Republican Zeltner Knows His Turf, but Democrats Hold it

As he drove past the alfalfa fields and dairies of the semi-rural communities of Lakewood and Bellflower in the late 1940s, Paul E. Zeltner, then a young sheriff’s deputy, recalls that he would sometimes fire a shot at a fleeing jack rabbit.

Homes and shopping centers have replaced the fields and Zeltner is now a silver-haired Republican Assembly candidate who is taking aim at his Democratic rival, Edward K. Waters.

As Tuesday’s hotly contested 54th Assembly District election comes down to the wire, Zeltner, 61, who retired as a sheriff’s captain and is now a Lakewood city councilman, boasts that his roots in the district make him the best candidate.

“My God, I’ve been here for 40 years,” he declared at a recent Lakewood fund-raising luncheon attended by Gov. George Deukmejian. “I feel like I’m a part” of the community.

In contrast, he contends that the 31-year-old Waters has “no roots here. He hasn’t lived here. He hasn’t done anything here. . . . “

Energy to Unify

Waters dismisses the assertion, saying he has worked in Compton and has the energy to unify the district’s diverse neighborhoods.

For Zeltner, his local connections, including success as a nonpartisan elected official in Lakewood, are at the heart of his campaign. A key question is whether Zeltner’s popularity in Lakewood will spill over into a partisan contest in a district that stretches beyond his Lakewood to include Bellflower, Compton, Paramount, parts of eastern Long Beach, and Willowbrook, an unincorporated community northwest of Compton.

The district has been represented for 14 years by Democrat Frank Vicencia, who is retiring. Registered Democrats in the district outnumber Republicans better than 2 to 1. Still, Republicans--led by Supervisor Deane Dana--regard Zeltner as an appealing politician in the mold of moderate Assemblyman Wayne Grisham (R-Norwalk), who in 1984 upset his Democratic opponent to capture the neighboring, and heavily Democratic, 63rd District.

Further, they say that Zeltner has enhanced his credentials in government by pressing for reforms in cable television laws and championing laws to crack down on sales of drug paraphernalia to minors.

But as the campaign grinds to an end, the better-financed Waters has attempted to turn Zeltner’s expenses for city business, including legislative lobbying, into a campaign issue. Waters says that as a councilman Zeltner has a right to travel on city business, but questions whether the taxpayers should foot bills for Zeltner and other city officials at what Waters called “the fanciest hotels” and “the fanciest restaurants.”

Bitter Clash

Nancy Hicks, Lakewood’s finance director, said the council has allocated each of its five members about $5,500 a year for lobbying and other expenses. She said Zeltner’s bills “haven’t exceeded the authorized expenses.”

But in the candidates’ only face-to-face appearance, on Oct. 17 at the Bellflower Kiwanis Club, Zeltner’s expense account sparked the election’s most bitter clash.

Waters assailed Zeltner for expenses charged to his city-issued credit card and approving expenses of other city officials. In interviews and in mailings to voters, Waters’ campaign has complained that Lakewood officials have spent more than $1,800 in taxpayer funds at the Firehouse restaurant, not far from the Capitol in Sacramento.

Zeltner angrily denounced Waters’ allegations as “crap” and a “smear.” But he acknowledged going to places like the Firehouse at city expense because “when you go to Sacramento and you are attempting to lobby for the people of your city you take those legislators out and sponsor them at the watering holes; they don’t sponsor you.”

Zeltner also said that when he travels out of town on city business for more than two days, he brings his wife, Patricia, at taxpayer expense.

In an interview, Zeltner said: “My wife is invaluable to me on those things. . . . so when I go out of town for a few days, I have my wife with me. . . . and if the folks here don’t like it, they can always get somebody else to do the job.”

Feisty Style

Zeltner’s sharp-tongued response illustrates the feisty political style that has helped him win three City Council elections and become a major figure in Lakewood’s political establishment.

