The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 59

LOS ANGELES TIMES MONDAY, DECEMBER 26, 1994 L.A. Scene The City Then and Now Long Beach Votes to Raise Ceiling on Contributions Ethics: Backers of political reform law decry council-backed proposal that would allow officeholders up to $10,000 each year for expenses. i Uit: I. if fr. t.

i Los Angeles Times The Arroyo Seco Branch Library, built in 1914 between Piedmont Avenue and what is now Figueroa Street, was razed In 1959. In 1894, the village of Garvanza lay in open country between the rapidly growing towns of Los Angeles and Pasadena. Los Angeles' population had reached 70,000, Pasadena's was approaching 10,000, but Garvanza boasted no more than a few hundred residents. The hamlet was linked to its larger neighbors by rutted roads known for choking dust in summer and deep mud after winter rains. Many residents worked at trades, but there also were a number of farms and ranches.

Citrus fruit thrived and flocks of sheep grazed on the hillsides. Twenty-two Garvanza women known as the Magazine Club were the driving force that year in creating a lending library of 800 volumes in a small building. All the books were donated by local citizens, and annual membership was 50 cents. In 1899, Garvanza, near what is now Figueroa Street and York Boulevard, was annexed by Los Angeles. The library became a city library branch.

In July, 1904, a new library opened at Avenue 64 and Ruby Street. Architecturally, it belonged to the historic Mission style, but its amenities were up to date, including a gas heater and electric lights. The area kept pace with Los Angeles' mushrooming population, and by 1913 the library needed more room. On Sept. 8, 1913, the Los Angeles Times reported, "Highland Park and Garvanza shall have a new library.

It will be a Carnegie Institution, located either at Avenue 56 and Pasadena Avenue later named Figueroa Street or in the delta between Piedmont and Pasadena avenues." Civic leaders organized a subscription drive and raised $5,680 toward purchase of the latter site. The Arroyo Seco Branch Library was paid for from a Carnegie grant to Los Angeles and completed in 1914 the same year the Southwest Museum, another Highland Park landmark, moved into its Mt. Washington home. Total cost for the library's site and construction was $44,775. The library was an impressive edifice, reminiscent of classic Greek architecture.

Slender columns lined the building's exterior, framed the tall windows and flanked the portico at the front entrance. The motto "Free to AH" was carved in cream-colored stone over the door. The building was also notable for unusual problems posed by the site's shape and contours. In its December, 1917 issue, Popular Mechanics noted that the site was "V-shaped and bounded by two converging streets, one of which slopes downward from the intersection past the site, while the other slopes upward past the site. The building faces the point of the By TYTAGAMI SPECIAL TO THE TIMES The Long Beach City Council has decided to modify a voter-approved campaign-reform law designed to reduce the influence of political contributors.

Despite protests from campaign-finance reformers, the council moved last week to allow elected officials to collect up to $10,000 annually in contributions to help pay job-related expenses. Supporters of the Campaign Reform Act passed last June said the proposal would create a slush fund that could make politicians beholden to contributors. But backers said the change is minor and that the funds are needed so elected officials can pay office expenses. "I respectfully ask the community to understand that it is expensive to hold office," said Councilwoman Jenny Oropeza. The current law allows elected officials to maintain a discretionary fund of up to $5,000 in surplus campaign money during a four-year term.

But that is not enough to cover day-to-day expenses, according to council members who want to change the law. Councilwoman Doris Topsy-Elvord said her constituents expect elected representatives to contribute to various charities and that she cannot afford to continue paying from her own pocket. "Out of the pittance of the stipend we get, we can only give so much," she said. City Council members are paid up to $21,000 a year. A committee headed by Topsy-Elvord first recommended a $25,000 annual ceiling on contributions, but the council dropped the figure to $10,000 before voting 6-2 in favor of the amendment.

A two-thirds majority was required to amend the voter-approved law. Voting against the change were Councilman Alan S. Lowenthal, who helped draft the Campaign Reform Act, and Vice Mayor Douglas S. Drummond. City Atty.

John R. Calhoun said he must hammer out the details before the council can cast a final vote, scheduled for Jan. 10, on the proposal. He said he must decide how the money can be spent and whether unused funds may be carried over from year to year. Several organizations opposed the change, including Citizens for Campaign Finance Ethics Reform, which drafted the reform law; California Common Cause; the League of Women Voters, and the American Assn.

of University Women. "I've seen a lot of dirty politics in my life, such as voting dead people," said longtime Long Beach resident Bob Rexby, 80. "This isn't quite in that category, but it's leading into the same thing." Jim Sturm, treasurer of the group that drafted the law, said the council amendment would allow representatives to campaign throughout their four-year terms. New candidates would be at a disadvantage, he said, "while the incumbents have been giving away pianos to make their names known." According to the act, candidates' fund raising is limited to an 18-month campaign period. Sturm and other opponents also expressed concern that the council decided the issue with little public input.

