposing resolut ion ignored . .. boycott against L.A. city businesses and services called for . . . more as situation develops. . . _ Wat er is the world's mo st powerful force in nature. Water, potable wat er, is also the most powerful behind-thescenes political forces in virtually all city go vernments. No water, no cit y. No city, no cit y go vernment. A U.S. Senator is the mo st p?werful force in the nation 's political law making establish ment. Six years of unlimited terms in office. Ninetynine cohorts to make law which affects every man, woman and child in America. Some powers ar e more equal, or more powerful, than others. Out West, Los An geles' Department of Wat er &Power (DWP) is th e unquestioned powerhouse [sic] of public utilities. William Mulholl and was th e foundin g fath er of L.A.' s DWP. Even Hollywood, L.A. T inseltown, paid homage of sorts to Mulholland in th e movie class ic, 'Chinatown.' Ja ck Ni cholson cha ses down th e graft , viol ence and death of Mulholland's (actor?) passion to crea te water and " po wer." It takes land out West, massive am ounts of land, to have wa ter in th e amo unts to make Los Angeles a maj or metropolis from a little Sp anish town. Mulholland did th at. Never mind th at engineering and corruption created dam s th at burst and bridges wh ich colla psed. L.A.' s DWP is a mo st aweso me array of wat er aq ue d uc ts a n d elec trica l energy corridors west of th e Mississippi, possibl y in all the Amer icas. H ence, DWP is the most po werfu l non- elected pol itical force within th e cruise m issile di stan ce of L.A. California's Senator Alan Cranston built his mega- for ce pol itical base o n cla ims of environ mental sa lvatio n using the fam ous Santa Barbara oil spill 'as a fulcrum point. . Cranston tied th at with Tinseltown ideal ists like Fonda and H ayden and Fairchild and Duval to cash in th e richest dem ocratic war chest in th e country. Hollyweirds eccent ric celebs are like swine in corn mash wit h Cranston - an Oscar in one hand, a U.S. Senator in th e other. Celluloid fantasies all. Alan's S7 positi on ed Cran ston and W&P o n an inevitabl e co llisio n cours e. DWP is Cali fornia's largest land baron , L.A. 's bi ggest muni cipal emp loyer and largest in com e source. Cranston 's S7, the bi ggest land grab in th e nat ion 's memory, is mapped right over DWP's holdings. At stake, th ou sands of miles of waterways and power corrido rs wh ich can' t meld in with wild erness design ati on let alo ne aq ua tic recreatio n, veh icle usage or aerial Ilyovers, Japanese mov ie makers co uldn' t ask for a better scri p t: A Battle of The Ti tan s. Thermonuclear political w ar. Alan Godzilla versus W&P Kong. Pow ! Bam! Crash! Boom! Kr:Pow! Thud! lank! And th e wInner IS . .. Cranston 's co rner warn s their pugalist that th ey need to neutralize L.A.'s W&P before th e fight starts. Worst, with 15 California counties on record opposing both his and Congressman Levine's wilderness bills, the y need an endorsement from the City of the Angels - the nation 's third biggest m etropolis. Them dirty, low down recreationists are getting Cranston outflanked and outnumbered. L.A. won't budge off dead center against DWP's opposition to 57 and HR 371. Send for the SS storm troopers - the Sierra Club. As Cranston's proxy, the Sierra Club pens a request (demand?) for L.A.'s City Council to pass a resolution supporting the Wilderness bills. The U.S. Senate hearings are but a week or so away. Need a boost to Tinseltown's twinkle toed celebs wh en they testify (for so me unknown .reason ; the y ain 't never walked a mile in the desert like us ). _ Smogsville's co m pl yin g legisla. ti ve officers map o u t midnight str a te gy. Secret -agreements (un known to th e public or management) are made with W&P leaders to protect their land holdings if th ey reverse opposition. The politics of city and W&P hierarchy meld in a sneaky deal. Cal ifornia 's Ralph M. Brown act dictates 72 hours public notice for testimony of all concerned parties before any council or committee meeting on important issue s. L.A.'s legislative office issu es notification to a clerk late Friday aftern oo n for a city co mm ittee meeting the followin g Wedn esda y, aware it won't be posted (mailed) until Monday - 48 hours noti ce. Monday's mail won 't arrive till Tuesda y, 24 hours (for a r are few ) before th e co m m i ttee meeting. And th e mailing list doesn 't include any of th e hundreds of gro ups opposed to S7 and HR 371. Sierra Club snooker. Damned th e law, full speed ahead. The ci ty's Energy & Natural Resources co mm ittee meets Wednesday a.m. Supporting th e Wildern ess bills in the early a.m . are the Sierra Club , Congressman Levin e a nd DWP. Opposin g are th e BLM and a lat e show, the Big H orn Sheep p reserv ati oni st s. But wai t a minute .. . City com mittees virtuall y never meet in this time period. A new city co u nci l president h as just be en elected and new com mittee members haven 't yet been a ppo inted. This just ain 't don e. A lam e d uck co mm ittee ... ? And chaired by the new co unci l president? Something's 'ro tten in Sm ogs vill e. . A recommendat ion for a L.A. city " resolution" suppor ting the Wilderness bills passes unanimously in this quack [sic] committee. No further testim on y at th e ci ty co uncil need be taken, per th e Brown law . before