In 1989, after the phenomenal box office success of ‘Three Men and a Baby,’ actor Steve Guttenberg was in the market for a new home. While he didn’t have a clear idea of what wanted, he knew that he did not want ‘a modern house’ or ‘a house that the Beach Boys had lived in, which is not my style.’ For weeks his real estate agent had him looking all over L.A., ‘mostly at houses I knew I couldn’t afford, like the Houdini mansion in the Hollywood Hills.’ Then one day his agent said he had just the right house for him in the Pacific Palisades, a place Guttenberg had visited a couple of times but ‘didn’t really know anything about, other than it had this great Mediterranean climate.’ Then, as he and the agent made their way up Palisades Drive to the Highlands, Guttenberg remembers he suddenly felt enveloped by the mountains, ‘like we were being transported into another world. I loved the winding road and, coming from New York, the natural light and ocean air. And that was even before we got to the house. Then, as we were driving up the street I noticed that everyone’s garden was so beautiful and I thought, ‘There’s no way I can afford this! What’s my agent thinking?” By the time the two men got out of the car in front of a two-story, Mediterranean-style house, which ‘had great curb appeal,’ Guttenberg says, ‘I was already sold. And then when I walked through the front door and saw this explosion of green [the house being completely open to the back garden], I instantly knew this is where I wanted to live. The pool was full of happy kids, the garden butted up against Topanga State Park, and a circular staircase in the foyer looked like it came right out of ‘Dynasty.’ When I saw that, I was SURE I could not afford the house.’ As they walked back to the car, Guttenberg asked the agent ‘How much?’and was surprised when it turned out to be exactly the amount he knew he could afford. He immediately bought the house and has since become not only the town’s honorary mayor (since 2002) but also one of its most responsible citizens. Currently he is spearheading an effort to slow down speeders on Palisades Drive, which he says some residents have taken to ‘using as a raceway. They think they’re at the Grand Prix, or something.’ As for living in the Palisades, and his home in the Highlands, Guttenberg says: ‘It has brought me such pleasure that I think it has added years to my life. I like it so much that sometimes I don’t leave for days, unless I have to go to New York. I love the Palisades. It’s a real resort town, very different from where I come from.’ Guttenberg, who commutes regularly between New York and L.A., grew up in the working- class neighborhood of Massapequa, on the south shore of Long Island, where his parents and one of his sisters still live (the other sister lives in New Jersey). Other actors from Massapequa include Alex and Billy Baldwin and Jerry Seinfeld. ‘Jerry’s father Cal was a signmaker,’ Guttenberg recalls. ‘I used to deliver signs for him when I was a teen.’ As a teenager, Guttenberg got interested in acting after working one summer with a local children’s theater group. That fall he started taking acting classes in New York and after graduating from high school he came out to California, where within weeks he landed a Kentucky Fried Chicken commercial, and a low-budget teen flick called ‘The Chicken Chronicles.’ Within a decade he had roles in several film hits, including ‘Diner,’ ‘Cocoon,’ ‘Short Circuit,’ and ‘Police Academy.’ His latest film, ‘P.S. Your Cat Is Dead,’ which he produced, directed and co-wrote, was adapted from the Broadway hit by the late James Kirkwood, co-author of ‘A Chorus Line.’ The black comedy, with its frank exploration of sexual role playing, opened to mixed reviews. ‘The film is more deeply felt than fully realized,’ said the L.A. Times. ‘Despite strong portrayals by Guttenberg, it doesn’t come alive until it’s drawing to a close that’s unexpectedly touching.’ Guttenberg still loves the stage, where he starred in ‘The Boys Next Door’ in London’s West End, and the Tony-award winning ‘Prelude to a Kiss.’ When in New York, he takes acting, dancing and singing lessons, making the 45-minute commute back and forth to Massapequa, where he stays with his close-knit family. Asked about being bicoastal, Guttenberg says he basically has no choice. ‘Obviously I like the weather better here but my family is there, which is why I spend about half of my time in New York. But people don’t do lunch there,’ he jests. ‘There’s no Cafe Vida, which is why I have to come back to the Palisades.’ When home in the Highlands, Guttenberg, who lives alone with his 9-year-old Lab Bucky, enjoys his pool, his home gymnasium and hitting golf balls that sometimes land in the state park. He also enjoys the quiet and the privacy of his garden. ‘In fact, it’s so private I could go naked out there but I don’t, you know, being the honorary mayor and all.’ These days the actor is in rehearsals with Angelica Huston and Ben Kingsley, preparing for this Sunday’s reading of ‘Sunset Boulevard’ at the Pantages Theater to benefit the Actor’s Fund. This weekend Guttenberg also plans to do some entertaining. He’s not sure if he will cater (usually from Mort’s or the nearby Hidden Cafe), or if he’ll cook. ‘Lately, it’s been with my new wok. I might do pad thai noodles, or kung pao chicken, or sizzling vegetables. Or maybe I will grill some Chilean sea bass or wild king salmon. And I like to keep things really informal. Whether I’m entertaining a CEO or the guy who delivers my groceries, I want everyone to feel comfortable in my home.’ Guttenberg had the same attitude with GuttenHouse, a halfway house he bought and renovated for young women who have grown up in foster care and are ready to make the transition into the real world. The two-story duplex in Culver City features marble-tiled bathrooms and hardwood floors. ‘I wanted it to be a beautiful place, with positive energy,’ Guttenberg explains. In the almost three years GuttenHouse has been in operation ‘we have helped about a dozen of the girls get jobs, and get ready to go to college,’ says Guttenberg, who regards the project ‘as one of my best investments’investing in the futures of these young women. But I want to say I did not do it alone. I had a lot of people help me make it happen.’ Another investment Guttenberg would like to make, with the help of other Palisadians, is in the village, specifically on the corner of Swarthmore and Sunset. ‘Imagine if we had a multiplex movie theater where the Mobil station is now? We’d also build a donut shop, a record store and have lots of parking. It would be a place that everyone could enjoy. You know, there’s a reason I was drawn to the Palisades. There’s a real energy here. You can feel it everywhere you go. That’s why I’m proud to be the honorary mayor of this town.’ Asked how he happened to acquire this prestigious position without having to spend one dollar on campaigning, Guttenberg explains that ‘it all started with a pastrami sandwich at Mort’s!’ He later accepted the offer extended by the Chamber of Commerce.

If citizens want significantly more police officers on city streets, they should root for a proposed initiative to raise the L.A. County sales tax by half a percent, City Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski told the Community Council last Thursday. The initiative, supported and promoted by Sheriff Lee Baca and LAPD Chief William Bratton, will go on the November ballot if enough signatures are gathered by June, said Miscikowski, and it would raise ‘a significant amount of revenue.’ One-third would go to the Baca’s office, one-third to the LAPD and one-third to the remaining cities in the county. ‘Bratton has vowed, over time, to build up an additional 2,000 officers on top of his current 9,100 officers,’ said Miscikowski, who chairs the City Council’s public safety committee. She argued that a sales tax increase is the ‘best way’ to reach this goal, given the city’s bleak financial condition. The City Council hasn’t yet endorsed Baca’s initiative, Miscikowski said, pending a review by the city’s financial analyst, and she warned that because the measure would require a two-thirds vote, ‘there will have to be a significant effort by community support groups.’ Community Council member Larry Jacobs wanted to know, ‘How do you ensure that this becomes a net increase for the police and doesn’t end up in the general fund?’ Miscikowski replied, ‘There obviously has to be a guarantee of ‘new money’ for the police department. We also want to know who will be on the oversight committee for the distribution of funds.’ In the meantime, Miscikowski said, Mayor Hahn will present his budget in April, and ‘will make public safety his number one priority’no matter how dire the [fiscal] situation.’ Council member Arthur Mortell asked Miscikowski if the city is being reimbursed by the federal government for anti-terrorism efforts that drain LAPD resources. ‘Some,’ she said. ‘The stations where traffic is stopped before entering LAX are manned by LAPD officers on overtime; the city is reimbursed by the airport and they are reimbursed by the Department of Homeland Security. But by no means are we getting reimbursed for everything. We now have a whole Home Security Bureau [with about 200 employees] that never existed before, and there are security costs at the ports and elsewhere. We have to absorb these costs.’ Miscikowski reiterated that Captain Vance Proctor, the LAPD’s new West L.A. commander, has committed to maintaining a second patrol car in Pacific Palisades (2 p.m. to 2 a.m.), a move instituted early this year in response to complaints about increasingly scarce police coverage in the community. She also reminded the audience that she and fellow councilman Jack Weiss are sponsoring a motion to ban smoking at public beaches in Los Angeles, similar to the ban passed recently by the City of Santa Monica. ‘Are there resources to patrol the beaches?’ Community Council member Marguerite Perkins Mautner wondered. ‘When we passed the no-smoking ban in restaurants and bars,’ Miscikowski said, ‘we heard the same kind of question. But we’re largely a law-abiding society’as we’ve seen with public acceptance of seat-belt laws’and the smoking ban at beaches should not require a significant police patrol to enforce. Ultimately, it’s a matter of changing the culture over time.’