After the meeting, Lowenthal criticized the council's decision. "They felt very strongly that they needed these kinds of changes and that the people who wrote the measure didn't understand the needs of officeholders," he said. "I'm very disappointed." The Campaign Reform Act provides matching contributions for politicians who promise to limit their spending. The matching money comes from resident donations, with shortfalls made up from the city's General Fund. 1- r.

lot." These problems were overcome by sculpting the earth along the building's perimeter and making it slightly wider at the back than at the front. Standing well back from the library, a spectator could see the front and both side walls. From the front, the library appeared to be one story, but in back, on lower ground, the entrance to a basement-level auditorium could be seen. Michael W. McClintock, raised in Highland-Park, remembers the building well.

"That old building conveyed a feeling of power and permanence. Inside you could just smell all the years of people, dust and history. It was a warm, comfortable place. After my own home, that library made the deepest impression on me as a 5- to 10-year-old child." The Carnegie grant library was razed in 1959 after 45 years, and a new structure replaced it, opening Oct. 17, 1960.

The building, still in use at 6145 N. Figueroa is streamlined, unadorned, functional. But McClintock recalls one special feature of the building that won him over quickly. "The first week it was open my dad drove me to the library, and I didn't know quite what to expect. He could have parked at the curb or in the lot beside the library.

Instead, without a word, he swung the JONATHAN ALCORN For The Times'1 The library building currently In use at 6145 N. Figueroa St. was built In 1960. occupied a strip of land between a hill known as Mt. Angeles and the Arroyo Seco for a total of 80 years.

Now the Arroyo Seco Regional Library, the facility is headquarters for the 10 branch libraries of the city's northeast area. And in 100 years, the Magazine Cluhls collection of 800 books has jf groWnto 78,000 volumes. car onto a narrow ramp and zoomed to a rooftop parking lot." His fond memories of the two libraries have influenced his life. McClintock, 44, attended nearby Occidental College and USC, where he earned a master's degree in library science. He worked as an intern at the Arroyo Seco branch from 1974 to 1976.

Today he is area manager of the Los Angeles County library system's east San Gabriel Valley region. The two library buildings have -steve tice: Saks to Expand on I. Magnin Site YULE: Jewish Group Launches Mission stores and sell off the seven remaining sites. "It was amazing that the I. Magnin space became available when we were trying everything we'rt could to expand our store in Beverly Hills," Voltin said.

Renovations will begin after I. Magnin closes its doors in January, he said, adding that renovated store will open in August. City officials said they are pleased Saks will take over the marble-fronted I. Magnin store. "This is wonderful for the city, because it like there is little lag time between I.

Magnin's i closure and. its reopening as Saks," said Beverly Hills Mayor Vicki Reynolds. Last year, New York-based retailer Barneys York opened its own glamorous 'J square-foot flagship store on Wilshire Boulevard, a block east of the Saks building. Beverly Hills is also expecting Bloomingdalels to build its premier West Coast store on Beverly Drive, just blocks from the row of department1 stores lining Wilshire Boulevard. -SUSAN STEINBERG After spending years looking to enlarge its Beverly Hills store, Saks Fifth Avenue has announced plans to acquire the neighboring I.

Magnin site and create a Saks West Coast flagship store on Wilshire Boulevard. The acquisition would give Saks an additional 100,000 square feet of retail space next to its Beverly Hills store. The former I. Magnin building is scheduled to be remodeled primarily as a men's store, Saks officials said. "We've wanted for a long time to have a West Coast flagship operation," said Tom Voltin, general manager of the Beverly Hills Saks, adding that the company has always looked for that opportunity in Beverly Hills.

Saks has announced it will take over I. Magnin store sites in San Diego, Carmel and Phoenix, Ariz. Terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Last month, R.H. Macy Co.

said it would phase out its 12-store I. Magnin chain. Later the company announced that Macy's would convert five of the locations to either Bullock's or Macy's Continued from B10 abused and in some cases do not want their families to know where they are. The shelter tries to keep the youths no longer than two months, either encouraging them to return home, if that is appropriate, or trying to find them more permanent shelter, the staff said. As for the Christmas event, "you never know what this does," said Joe Cislowski, another volunteer.

"You walk away with a good feeling, and someday some good may come out of it." Volunteer Howard Schwimmer said knowing what was accomplished wasn't necessary. "It's a little too early to write off these kids," he said, "and I just wanted to help." Another party of volunteers went to the Estelle Van Meter Multi Purpose Center on East 76th Street in South Los Angeles so they could paint it. Volunteers also visited two AIDS hospices and landscaped a housing project, among other missions. USGS: Local Quake i Funding Targeted Continued from B10 provides high-tech equipment to Caltech, funds the work of a number of professors and provides the local reports on earthquakes and their meaning in Southern California. Scientists such as Lucile Jones who have become familiar television figures in explaining earthquakes are USGS geologists from the Caltech lab.

