Council Poised for Possible Changes : Woo Joins, Russell Faces Vote, Campaign Law May Limit Funds

The Los Angeles City Council is to begin a new era of sorts today, electing a president, welcoming a new member and coming to grips with a new law governing campaign financing.

Councilman Michael Woo, representing the 13th District, surrounding Hollywood, becomes the council’s first Asian member. Enforcement of the campaign finance law will represent the first time in the city’s political history that limits have been placed on the size of contributions to candidates for city office.

Yet in most respects, today probably will mark a return to politics as usual, with the expected reelection of Council President Pat Russell, the retention of Mayor Tom Bradley’s strong influence and indications that city officials already are claiming that they have found loopholes in the new law that will allow them to continue raising unlimited funds.

There is also talk at City Hall of a campaign to replace City Planning Director Calvin Hamilton. Such a move could gain the sympathy of council members, like Woo and Marvin Braude, who believe that congestion and overcrowding could reach crisis proportions if city planners do not exert more forceful leadership.

Hamilton, however, has persevered through two very different administrations, those of Bradley and former Mayor Sam Yorty, and survived a suspension last year after he was accused of a conflict of interest. Along the way, he has become known as one of the city’s most durable public servants.

Hamilton’s critics acknowledge that ousting him would require a strong push from the mayor, who has not indicated where he stands.

Russell’s expected reelection to the council presidency would mean that Bradley’s council allies--a loose-knit group of generally liberal members headed by Russell--probably would continue to hold sway. Besides Russell, the group includes Zev Yaroslavsky, David Cunningham, Gilbert Lindsay, Robert Farrell and Braude. Their strength could be bolstered by the addition of Woo, who received campaign support from Yaroslavsky and Braude and who has said his views on many citywide issues are similar to Bradley’s.

Partly in return for Yaroslavsky’s help, Woo, who was sworn in on Monday, has told people close to him that he agreed to back Russell’s reelection. He has said he hopes that Russell will reward him by offering him a spot on the council’s influential Planning and Environment Committee.

Besides making committee appointments, the council president does much to influence the outcome of council business by deciding which committee will handle what issue and by determining when issues will go before the full council for a vote.

Russell, 61, who was elected to her first two-year term as president in 1983, will hold on to her job barring a last-minute push by nonaligned council members to install someone like Councilwoman Joan Milke Flores, a respected independent.

Flores has hung back, telling people she will not challenge Russell unless she is sure that she has enough votes to succeed.

Nothing for Granted

“It’s certain, in my opinion, that Russell will be reelected, possibly unanimously,” said Councilwoman Joy Picus, the third woman on the council.

Russell said she is taking nothing for granted, adding that she plans to stay in touch with potential supporters until the vote.

“I won’t rest easy until I hear the roll call,” she said.

There has been criticism of Russell--that she is disorganized, that she is too close to the mayor and too cozy with real estate interests. The only serious setback of Russell’s two-year term came last November, when she tried unsuccessfully to scuttle a rent control study and dictate the terms of a new rent control formula. Even her friends said she had allowed herself to be manipulated by real estate lobbyists opposed to rent control.

It was the rent control incident that gave rise to speculation that Flores might be able to take the presidency from Russell.

That talk faded as Russell returned to the role she is most comfortable in: being a patient parliamentarian who works best behind the scenes. She is credited by her colleagues with being especially effective in persuading council members to settle two lawsuits against the city--one recently in which neighborhood groups accused the city of allowing real estate developers to ignore the city’s General Plan, and a 1984 case brought by the American Civil Liberties Union accusing the Los Angeles Police Department of illegal spying on civilians.

Council ‘Whole Again’

Moreover, Russell believes that her tenure as president has helped heal old fractures, saying recently that her election in 1983 “helped make the council whole again.”

Despite her successes, Russell talks as though she still has something to prove, returning to a theme that tends to dominate her conversation about political power.

As a woman, she says, she is continually offended by suggestions that the presidency is hers as long as more powerful male colleagues, such as Yaroslavsky, want her to have it.

“You hear that I got elected because the mayor supported me or because Zev and Dave (Cunningham) engineered it. Some people seem to have a hard time figuring out that I got myself elected.”

Some of the people she mentions, including Yaroslavsky, have helped fortify her position at the head of the council. For example, it was Yaroslavsky who brought Woo into the Russell camp, according to sources close to both councilmen, after Russell endorsed Woo’s opponent.

Yaroslavsky has been willing to back Russell even though he has not been happy with her support of real estate developers, especially in Westwood, where she sided against him in a bitter fight over a ban he wanted on new construction.

Yaroslavsky and Russell also are potential rivals, both having indicated a strong interest in positioning themselves to run for mayor.

‘A Lot to Say’

People in City Hall who work with the two council members offered several explanations, not the least of which is the notion that Yaroslavsky does not see Russell as a rival to be reckoned with.

One council aide summed up the prevailing view as follows:

“Zev and Pat go back a number of years. He was one of the first to support Russell for president when she first ran back in 1975, when he knew she didn’t have the votes to win. How can she forget that? If she’s reelected, it probably means he will continue to have a lot to say over what goes on.

“At the same time, I don’t think he sees her as a serious threat to his own ambitions,” the aide said. “Even if they don’t like him, I think most people down here regard Zev as a better fund-raiser and a better politician.”

“On balance,” Yaroslavsky said, “I prefer to have Pat Russell as council president than anyone else remotely under consideration.”

As various members of the council prepare for their political futures with the new campaign finance law in mind, it is clear that they are not in agreement about the implications of the law.

Several council members argue that loopholes in the law will allow them to raise unlimited amounts of money.

$500 Council Limit

The major provisions of the law limit individual contributions to citywide campaigns to $1,000 and contributions to council campaigns to $500.

Lindsay, at 84 the oldest council member, recently set up a political action committee that he said is free to collect any amount of money for political ends, such as conducting polls or sending out mail extolling his record, as long as the expenditures are not tied to an election campaign.

Councilmen Howard Finn and Arthur K. Snyder said independent committees, set up on their behalf, could raise unlimited amounts of money and spend it on their campaigns, providing the candidates have nothing to do with the operation of the committee.

“As long as there are no midnight meetings between me and the committee, the committee can raise whatever money it wants and spend it as it sees fit,” Snyder said.

Councilman Ernani Bernardi, the author of the new law, agreed with Lindsay’s interpretation but not with Snyder’s and Finn’s, saying that a committee organized to campaign for a particular candidate does not fit the legal definition of an independent committee and is therefore not exempt from the law.

Bernardi said he would challenge any of his colleagues who attempted to benefit from the existence of committees that are not truly independent.

“If they try it, I’ll call them on it,” he said.