It’s official: Palisadian Bill Simon is running for California state treasurer. Although the election is not until November 2006, Simon is already campaigning. Last Saturday evening he spoke to the California Republican Assembly in Sacramento, and he plans to continue his weekly radio commentary, which is syndicated through Radio America to approximately 400 stations in the U.S. (including KRLA 870). He will also make his views known on talk radio, a forum he used extensively during the gubernatorial race. ‘I wanted to declare my intention to run early,’ Simon told the Palisadian-Post. He is, of course, expecting competitors but hopes to get the support of key Republicans, including Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, whom Simon presumes will run for reelection. It was just two years ago in March that Simon, a newcomer to politics, shocked both himself and the Republican party when he overcame a 40-point deficit in just eight weeks to win the nomination for governor in a landslide. ‘Simon Trounces Riordan, Storms to GOP Nomination,’ read the headline in the L.A. Times. Simon spent the next eight months campaigning against incumbent Gray Davis. Happily traveling the state, his down-home ‘meet ‘n’ greet’ style was often compared to that of former president Ronald Reagan, whom Simon greatly admires. Even after losing the governor’s race last fall by a surprisingly close margin, Simon continued to travel the state, speaking ‘two to three times a week’ as head of his own political action group called the California Grassroots Leadership Committee. Then came the California recall election. ‘My wife Cindy and I have been saying for two years that we need to recall Gray Davis,’ Simon said at a Palisades Republican Club fundraiser at his home in the Huntington last June. ‘It makes me feel as if we were right all along!’ Simon decided to run, but three weeks later he quit, saying there were ‘too many Republicans’ in the race. Whether an L.A. Times poll at the time showing Schwarzenegger in the lead influenced Simon’s decision, he won’t say. But he does say he is supportive of the new governor, whom he considers a friend. Both are parishioners at St. Monica’s Catholic Church and both have vacation homes in Sun Valley. ‘I think Arnold is doing a good job,’ Simon said, ‘and should be given a chance to work through his financial recovery plan. I voted in favor of both Proposition 57 and 58 [the government’s $15-billion bailout bond to deal with the state deficit] because I didn’t see that there were many alternatives.’ Simon also said that if he had been elected he ‘probably’ would have proposed the same solution. ‘While what I would like to see the governor do, ultimately, is to cut government and government spending, we all know something needed to be done in the short term.’ Simon, 52, who is back managing his family investment firm, William E. Simon & Sons, when not campaigning said he sees job creation as key to California’s economic recovery. Asked why he is now running for state treasurer, after investing some $9 million of his own funds on the governor’s race, Simon said he feels he has the ‘skills to handle the job.’ While Simon’s experience as a litigator is well known (after graduating from Boston College Law School in 1982, he served as assistant U.S. attorney for the Southern District of New York under then-U.S. Attorney Rudy Giuliani), his experience on Wall Street, which is ideally suited to being state treasurer, is not. From 1973-1978 he worked as a foreign exchange trader and manager in the municipal bond department of Morgan Guaranty Trust, now known as J.P. Morgan Chase. During that same period his father, Bill Sr., served as both Secretary of the Treasury under President Nixon, and U.S. energy czar, giving Bill Jr. access to the likes of George Schultz, Henry Kissinger and Alan Greenspan, who at the time was an economic advisor to the government and is now Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Those years, and the family’s escapades (including a visit to the Middle East, where Bill Jr. was gifted with a camel) are detailed in Bill Sr.’s autobiography, ‘A Time For Reflection,’ which was released in February, almost three years after his death at the age of 72 from heart disease. Was Bill Jr. greatly influenced by his father? ‘Yes, I was. He was a remarkable man. That’s why both my brother [Pete] and I wanted to go into business with him.’ Asked how he is like his dad, who has been credited with bringing an end to the energy crisis in 1974, Simon said: ‘We are both very results oriented. We don’t suffer from ‘analysis paralysis,’ which can often bog down the decision-making process.’ Asked why he wants to get back into the political fray after two disappointing tries, Simon said: ‘Cindy calls it getting out of our ‘comfort box.’ I think it’s a good thing to do, to serve your community, if you can. I applaud Jerry Brown as an example of a humble public servant. He was California governor [1975-83], now he’s mayor of Oakland, and I hear he’s going to run for attorney general.’ Asked who will tend the business (which he manages with Pete) while he’s off campaigning, Simon said: ‘One thing the gubernatorial campaign proved is that I am not necessary to this company for it to survive and continue to do well.’ His business advice to clients these days? ‘To be cautious. And focus on the cash flow.’