"We would have to shut down the laboratory. We literally could not run the network," said Rob Clayton, a seismology professor at Caltech. Tom Heaton, who heads the USGS office at Caltech, said it was unclear whether another government agency, such as the National Science Foundation, would assume the duties of the USGS if that agency is scrapped. Eliminating the USGS was proposed last March in the U.S. House of Representatives.

The proposal failed. But now that Republicans control the House and are looking for ways to pay for that party's $148-billion "contract with America," the program could end up back on the chopping block. "Everything is back on the table again. We put that out as one of the items that could be used to help pay for the contract," said Bruce Cuthbertson, press secretary for U.S. Rep.

John Kasich, the Ohio Republican who first proposed eliminating the USGS. "We are open to other suggestions. If people have other ideas of what can be cut, we are open to hearing them. Nothing is set in stone," Cuthbertson said. "There's not anything that's necessarily being targeted.

This is only an option at this point. We are willing to look at others." About $49 million of the Geological Survey's $550-million annual budget goes to earthquake research, with most of that work being done in California. Along with its 250-station seismic network in Southern California, the USGS runs 350 such stations in Northern California. The lion's share of the USGS budget goes to water quality studies in all 50 states, mineral and gas research for the U.S. Department of Energy and topographical mapping.

Dave Wald, a geophysicist with the USGS's Caltech office, said the agency shares earthquake information with other agencies such as the state Office of Emergency Services and local fire and police departments. Those agencies use the data to plan their responses to earthquakes. "This sounds to me like, the person who says government is too big and should be cut back, then complains when it takes police 20 minutes to respond to their call," Wald said. "I don't mind someone saying, 'Let's look at what we can but there's no way they can cut the whole thing," he said. POLICE: Cities POULTRY: Genetic Find to Seek Funds MAIL: Santa Delivers Continued from B10 funding of $300,000.

Currently, ah-nual salary and benefits for one entry-level police officer total $68,611.36, according to the de partment. With 129 officers serving 31.97J residents, Beverly Hills alreadjf has one of the highest police-io- resident ratios in the country. The local cost of hiring five newT Santa Monica officers had not been computed, a police said. Both cities will plan to apply funding under the Cops on the Beat program. Santa Monica's monies would come from the program's Cops Ahead grants, which earmarked for cities with a popular' tion of more than 50,000.

Beverly Hills will request a simiTr lar grant from Cops Fast, toifl- Continued from B10 predecessors of all other domesticated animals have long since gone extinct. Humans almost certainly ate chickens long before domesticating them. But starting 10,000 years ago, villagers began raising and breeding chickens to provide a more stable food supply. Ohno conducted the research in collaboration with several colleagues in Japan, one of whom was Akishinonomiya Fu-mihito, second son of Japan's emperor. The Japanese royal family has a long history of interest in biological research.

The team used well-established techniques to compare subtle differences in the DNA of mitochondria from a broad variety of chickens and wild fowl, including pheasants and quail. Mitochondria are small energy-producing packets within cells that contain their own DNA that is distinct from that of the cell itself. Because mitochondrial DNA mutates more rapidly than cellular DNA, changes in it provide a good yardstick for dating events that occur on a scale of thousands of years. Those techniques showed that all the breeds of chickens they studied share a common ancestor and that the ancestor was genetically identical to the red junglefowl. There is no trace of genes from pheasants or quails in the current birds, they also found.

As recently as the 1960s, arche-ologists had believed that the chicken was domesticated only about 4,000 years ago, probably in the Indus Valley of Pakistan. That idea became outmoded when researchers discovered bones at 16 sites along the Yellow River in northeast China. Few believed that to be the site of domestication, however, because the semiarid steppes of the region did not harbor wild species from which the chicken could have descended. The new findings fit in well with the previous chronology, according to Ohno, because both humans and junglefowl inhabited the target area at the right time. It is unlikely that archeologists will ever discover chicken bones from that period in the region because temperature and humidity conditions would make the bones disappear almost as fast as a box of Chicken McNuggets.

Continued from B10 bore a return address from a Canton, Ohio, jeweler. Phillips' presence on Christmas morning sometimes evokes disbelief. "I've never gotten any mail on Christmas before," said Jose Corona, who opened his door with a bewildered look on his face to accept an envelope. The packet held a card from a San Diego friend. "This is wonderful," said Cecilia Barrera, who also had never received a Christmas Day package.

"I looked out my window and saw this big red thing, and it turns out to be Santa. What a surprise." Barrera regretted that her two youngest children had just left with their grandmother to go to Sunday church services. "They would have loved it," she said. Phillips, who made more than 20 stops before his day ended, said his family's early morning celebrations have become routine because of his Christmas Day deliveries. "They like it and they don't like it," he said.

"They know I've got to work. We're getting together at my sister's house this evening, so we'll still have a lot of family time for ourselves." communities with fewer than, Kfl flftf! rpsirtents lauiornia is expected 10 about $900 million over the next six (i years under the crime Dill, 85 of which could be used to hire, about 10,200 police officers, ac-v cording to estimates by the U.S,'! Justice Department. George Ramos has the day off..