The Los Angeles Times from Los Angeles, California • Page 548

B8 FRIDAY, AUGUST 14, 1992 LOS ANGELES TIMES METRO NEWS APPOINT: DWP Panel said. "My initial reaction is that she would add some depth to the commission." During the council hearing on Lomax earlier this week, Rice said that the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund Inc. has undertaken an "environmental justice" project that has targeted environmental problems in poor and. minority communities. "The brunt of environmental' abuse is borne by poor people and people of color," she said.

Rice, who holds a bachelor's degree in government from Harvard University and a law degree from New York University, said, "I see my mandate as one to involve communities of color and poor communities in environmental issues." Galanter, however, noted, "The Continued from Bl "I'm not going to play the game of environmental credentials," Rice said Thursday. If confirmed by the council, Rice would replace popular environmentalist Mary Nichols and become the only African -American on the five-member board of the DWP, which provides water and power to 3.5 million residents and operates facilities that affect air and water quality in California and several Western states. "I think the mayor has made very clear he wants to continue the same type of approach to the environment that Nichols had," Rice said. "Mrs. Lomax gave that assurance, and I'm giving the same assurance." Bradley said in a statement that Rice will address the "affirmative action performance at the city-owned utility and promote environmentally sensitive polices." Councilwoman Ruth Galanter and several environmentalists who opposed Lomax's appointment said Thursday they want to find out more about Rice's environmental activities before taking a position on the appointment.

But Council President John Fer-raro, a vocal critic of Lomax, was complimentary to Rice, who sought to ensure that black voting power was not diluted by recently approved City Council redistrict-ing. "She strikes me as a very strong and capable individual," Ferraro Some of 168 guns seized by federal and local officials. Speaking is George A. Rodriguez of U.S. Bureau LARRY DAVIS Ijs Angeles Times of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

JOBS: Summer Program Task Force Makes 145 Arrests, Seizes 168 Guns Law enforcement: The 10-week operation is a joint effort of U.S. agents and local police. Those held are allegedly violent career criminals. HAD ENOUGH? 1-SOO-ATF-GUNS HANDGUN A i GUNS, DRUGS. 98 word spreads about the potential for tough sentencing under federal laws.

For example, convicted felons with records including violence or drug-trafficking would face a mandatory 10- to 15-year prison term if they are caught with a firearm. 1 agents has been working with police since April, 1991, 171 felony arrests have been made and 353 firearms seized. By contrast, about 4,500 firearms were seized during the week of the riots, according to Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms spokesman John E. D'Angelo. The Newton Division and, more recently, the LAPD's Rampart Division, whose officers patrol in and around downtown Los Angeles, were targeted by the U.S.

agency because they have high levels of violent crime and gang activity. And in Inglewood, targeted for similar reasons, law-enforcement authorities have made 58 felony arrests and seized 50 firearms since agents began working with police in June, 1991. Virtually all of those arrested are affiliated with gangs, and the guns seized include an undetermined number taken by looters during the spring riots, Rodriguez said. Rodriguez said ACES West did not spring from the riots, which actually delayed the start of the project by a month. He said the task force the third of its kind in the country, after two earlier efforts in Washington, D.C.

resulted from the agency's recognition that metropolitan Los Angeles is among the most violent areas in the country. By LESLIE BERGER TIMES STAFF WRITER The U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms on Thursday unveiled results of a 10-week operation in Inglewood and parts of Los Angeles during which police seized 168 guns and made at least 45 arrests of people they de-cribed as violent career criminals. Although the federal agents and local counterparts acknowledged that the confiscated weapons represent only a fraction of the estimated thousands on the streets, they said the seizures mean that lives have been saved. "You can't downplay it," said Los Angeles Police Chief Willie L.

Williams, who joined the federal agency's Los Angeles director, George A. Rodriguez, and Inglewood Police Chief Oliver M. Thompson at a news conference at the World Trade Center. "Ten guns, 10,000 you save some lives, you've made a difference." Dubbed ACES West, for Armed Criminal Enforcement Study, the effort has involved 70 Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agents, most of whom began their work June 1. It will continue through Sept.

30. Within the Los Angeles Police Department's Newton Division, where a smaller team of federal mayor Knows plenty of other black people who have a lot of experience in environment. I have to assume that he didn't want to appoint any of them because it might look as though the environmentalists and had a point." Deputy Mayor Mark Fabiani responded that some of the people whose names were submitted by environmentalists already hold portant posts in the Bradley Administration. When she learned of the nomination, Lomax said, "I had to laugh. Her credentials are al-most identical to mine.

I could think of no better candidate." by the teen workers that he ar- ranced a haalrpthall tnilrn-nnpnt fnp them this week. He took half a dozen athletic trophies he had won as a teen-ager, bought new plaques-and arranged to give the trophies to the winning competitors. As in the real-life working world, not every summer worker excelled. "Some of them haven't developed good work habits yet," said another counselor, Rico Barboza.V "They have to be on time, and they -have to call in if they'll be late. I dock them for the hours they They say, 'But and I say, 'You didn't call in.

In the real world, nobody In the College Library, five teens worked for Stanley Patrick. During a training session, he noticed that Alfredo Senulveda nicked ud the Library of Congress and UCLA cumpuier systems as quicKiy as, most of the college students who wurit in ine norary. "He seemed incredibly bright. When he told me he'd dropped out, I told him it was a waste of a great mind. I asked him what he was going to do with his life," Patrick said.

"He told me a lot of stuff," said Alfredo, an extremely shy boy who said he stopped going to school after the eighth grade. "He told me if I don't go to school, I won't get a eood iob." Patrick made one request. "I said I'd consider it a favor if he'd go back to school," the library worker explained. "I said I would helD him. do whatever I could.