‘Bringing good science down to the human level, empowering and encouraging people to get involved in the environment one person at a time,’ is what Palisadian Peter Kreitler describes as the goal of his TV show ‘EarthTalk Today,’ which airs on channel 35. He and co-host Alexandra Paul, who also lives in the Palisades, taped the 150th episode of the weekly environmental talk show in February. Their 150th guest was former state Sen. Tom Hayden, who was also the first guest when the show began in 1997. Hayden talked about the hope he saw in places like Santa Monica, where a city bureaucracy is doing much for the environment. Hayden, who taught at Harvard last fall, talked about the consciousness on environmental issues among young people today, who are frustrated that the environment’s situation has grown worse during their lifetime. Back in 1997, Hayden talked about environmental justice, a subject that the co-hosts of the show feel strongly about. ‘Chemical spills, pollution and degraded land affect people in many parts of the globe,’ Kreitler told the Palisadian-Post. ‘The poor suffer the most. The wealthy can afford to go where there’s clean air.’ Kreitler, an Episcopal priest who was assistant pastor at St. Matthew’s Episcopal Church from 1974 to 1991, was named Minister of the Environment by Bishop Fred Borsch in 1991. ‘I believe the most important theological issue of our time is the environment, because creation is collapsing. Everyone should be deeply concerned about it. This is the most important issue of the millennium,’ said Kreitler, who also runs Optimum Yield, a company that sells organic fertilizer. In 1990, Kreitler started Earth Service Inc., a non-profit environmental educational organization, and started holding environmental roundtables. Over seven years, he hosted 85 roundtables which featured local environmental leaders, and in 1997 partnered with the City of Santa Monica to develop an environmental talk show, originally called ‘Kaleidoscope.’ Kreitler had TV experience with a roundtable he hosted for PBS as a youth minister in Kansas City and as an author who promoted his books on TV. Actress and environmental activist Alexandra Paul, star of ‘Baywatch’ and over 50 films and TV shows, had been the guest on the third episode and spoke about ‘JamPacked,’ a documentary she made on overpopulation, and on the 75th episode, when she spoke about ‘The Cost of Cool’ her documentary on overconsumption. Kreitler asked her to join the show as co-host three years ago. Paul has been a life-long activist. She recalls writing to President Nixon about the environment at age 7, becaming a vegetarian at 14, and serving as president of the energy committee at her high school. She walked to Las Vegas on the Great Peace March for Nuclear Disarmament in 1986 and in 1994, spoke to students in L.A. schools on the overpopulation issue. The show, currently the only environmental talk show in America, features a wide range of topics and guests and is aired to 5 million homes in Southern California. Recent shows have featured guests, such as Texan Diane Wilson, who worked to right the tremendous damage coming caused by the Union Carbide spill in Bhopal, India in 1984. ‘I can ask my heroes, such as Ed Begley, Jr., to be on the show,’ said Paul, who finds that the activists they interview, such as tree-sitter Julia ‘Butterfly’ Hill, are the most exciting. ‘Not only do we interview scientists from Worldwatch, but we interview activists. They come from all walks of life, and it’s such an inspiration.’ Kreitler feels the same way. ‘The activists believe in their cause so strongly, they are willing to sacrifice, to be ridiculed. I like the activists who are doing something on behalf of all of us.’ Kreitler and Paul have now filmed 152 episodes, and their goal is to take the show national. ‘We’re trying to empower everybody to take care of your surroundings. That’s our definition of an environmentalist,’ Kreitler said. EarthTalk Today is aired every Saturday on L.A. CityView (Channel 35) from 10 to 10:30 a.m. For more information and to read Kreitler’s daily Web Blog, go to www.earthtalktoday.tv.