David A Roberti

The Los Angeles City Council should promote the breakup of the huge Los Angeles Unified School District, two San Fernando Valley-based councilmen said Friday, even as a powerful state legislator from the Valley warned that such a task could take many years. The comments by Councilmen Hal Bernson and Joel Wachs and Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) reflected the growing support by Valley politicians for a movement to secede from the Los Angeles district and establish a separate Valley district.

Former Senate leader David Roberti says, "I'm not sitting around with a 2-by-4 in hand waiting to hit Phil over the head." But many pols wouldn't fault him if he did. And, if anybody should ask, Roberti is supporting Controller Steve Westly over Treasurer Phil Angelides for the Democratic gubernatorial nomination. "I've known Westly probably longer than most people have in politics," he says. "He was Northern California [party] chairman when I was [Senate] president pro tem.

Three members of the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors on Wednesday condemned the recall election against state Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) as fiscally wasteful, claiming it could cost the financially strapped county up to $1 million. Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and the board's two other Democratic members, Ed Edelman and Gloria Molina, joined Roberti Wednesday in denouncing the recall bid.

The Los Angeles City Council on Wednesday ordered a special election Sept. 11 for the 4th Council District seat, a race that has already attracted eight candidates, including former state Senate President Pro Tem David Roberti. Even before Wednesday's council action to fill the late John Ferraro's seat, fund-raising papers had been filed with the city by hopefuls such as Roberti, Los Angeles Community College Board member Beth Garfield, and former Ferraro aide Tom LaBonge.

Recently retired state Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) has been appointed by the Senate Rules Committee to a four-year term on the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board at an annual salary of $97,000. The committee met in private Monday to make the appointment of the veteran lawmaker. Chairman Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), who succeeded Roberti as Senate leader this year, said the vote was 4 to 0. Newly appointed committee member Sen.

State Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) announced Wednesday that he will propose special legislation to allow the San Fernando Valley to break away from the Los Angeles Unified School District and operate its own schools, a major step forward for the resurgent secession movement. Roberti told a public meeting on the school issue in Panorama City that he will fight to break up the giant school district so that parents can more easily participate in decisions that affect their children.

On the stump for his campaign to break up the Los Angeles Unified School District, State Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti urged Woodland Hills business leaders Tuesday to look beyond the state Legislature when lobbying for the plan. "Don't presume that somebody not running for the Legislature has no authority in the area," Roberti told about 100 Woodland Hills Chamber of Commerce members at a Warner Center Marriott luncheon. "You'll be surprised where the authority lies."

Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles) reiterated his plans to introduce a bill to make the manufacture, sale or brandishing of realistic-looking toy guns a felony offense when the 1988 Legislature convenes Jan. 4. In a statewide radio address, Roberti, who first announced this intention last October, also urged parents not to purchase such guns as Christmas presents for their children in order to reduce the risk of accidents that have resulted in deaths and injuries.

They're baaack! Five aides to state Senate President Pro Tem David A. Roberti, who had been pulled from Dukakis' California campaign, are returning to help out, according to Kathy Garmezy, a top official in the state campaign. "They're coming back and we're very pleased," said Garmezy, who was embarrassed last week when Roberti pulled his staffers after Dukakis failed to appear at a big Roberti fund-raiser in Beverly Hills.

The San Fernando Valley/northeast Los Angeles branch of the National Organization for Women has endorsed the recall of state Sen. David A. Roberti, citing his record on abortion. "There are many reasons we dislike him, primarily his anti-choice stand," said Linda McCabe, the chapter's coordinator. While the members of NOW have mixed feelings about gun control--the central issue in the Roberti recall campaign--they are strongly pro-choice.

As might be expected of a man who made history just by arriving--and leaving--the Capitol, David Roberti set some records in between. And although he represented Valley residents less than three years of his nearly three decades as a politician, he brought the hot topic of school secession off the back burner. A Los Angeles native, Roberti was elected to the state Assembly in 1966, at age 27 the youngest legislator then serving.

David Roberti, the former state senator forced out of office by term limits, has donated papers documenting his 28 years in the California Assembly and Senate to Loyola Marymount University. The papers include memos, notes, official documents and reports on the political issues in which Roberti, a Los Angeles Democrat, was involved.

A state political watchdog agency Thursday levied an $808,000 fine--the highest of its kind in state history--against an anti-gun control group for failing to adequately report its campaign finances as it worked to oust former state Sen. David Roberti from office in 1994. Named in the record-breaking fine by the state Fair Political Practices Commission was Californians Against Corruption, a South Bay organization that led a fight to recall Roberti, and two of the group's treasurers.

The state Fair Political Practices Commission on Wednesday filed a 404-count complaint against an organization that was the driving force behind an unsuccessful attempt to recall former state Sen. David Roberti, accusing the group of trying to hide the true source of many of its campaign contributions. If the organization, Californians Against Corruption, is found culpable on all counts, it would result in record-breaking fines of more than $800,000, said FPPC Chairman Ravi Mehta.

Recently retired state Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys) has been appointed by the Senate Rules Committee to a four-year term on the state Unemployment Insurance Appeals Board at an annual salary of $97,000. The committee met in private Monday to make the appointment of the veteran lawmaker. Chairman Bill Lockyer (D-Hayward), who succeeded Roberti as Senate leader this year, said the vote was 4 to 0. Newly appointed committee member Sen.

The post-election flurry of Democratic leaders naming friends to high-paying state boards and commissions is expected to continue next week with the appointment of retiring state Sen. David A. Roberti to a $97,000-a-year government job. Roberti, forced out by term limits and defeated in a bid to prolong his political career by running for state treasurer, would become at least the fourth person with close ties to leaders in the Senate or Assembly to be given a high-salaried post since the Nov.

Assemblywoman Barbara Friedman (D-North Hollywood), widely viewed as the leading candidate to succeed embattled state Sen. David A. Roberti (D-Van Nuys), says she will wholeheartedly support Roberti's effort to defeat a recall drive leveled against him by anti-gun-control activists. "I'm supporting Sen. Roberti in whatever way I can," Friedman said. "He's played an incredibly valuable role on the gun-control issue."

Senate leader David A. Roberti (D-Los Angeles), who was left with only a piece of his home district by the state Supreme Court's reapportionment ruling, indicated Tuesday that he will probably seek the San Fernando Valley seat of former Sen. Alan Robbins. "I'm leaning in that direction," said Roberti, whose home is in Los Feliz. His statement Tuesday was the firmest he has made publicly that he probably would run in a special election to fill the remaining two years of Robbins' unexpired term.

The last time state Sen. David A. Roberti was a private citizen was in 1966, three years before man landed on the moon. Now Roberti is preparing to end his 28-year political journey, rejoining civilian life after a career that boosted him to the heights of Senate president pro tem for a record 13 years. In nearly three decades in Sacramento, Roberti served in the Assembly and then the Senate, representing Hollywood, East Los Angeles and, most recently, the San Fernando Valley.

Democratic state Sen. David A. Roberti of Van Nuys, leader of the state Senate for 13 years, has joined the faculty at USC as a member of the political science department. Roberti said Friday that he was hired for the fall term as a part-time teacher of an upper division class in American political parties, campaign trends and political reform, "things I'm fairly conversant with, for better or for worse."