The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 1

VALLEY EDITION AnmU mm CIRCULATION: WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 22, 1997 DAILY 25 1,068,812 DAILY 1,361,988 SUNDAY COPYRIGHTI997THETIMESMIRROROOMPANYFOCt126PAGES DESIGNATED AREAS HIGHER White House, in Shift, Endorses MS Reform Bill Legislation: Support clears the way for passage of GOP proposal, which would create an independent oversight board. It would also aid taxpayers in dealings with agency. Goldberg to Seek a Vote on Secession Politics: Councilwoman will ask for advisory measure to head off divisive petition campaign. Backers of breakaway skeptical. JO" 0 By JANET HOOK, times staff writer WASHINGTON In an abrupt reversal that clears the way for the first major overhaul of the Internal Revenue Service in decades, the Clinton administration Tuesday dropped its opposition to legislation to restructure the agency.

The White House turnabout Clinton Moves to Limit Import of Assault Guns 11 A surveyor emerges from Universal ft' 1 V-l came after congressional support for reforming the IRS roundly criticized of late for abuse of taxpayers and mismanagement suddenly snowballed into a seemingly unstoppable bipartisan force. The legislation to revamp the agency was formally unveiled early in the day by Rep. Bill Archer (R-Texas), chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee. A key provision that had been at the core of the dispute over the bill would establish an independent oversight board dominated by private sector representativesto monitor the agency's budget and operations. Key Democrats, including House Minority Leader Richard A.

Gephardt immediately queued up to pledge their support for the bill, which also would bolster taxpayer rights in dealing with the IRS and shift the burden of proof from the taxpayer to the IRS in cases that go to civil tax court. After weeks of vehemently opposing creation of the oversight board, Treasury Secretary Robert B. Rubin late Tuesday said that the administration would support the bill because of changes that meet White House concerns. In particular, Rubin welcomed elimination of a proposal to transfer the power to hire and fire the IRS commissioner from the president to the oversight board. The administration's shift was viewed by many as a measure of Please see IRS, A6 Council OKs Accords for Downtown Arena Sports: Vote clears way for developers to secure $300-million project's funding.

Holden is lone holdout. By BETH SHUSTER TIMES STAFF WRITER In a move that she says is aimed at heading off a potentially divisive signature-gathering campaign, City Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg plans to ask her colleagues today to call a special citywide advisory election on allowing the San Fernando Valley to secede from Los Angeles. Goldberg, who acknowledged that the move appears "counterintuitive" because she does not support secession, said she wants to spare the city the negative campaign that would surround an independent drive to obtain enough voter signatures to put such a measure on Jackie GoWberg 0n behalf of trying to diminish the hostility, I am willing to do something quite out of character," Goldberg said in an interview. "Why have all this division, animosity and hostility?" But her motion isn't likely to arouse much enthusiasm around the council table. Other members staunchly oppose secession and seem unlikely to give its supporters a free, electoral forum.

Moreover, City Hall insiders and Valley secessionists appear equally skeptical of Goldberg's motives: The former wonder whether she is trying to win Valley support for a possible mayoral bid; the latter speculate that the motion is an attempt to strangle their movement in its crib. "Quite frankly, it's thanks but no thanks," said Jeff Brain, the co-chairman of a group formed to lobby for secession, who added that the group would examine the motion when it's introduced. "We've seen Please tee SECEDE, A28 Herb May Help Slow Alzheimer's Scientists report that an extract of ginkgo biloba, commonly available in health food stores, may slow the progression of Alzheimer's. A3 Congress Aims at Health Care Reacting to mounting public dissatisfaction with managed health care, Congress is considering at least 10 proposals to regulate health insurance plans, including broader rights to sue for malpractice. A6 COLUMN ONE fa 9 1 1 City side of nearly 2.4-mile subway raro said, "I would ask all of you to consider the source of the opposition.

If all of us were against this, Nate would be speaking in favor of it." Please see ARENA, A22 Clinton Backs Plan on Global Warming By JAMES GERSTENZANG TIMES STAFF WRITER BONN-President Clinton, concluding an often-fierce debate within his administration, opted Tuesday for an international plan to combat global warming that falls short of stringent proposals advocated by European powers. It gained the grudging support of American environmentalists but is likely to draw fierce opposition from U.S. industry. Barring last-minute Please see WARM, A27 ment, Americans are crowding into classes on how to start or grow their own firms and challenging the notion that entrepreneurship can't be taught From grammar school to graduate school and beyond, a nationwide surge in entrepreneurial education is changing the way Americans are preparing themselves for work. Entrepreneurial studies, a lonely academic outpost at a handful of colleges 20 years ago, has become one of the hottest fields in business education.

More than 1,000 post-secondary schools offer at least one course on starting or running a small business, with classes oversubscribed at the nation's most prestigious university programs. "I need more money and in-Please see WORK, A24 4 Knott's Berry Farm Agrees to Be Sold to Ohio Firm Parks: Tentative stock-and-cash deal with Cedar Fair estimated at $300 million. Expansion plans to continue. By ELIZABETH SHOGREN, JEFF BRAZIL and STEVE BERRY TIMES STAFF WRITERS WASHINGTON-President Clinton plans to sign a directive to limit the influx of thousands of foreign-made assault weapons while the federal government rethinks its criteria for allowing such firearms into the United States, a senior White House official said Tuesday. Although the directive has not been finalized, the administration is, at the minimum, committed to temporarily suspending the issuance of new permits to foreign gun makers, who have exploited loopholes in federal firearms laws by making slight modifications to their guns.

