LOCAL CASH PUT INTO HIGHWAY BILL RANKING HOUSE MEMBERS ADD ALLOCATIONS.

Byline: Lisa Friedman Washington Bureau

The $284 billion, six-year highway bill the House passed Thursday showed the advantages of seniority and membership in the House Transportation Committee.

Last-minute extra millions for local projects were slipped into the bill by Rep. Elton Gallegly, R-Thousand Oaks, a 10-term congressman, and by a Southern Californian who sits on the transportation panel, Rep. Juanita Millender-McDonald, D-Long Beach.

Gallegly managed to tuck in more than $1 million extra to reconstruct and deep-lift asphalt on Ventura County roads. He also popped in $100,000 to widen Olsen Road between the Ronald Reagan Presidential Library and the Thousand Oaks city limits.

And, Gallegly added $400,000 for landscaping improvements along the Ronald Reagan Freeway.

Millender-McDonald increased funding for 710 Freeway ramps from $1 million to $3 million, added an extra $1 million for street landscaping in Long Beach and another $1 million for the widening of Cherry Avenue in Signal Hill.

The additions were part of a last-minute amendment tacked onto the bill drawn up by the transportation panel chairman, Rep. Don Young, R-Alaska, that significantly increased the amount spent on local projects. It also vastly increased money to Alaska.

House members saw the increases just hours before voting on the final bill.

Not everyone is happy about some of Southern California's local earmarks, however.

Keith Ashdown, spokesman for the Taxpayers for Common Sense government watchdog group, took a direct hit at the $2.9 million Gallegly secured for landscaping improvements along the Ronald Reagan Freeway.

Ashdown said it conflicts with the late president's legacy as a fiscal conservative who fought to hold down government spending.

``This is the 'he's rolling in his grave' earmark,'' said Ashdown, whose group this week put the earmark on its list of ``questionable'' projects.

``Reagan would veto this,'' Ashdown said.

Gallegly, however, noted that the road is the gateway to Ventura County and said the project is a worthy one that the state has committed to and which he intends to see completed.

``It's a real embarrassment to see the state of disrepair that you have on the medians,'' he said. Gallegly pointed out that he served with Reagan and counted him as one of America's greatest presidents.

``To paint me as doing something financially that would cause Ronald Reagan to turn over in his grave tells me that this person is ignorant at best.''

Meanwhile, when all the new earmarks are tallied up, California does better - and worse - than anticipated.

Final funding levels show that the Golden State took in $1.4 billion in local earmarks, about $41.97 per person.

Lisa Friedman, [phone]

lisa.friedman(at)langnews.com