Forget the talk about traffic, zoning and even day laborers. At Los Angeles City Hall, the fight over a new Home Depot may boil down to a single question: How many lobbyists will it take to open one hardware store in the San Fernando Valley?
Home Depot's push to expand into Sunland-Tujunga might seem like the most local of controversies, one pitting a retail chain against angry neighbors worried about blight and congested streets.
But over the course of two years, the issues surrounding the proposed Home Depot on Foothill Boulevard have expanded to include race, the nation's immigration reform bill and, not surprisingly, Home Depot's ambitious plans for Southern California.
With a final vote scheduled for today, the fight over the hardware giant has attracted not just vocal residents of the northeast Valley, but a contingent of highly paid lobbyists and lobbying consultants from across the city -- so many that the issue now has one lobbying professional for each member of the 15-seat City Council.
Since the controversy reached the council two weeks ago, Councilman Dennis Zine has heard from Rick Taylor, a lobbyist and political consultant who worked on his campaign. Councilman Herb Wesson received a call from his friend, the lobbyist and political consultant Kerman Maddox, who is a partner in Taylor's firm, Dakota Communications.
Councilwoman Jan Perry spoke with lobbying consultant Richard Alatorre, a former city councilman who represented neighborhoods near downtown Los Angeles. And Councilman Richard Alarcon received a call from lobbyist Fernando Guerra, who has two clients in Alarcon's San Fernando Valley district.
"In my five years as a council member, I have never seen or experienced the kind of lobbying that's occurred," said Councilwoman Wendy Greuel, who hopes to persuade her colleagues that Home Depot performed such extensive repair work to an old Kmart that it must undergo a more thorough environmental review.
Home Depot has changed tactics as the project has moved closer to a final vote, shifting its emphasis from supporters in orange T-shirts to well-connected surrogates in business suits, each with ties to specific council members. Greuel, who made business and transit issues the cornerstone of her tenure, has already received calls from such civic leaders such as David Fleming, board chairman of the Los Angeles Area Chamber of Commerce -- and a lawyer with Latham & Watkins, which represents Home Depot.