These dealers are "trying to be cute on the assault weapons ban," presidential assistant Rahm Emanuel said. "This strengthens the assault weapons ban on the books." Emanuel said he expects the president to sign the directive "within the week." Please see WEAPONS, A14 the deal, including debts that Cedar Fair will assume, will add up to nearly $300 million. "Knott's is well-known nationally and internationally," said Richard L. Kinzel, Cedar Fair's president. "We're very pleased with the way it's been managed, and we'll keep the theme park going the way it is." Knott's which started in 1920 making jams and jellies, added chicken dinners and then grew into a major theme park once held its own against its bigger neighbor, Disneyland in Anaheim.

But the Buena Park attraction's share of the market slipped from third nationally in 1990 to 12th now as Please see KNOTTS, A23 THREE DEAD: Three people, whom neighbors described as a retired aerospace engineer, his wife and teenage son, were found shot to death in their Porter Ranch home. Bl CSUN THREAT: Student leaders threatened to withhold money earmarked for the school's athletic program if CSUN follows through with plans to drop four men's sports. CI Today's Weather VALLEY DESERT FORECAST: Partly cloudy. Highs around 80. Lows near 50.

B9 Inside Agenda B6 Food HI Doonesbury E3 Lottery Bl B2 TV F10 ALSE1B Los Angela Timet tunnel linking the Valley to Hollywood. Beleaguered MTAonVergeof Tunnel Triumph By RICHARD SIMON and JEFFREY RABIN TIMES STAFF WRITERS Hundreds of feet beneath the Santa Monica Mountains, far below a residential driveway, Los Angeles will mark a milestone today, when a massive tunneling machine punches through a wall of rock and soil and opens a path for the subway between the San Fernando Valley and Hollywood. But unlike similar occasions the opening of the Los Angeles Aqueduct or construction of the Pasadena Freeway, the city's first it will be a celebration marked not by a sense of promise, but by a realization of limitations. When the mechanical mole claws through the final feet of its almost 2.4-mile subterranean journey, a city famous for its love affair with the car will have a 17.4-mile subway tunnel from downtown Los Angeles to North Hollywood. That task probably was the system's greatest engineering challenge.

But the achievement is overshadowed by growing apprehension that it marks not the end of the beginning for Metro Rail, but the beginning of the end. By the time the subway line from Union Station to North Hollywood actually opens in the first spring of the next century, local, state and federal taxpayers Please see SUBWAY, A16 Dole Returns Bob Dole, who campaigned heavily in the Valley last year, returns to the area this Sunday. Dole will be the guest of honor at a banquet at the Warner Center Marriott in Woodland Hills, where he will receive a lifetime achievement award from the Independent Living Center of Southern California. Other honorees will be state Department of Rehabilitation Director Brenda Premo, Deputy Atty. Gen.

Gordon R. "Sam" Overton, the Hollywood Bowl and retiring LAPD Deputy Chief Mark A. Kroeker. Hi la! By BETH SHUSTER TIMES STAFF WRITER After months of tough negotiations and bitter wrangling over public disclosure of the deal's terms, the City Council on Tuesday approved financial and environmental agreements with developers of a proposed basketball and hockey arena downtown. The council's action essentially clears the way for developers to secure funding for the $300-million project, expected to open for the Los Angeles Lakers and Kings in October 1999.

"I think this is a monumental step for the two teams," said Kings President Tim Leiweke, who attended the lengthy council session. "This was probably the most important hurdle." (The council, as it does with most ordinances, will take a final vote on the agreements next week.) Council members said that the proposed sports complex will spur more development downtown and that they were pleased to finally have the deal approved despite a lone holdout Nate Holden. Holden was the only council member to object to all six votes involved in approving the project, including the financial and environmental agreements. But council President John Fer- to the USC campus this night to hear a lecture on garment production costs. She and 24 other local garment makers are participating in the university's Apparel FastTrac entrepreneurial training, a sort of academic boot camp for business owners trying to grow their firms.

In 12 weeks of night school, Godwin will develop a strategic plan for her children's clothing company, something she's been too busy to do since starting Quintessence in the early 1990s. "I wish I'd taken this class four years ago," said Godwin, 34, an artist and designer with no formal business training. "I'd be in a very different place now." Looking for a road map for a new economy that no longer guarantees lifetime employ By JAMES S. GRANELLI TIMES STAFF WRITER Knott's Berry Farm, which pioneered the modern theme park in the 1940s but lately has been unable to grow as fast as rivals such as Disneyland and Universal Studios, said Tuesday that it has tentatively agreed to be sold to an Ohio firm that will pump in the cash needed to help it expand. Cedar Fair LP, a publicly held partnership that owns Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio, and three other parks, will acquire the nation's last major family-owned amusement park for an undisclosed amount of cash and stock.

Industry experts say the value of Amcuted Pnm TOUGH CALL: The toughest assignment in sports? Try football umpire. "The only way you can really guess how tough the position is would be to get on the freeway at rush hour and practice dodging cars," one veteran umpire said. Eric Sondheimer's column. C9 I vWMiiM I 1 1 TOP OF THE NEWS ONA2, Al ft Ti A New Way of Doing Business From grammar school to graduate school, entrepreneurial education is in demand. Other programs turn the unemployed into the self-employed.

By MARLA DICKERSON TIMES STAFF WRITER Conventional wisdom says that entrepreneurs are born, not made, and that the best classroom is the office, workshop or factory. But don't tell that to Kathleen Godwin, partner in a small San Pedro-based apparel manufacturing company, who has come.