"The following week when he told me he had decided to go hark it maHo tho whnlp nrnoram 1 wunii ii tu inc. i was iiupiug something like that would come out of it." RANDY LKKFINCWKLL Iax AngelesTimea partly razed home in background. National Register of Historic Places, and the house was identified as a "contributing structure." This meant that two California' preservation agencies and the U.S. Department of the Interior had determined that the house and the neighborhood did have historic significance, said Barbara Hoff, director of preservation for the Los Angeles Conservancy. Continued from Bl their educational futures to deciphering Los Angeles politics.

Many of the young workers were not only receiving their first paychecks but setting foot on a university campus for the first time. "Just being at college makes the job special asking students about college, walking around the campus," said Lakisha Reddic, 18, who is working in UCLA's advanced academic placement office and will attend community college next fall. Anthony Glover, 14, assigned to custodial work at the university, summed up his lesson. "This is a good field," he said, sweat beading on his face as he broke for lunch, "but you don't want to do it for the rest of your life, because some people have a lower view of people who clean up. So you want to go to school and get a higher job.

Now I can see how my parents feel when they got to go out and work all day." Another 14-year-old, Alexey Klimochkin, who immigrated from Uzbekistan a year and a half ago, said he was asking as many questions as he could of UCLA students because he has already decided that he wants to attend college here. "It's good for me," he said, lugging a dolly of recycled paper from the Center for Russian and East European Studies. Davina Jackson, 17, found that work in a budget analyst's office was less restrictive than she had imagined. "I had some background on computers, but I'd never worked on an IBM before," she said. "My boss is going to teach me Quattro Pro." One of the counselors, Darrin McLee who works nights as a Department of Water and Power field inspector was so impressed The agency did not require a full environmental impact report on the redevelopment plan.

Neighbors filed suit, stalling the project, but lost in court and on appeal. Both a judge and the Los Angeles Cultural Heritage Commission decided that the house did not have historic significance. But after the court case, the neighborhood was listed on the rr s3 Streamlined Rules Used in Effort to Raze Cottage men a i During the project, agents worked undercover buying drugs and guns and laid the groundwork for getting search warrants, which often lead to the seizure of more firearms, D'Angelo said. Thompson safd the project's greatest effect would be to deter lawbreakers from using guns once "From personal knowledge, I can testify that the house was not damaged nor in any way affected by the recent disturbances. I am prepared to testify if necessary to this fact." But Carbonel said he visited the property a few days before the riots and a few days after and that sometime between the two visits the interior was vandalized.

Holes were punched in the walls, he said, and plaster was stripped from the walls and ceiling. He assumed, Carbonel said, that the damage was riot-related, although he acknowledged he had no direct evidence. "I wasn't going to go down there during the riots to find out what was going on but I'm sure that's when the vandalism took place," he said. 1 Neighbors, however, contend that squatters had lived in the house which had been converted into three apartments and left vacant for about a year and damaged it months before the riots. City building officials note that very few residences were damaged during the unrest; the Hodgman House was not included in their list of riot-damaged properties.

Before city officials "fast-tracked" the demolition permit process, the property would have been reviewed by a city preservation expert and neighbors would have been notified before the permit was granted. Those steps were temporarily eliminated to speed post-riot reconstruction. So the demolition caught residents completely by surprise. "It was an incredibly painful thing to watch," said neighbor Jim By MILES CORWIN TIMES STAFF WRITER The partial destruction last weekend of a 19th-century Victorian cottage in a historic district near USC outraged neighbors and has prompted chagrined city officials to tighten demolition rules streamlined after the spring riots. The owner of the cottage in St.

James Park which was listed last year in the National Register of Historic Places had obtained a demolition permit, claiming the building was damaged during the unrest. But residents insist that no homes in the neighborhood were damaged in the riots, and they were horrified to find a demolition crew at the structure early Saturday. More than a dozen workers were dismantling the house with pickaxes, chain saws, crowbars and sledgehammers, cutting its distinctive green gable, smashing the diamond-shaped windows and splintering the 100-year old redwood walls. Under standard city procedure, ownerChris Carbonel, who operates a property management firm in Torrance, would not have been able to obtain a demolition permit so quickly and without notifying neighbors. But the city had streamlined the demolition permit procedure after the riots, eliminating a number of steps so property owners could quickly rebuild.

The demolition was halted after angry residents contacted the Building and Safety Department, and officials now are re-evaluatirig their approval of Carbonel's permit. Officials say they are now aware that the building has historic significance, said Angle Chang, a department coordinator. And "there arc questions whether the house actually was damaged during the riots," she added. Moreover, the city has restored some time-consuming steps to the demolition process to ensure that other historic buildings are not destroyed by accident, said Tim Taylor, the department's executive officer. Carbonel, meanwhile, continues to insist that the house was damaged during the riots and that it is not a historic structure an issue on which various public agencies have disagreed.

Neighbors say they are prepared to file suit to have the house fully restored. JpAnne Greene Fields, who lives two houses away from the cottageknown as the Hodgman House says not one house in the neighborhood was damaged during the riots. All the neighbors, she said, made a point to "keep an eye on the Victorian," because it was uninhabited. More than 25 neighbors signed declarations this week stating: Jim Childs of neighborhood association looks at historic marker from Childs. "Watching a house in a historic neighborhood being trashed we all felt as if we were being violated." Carbonel purchased the house about 10 years ago and later decided to demolish it and build condominiums.

The city's Community Redevelopment Agency supported the plans, determining that the house lacked historic significance..