a vote o n th e foll owing T uesday two days before th e U.S. Senate hearings. After-the-fact word of this snooker gam e reaches o p p o ne n t groups - bik ers to miners , hunters to ro ck hounds, le gislators to corporatio ns. The phone lin es are burning up. P ro tests and req uests for postpon ement to' hear all sides deluge cit y co uncil members' offices. Ear s seem plugged, but certain ly not deaf. L.A. is a demo cracy, is n' t it ? Well . . . there is an exception her e. City H all is o ur final resort. They'll certain ly hear our testimony, th e facts. Do wntown Los Angeles is th e dredges. Dirty. Filthy. Grimy, Gro_die. Another tim e zone. Bums. Beggar s. Weirdos. People of a lesser ma ster. "Gimme a quarter for coffee." H ow about a bu ck for some grub. " Inpenetrable parking, 10 bu cks a half da y. There's a sm ell of decay - physical and moral. The 'Po inty Building,' L.A.'s City Hall acronym, is a dismal gray chunk of marblesque amongst glass encased h igh rises. Dingy halls, creaky elevators and yellow stained restrooms. Chinatown, the mo vie. You 've entered another time zone. Only the tommy guns , double breasted suitsand low brim Stetsons are missing. Acoustics are absent in the pilloried city council chambers. Flatulence vibra tes off the wooden, church pew seats, The street people crowd III to protest for homeless privileges. Dem onstrations are disallowed, but cho irs of orchestrated children sing. Placards wave. Applause rattles for an y obscure protest. The Hispanic community decries a new prison site both in Spanish and English. Lord, i s -thi s a zoo or a ch a m ber of dem ocracy? The Wilderness resolution is #31 on the agenda. A stadium-like scoreboa rd sig n a ls some code about councilmen present, di scussion and vo tin g which is indecipherable. After three-plus hours of mayhem, Item 31 is on -the ledger. The council pres- id ent, aware that public input is no t required but lookin~ at a two-inch thick stack of testimony request ca r ds, , sa ys, " Co m m en ts, five minutes." I'm in a pew with legi slative pros from the NRA, Wilderness Federa- tion , State Senator Richardson , California Rifl e Association, th e AMA and other opposition groups. " What does five minutes mean - for each of us or all of us?" There must be 30 or 40 or more people in th at card stack. " It 's five minutes for all of us - tota l. Throwaway yo ur speech . Be fast so the others can . speak." " T hose o pposing Item 31, five minutes . Sen ator Ri chardson , th en . . .' Seven of us go t to speak, maybe 45 seconds max. That's abo ut one -minu te per 10,000 square miles of land clos ure. The card stack is now H4" hi gh . "T hose supporti ng Item 3 1, fi ve minutes," Congressm an Levine' s o ffice spe aks . The so le sup po rter sets up half the nickel's worth of m inutes. The 'discussio n' light appear s on the sco reboard. A co u nci lwo ma n asks th e city counci l's secreta ry some questions about livestock grazing and recreation. Repeatedly; she says, in a dumbstruck dem ean or, "I think we need to know more about th is (Wildern ess) bill. " Sh e retires in th e cushio n of her hi ~hback chair. T he 'voting' light glows. Faster than waterproof grea se passes through th e goose, three seconds by my timing, the co unc il secreta ry en unci ates: "Ten for (a quorum ), none against." The su pport resolution passed as if th e seven to o ne o ppos ition were but a mi rage. The mostl y vacant counci l chambers, ma ybe 50 people, seem ed to stand and vacat e in dumbfounded unison. At least 35 people, all but on e in opposition to the resolution, wobbled out in a daze. One heavy hitting legislative rep , who wasn 't allowed to speak, looked at me and said, " I' ve never seen any th ing lik e this in my life. A sh am." The damage is done; well somewh at. Senator Cranston, Congressman Levine and th e Sierra Club won this skirmish. Let's not get mad let 's get even! Boycott Los Angeles. Buy your parts outside L.A. Purchase your next bike som ewhere else. Make th at accessory order from another non-L.A. outfit. Hav e that meeting in Albuquerque. H old that conv ention in Reno. Buy that ad from th e .San Diego Chronicle. Set up business in San Bern ardino. Don't spend a penny in L.A . . We are over 15 million strong. A $5-billion dollar recreation industry. We can have an impact on politicians' dreaded fear - decl ining revenues and voting the 'bums' out of office. .Now lookit: I spent an entire week , over a hundred in-and-out phone calls on this battle. I never saw victory in sight, but I believed in the democratic system and that 'we would be heard.' Okay, so I was wrong about the L.A. system of cowboy justice and a ramrodding city council. You can take 22¢ and a few minutes to let those political wimps at the pointy building (L. A.'s City Hall ) know where you're taking your dollars and votes - awa y from Tinseltown. Write or call the top dog: His Honor, Mayor Tom Bradley, 200 N. Spring St., Los Angeles, CA 90012, 213/485-3311. Before all yo u L.A. dealers and di stribuors write me any nasty letters; cover yo u r posterior. Send your protest letter or telegram to Mayor Tom. Make a copy and proudly display and show it to your customers who will be delighted to drop their hard earned cash in your register because you support you r customers. Remember, keep writing to keep riding. Dave Ho lema n

• Cover