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July , 1999
Patt Morrison: Confessions of a 'Known Opponent'
By Patt Morrison, Los Angeles Times
Friday, July 16th, 1999
(note: Mike Feinstein makes ‘enemies list’ of Playa Vista development
project)
Confessions of a 'Known Opponent'
Forgive me if I indulge myself here--the writer's version of spiking
the ball in the end zone after a touchdown--but I've just been
accorded one of the highest of honors.
The Nobel? Faugh! The Pulitzer? Puleez.
I made an enemies list.
My name is on a list of "Known Opponents" of Playa Vista, the development project for 1,000 coastal and wetlands acres
in Playa del Rey, now without DreamWorks SKG, the Spielberg trio.
In six single-spaced pages, every one of them dated May 20, 1997,
and marked CONFIDENTIAL, my name is listed near the top of Page
3. I'm a couple of spaces down from a 73-year-old naturalist and
anthropologist named Tom Maxwell, and a couple of spaces ahead
of a Native American activist named Rachel Noble.
On other pages are the Sierra Club, the Gray Panthers, those snakelovers
of the Southwest Herpetology Society, Santa Monica Councilman
Michael Feinstein, and L.A. City Councilman Nate Holden, who derided tax breaks
for the project as a welfare program for billionaires.
Nearly 90 individuals and 88 groups appear under listings "Trespassed
& Arrested," "Trespassed & Eye Witnessed," "Known Opponents" and
"Known Groups Opposing Playa Vista."
Alongside many of those names are addresses or phone numbers.
A few names are accompanied by car license plate numbers; alongside
the name of one Audubon Society and Sierra Club activist is what
appears to be a description of the make and model of her car and
its license number.
And next to one activist's name and affiliations is this notation:
"Daughter: Alana."
Like mother, like child, I guess. Gotta watch those second-generation
tree-huggers.
* * *
This, I must tell you, is a youthful wish fulfilled.
Other kids daydreamed about winning the World Series or an Academy
Award. Me, I wanted to be on the Nixon Enemies List. All the best
people were.
When I grew up, I befriended two people who were actually on that
list: Times cartoonist Paul Conrad, and Ed Guthman, a Bobby Kennedy
aide and editor both herem and at the Philadelphia Inquirer.
"The Nixon people did things to those on the enemies list," says
Guthman. "We were just lucky they were a bunch of klutzes."
Bruce Robertson's name is on the Playa Vista list, both as "Known
Opponent" and "Trespassed & Eye Witnessed." He runs a private
investigation firm, and he knows the techniques when he sees them,
and boy, he says, has he seen them: Playa Vista demonstrators
being videotaped, car license plates photographed as they picketed
or handed out leaflets. Legal it may be, but justified?
So why was this list created?
To stop someone from waltzing in unchallenged and leaving turtle
turds on employees' desks over lunch hour? To make sure Playa
Vista didn't send me a Christmas card by mistake?
A Playa Vista spokesman said Thursday, "The list exists for security
reasons."
He himself wasn't there in 1997 and so "can't tell you who put
it together or what the thinking was." He apologized if Holden, Feinstein and I are listed "inappropriately."
Always alert for trespass and harassment, he added, particularly
at special events, a shorter list, of about 25 names, was recently
compiled for security guards. I'm not on that one.
* * *
When I told fellow journalist Jill Stewart about the original
list, she was wild with jealousy, having savaged DreamWorks and
Playa Vista in the weekly New Times too recently to make that
list. If someone is updating the list, please add Jill, or I'll
never hear the end of it.
But I worry--am I worthy?
I'm listed on the strength of one column that mildly rebuked the
dreamers at DreamWorks, suggesting they build their studio downtown,
which not only needs the boost but is already a favorite with
filmmakers. I questioned the need for and the wisdom of building
businesses, a studio and 13,000 homes with the corollary traffic
on the last, biggest and best open space in that end of town.
It didn't seem radical then, but it must have been enough.
* * *
I could get to liking this. Who else could I provoke into putting
me onto a list?
Maybe Wal-Mart, for filling orders for Viagra but refusing to
honor doctors' prescriptions for a morning-after pill? Or Mitsubishi,
wanting to build the world's largest saltworks on the shores of
the Mexican coast's richest whale sanctuaries?
Just be sure to spell my name right.
And in the meantime, Playa Vista, I'll do what I can to live up
to your expectations of me.
Patt Morrison's column appears Fridays. Her e-mail address is
patt.morrison@latimes.com