Did Hahn’s Team Seek a Controller More to His Liking?

With her critical audits and caustic remarks aimed at the current administration, Los Angeles City Controller Laura Chick has just about earned dartboard status in the offices of Mayor James K. Hahn.

How great is the “Wrath of Hahn”?

State Sen. Richard Alarcon claims that Hahn supporters approached him three months ago about dropping out of the mayor’s race and running against Chick with their backing.

“People associated with Mayor Hahn’s campaign did approach my campaign representative, Richie Ross, with the idea that I should run against Laura Chick, and they would provide support,” Alarcon said last week.

“But I absolutely refused that suggestion,” he added. “I believe Laura Chick is doing a good job. I support her. She’s my friend. And although Hahn is my friend, I don’t think he’s doing a good job....

“I immediately sent a message back through my campaign consultant that I’m not interested.”

Bill Carrick, a Hahn consultant who knows Ross well, denied knowledge of any attempt to get Alarcon to go up against Chick.

“There was none that I know about,” Carrick said.

Still, the proposal is not without precedent. For the 2001 election, then-Mayor Richard Riordan also approached Alarcon about running against Chick, with whom the mayor had clashed as much as Hahn has.

Alarcon turned down Riordan’s offer of support, so the former mayor backed businesswoman Laurette Healey against Chick.

Chick won in a landslide, garnering 62% of the vote to Healey’s 28%.

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10 Candidates Are From Neighborhood Councils

When voters agreed four years ago to create elected neighborhood councils throughout Los Angeles, some pundits predicted that the advisory panels would be breeding grounds for future mayors and city council members.

That was borne out last week.

Ten of the 79 candidates who filed papers to run for city office came from Los Angeles’ neighborhood councils.

City Atty. Rocky Delgadillo’s only challenger is Etan Lorant, a member of the West Hills Neighborhood Council, while 9th District Councilwoman Jan Perry faces competition from Bella De Soto and Edward “Eddie” Reyes, who came from the Vernon/Main Neighborhood Council, and Annette Jeffries, vice president of the Vermont Harbor Neighborhood Council.

Two of the challengers to 1st District Councilman Ed Reyes are Jesus “Jesse” Rosas of the Historic Highland Park Neighborhood Council and Stephen Sarinana-Lampson of the Lincoln Heights Neighborhood Council.

Eddie Reyes, a middle school teacher, recently resigned as president of the Vernon/Main council so he could devote more time to the campaign for City Council.

“Neighborhood councils bring a democracy to the doorstep of people like myself,” Reyes said. “It gives us pride and ownership over what happens in our community.”

Reyes said his leadership on the panel allowed him to make many friends and contacts in the community that he hopes will now help him unseat Perry.

“It’s a great network,” he said of the people he met.

Perry appears unfazed by the challenges spawned by the network of 83 neighborhood councils she helped set up.

“Everybody’s got a right to run,” she said. “It’s promoting the growth of democracy.”

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Voters in Two Counties Make the Right Call

Pollsters take note.

Forget polling the entire country to figure out future presidential elections. Just visit Oxnard.

Ventura and Merced counties have voted for the winning candidate in 22 of the past 24 presidential elections, including this year’s contest between President George W. Bush and Sen. John F. Kerry, according to an analysis conducted by Secretary of State Kevin Shelley’s office.

Returns from California’s 58 counties showed that voters in Ventura and Merced picked the president 92% of the time in elections going back to Woodrow Wilson in 1912.

“The counties of Ventura and Merced are the closest we have to national bellwether counties in California,” Shelley said. “Registration for the two principal parties in these counties is evenly balanced, making them look very much like an Ohio or a Pennsylvania when it comes to voting for the president.”

Which county should pollsters avoid?

Voters in Alpine County voted for the winning candidate in only 14 of the past 24 elections for president, the worst record in the state.

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Contest Winners’ Idea Becomes Law

Evelyn Berk and Mary Lou Lyon, two average citizens from the San Francisco Bay Area, were able to accomplish something that dozens of full-time state legislators found difficult: get a bill signed by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Berk and Lyon separately submitted their ideas for new laws to a legislator’s annual “There Oughta Be a Law” contest, which is taking submissions from the general public through Dec. 1 for next year.

Assemblyman Joe Simitian (D-Palo Alto) started the contest four years ago, and was pleased that Schwarzenegger signed one of this year’s “There Oughta Be a Law” bills.

“Not every winning entry will make it through the Legislature,” Simitian warned, but he said those that do can make a difference.

The newest “Oughta” law signed by Schwarzenegger -- proposed by Berk and Lyon -- requires motorists to turn on their headlights during bad weather to promote driver safety.

The headlight proposal was one of 231 entries in the 2003-04 contest. The winner -- or winners -- of this year’s contest will have their bill ideas introduced as legislation and have the opportunity to testify at a committee hearing on their bill.

Ideas submitted so far for next year’s Legislature include requiring attorneys to pay jurors in a jury pool $30 an hour and eliminating the initiative process.

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Points Taken

* Gov. Schwarzenegger is wearing a new ring these days, a birthday gift from wife Maria Shriver that is impossible to miss. The ring bears the California state seal, is speckled with diamonds and appears to weigh as much as a baseball. When reporters asked him about the jewelry at an interview last week in Tokyo, the governor took it off his finger and passed it around for all to inspect. “She knows that I like the chunky, big rings,” Schwarzenegger, who has at least four such rings that he wears, said of Shriver.

* A featured guest last week at a Hollywood Chamber of Commerce event wasn’t the governor, but he plays one on TV. Roland Kickinger, a transplanted Austrian muscleman, was among the celebrities helping the chamber honor police officers and firefighters. Kickinger plays the role of Arnold Schwarzenegger in the upcoming A&E; television movie “See Arnold Run,” about Schwarzenegger’s amazing campaign for governor last year. The movie is set to air Jan. 30.

* Former Democratic presidential candidate Dennis J. Kucinich was seen last week with actress Shirley MacLaine at Guido’s restaurant in Malibu, where the two were no doubt commiserating over the outcome of the presidential election.

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You Can Quote Me

“If this were the Academy Awards, we would have started playing the music two minutes ago.”

Los Angeles City Council President Alex Padilla, admonishing Councilman Tony Cardenas for speaking longer than the time allotted to him, in a reference to the awards show’s technique for stopping windbags.

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Contributing this week were Times staff writers Michael Finnegan and Peter Nicholas.