Now that he is campaigning for partisan office, Zeltner is downplaying his GOP affiliation in the district where Democratic registration is around 66% compared to about 26% for Republicans. “I’m a Republican by label,” Zeltner said, “but what I am by philosophy is somewhere between moderate and conservative. That’s what the district is.”

Waters, too, has portrayed himself as a moderate. Both Zeltner and Waters oppose the reconfirmation of California Supreme Court Chief Justice Rose Bird and support the death penalty.

Zeltner questioned whether Waters would vote as a conservative because the campaign committees of his mother, liberal Assemblywoman Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) have funneled more than $255,000 into her son’s campaign. Waters said he will not be influenced by the contributions.

So far, Waters has raised more than $642,000 in cash and in-kind contributions, contrasted with about $96,000 for Zeltner, according to the latest campaign contribution reports filed with the secretary of state.

Dana, Block Money

Supervisor Dana’s campaign committee, which has loaned and given Zeltner $15,600, is among his largest contributors. Assembly Minority Leader Pat Nolan (R-Glendale) has channeled another $5,000 to Zeltner, who said he expects additional last-minute contributions from Nolan. Other contributions include $350 from Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block and $100 from Assemblyman Grisham.

Zeltner estimates that he is spending about half his time soliciting contributions to finance campaign mailers. Other campaign activities include knocking on doors, attending campaign rallies and visiting local lodge halls to persuade voters to support him.

Zeltner tells them their lives share a common thread of suburban life. Like thousands of others of his generation, Zeltner first landed in Southern California while serving in the armed forces, later marrying and raising his family of three children here.

He grew up in Philadelphia. Even as a child, Zeltner said, he dreamed of being a police officer. Zeltner, who was raised by his great-grandmother, recalls: “When I was a toddler, we had a station about a block and a half from the house, and whenever I disappeared, she’d call the station to find out which car I was riding around in.”

When he was 17, Zeltner said, he enlisted in the Navy and served as a gunnery mate in World War II. He met his wife in Long Beach and they married soon after the war ended.

For a short time before becoming a sheriff’s deputy in 1947, Zeltner said, he held jobs in construction and as a bouncer in bars along the rough-and-tumble Long Beach and San Pedro waterfront. In the Sheriff’s Department, Zeltner worked his way up the ranks and by the mid 1950s was a training sergeant. One of his students was Sherman Block, then a recruit.

‘Impeccable Integrity’

Sheriff Block recalled Zeltner as a tough instructor and a person of “impeccable integrity.” So Block, who usually does not endorse candidates for partisan office, said he is publicly supporting his one-time sergeant.

By the early 1970s, Zeltner had reached the rank of captain. His assignments included commanding the Lakewood sheriff’s station and Sybil Brand Institute for Women.

As a station commander, Zeltner said, he was required to join the sheriff’s mounted posse on semiannual horseback rides. On a ride during the early 1970s, he was thrown from his horse, injuring vertebrae in his neck and spine. The accident led to his early retirement in 1974. Zeltner said he receives a $1,400-a-month, tax-free pension plus medical benefits.

After leaving the department, Zeltner earned a bachelor’s degree in vocational education from California State University, Long Beach. Meanwhile, he began conducting police seminars at California State Polytechnic University, Pomona, and investing in real estate.

After the successful 1977 recall of Lakewood City Councilman Donald Plunkett, then a stern critic of the city’s redevelopment plans, a citizen group asked Zeltner to run for Plunkett’s seat. Zeltner won the election.

Councilwoman Jacqueline Rynerson said that even though she is a Democrat she is supporting Zeltner. “Paul has a very good presence. He inspires confidence,” Rynerson said. Further, she said, Zeltner is not a doctrinaire conservative, as demonstrated by his endorsement in the 1970s of then-Rep. Mark Hannaford (D-Lakewood).

‘Very Conservative’

In contrast, G. C. DeBaun, who formerly served on the council with Zeltner, termed his one-time colleague “strictly a right-winger. Really, he’s very conservative. He’ll pass himself off as a moderate.”

DeBaun said that Zeltner’s style is to “run over” his opposition “like a tank.” For example, DeBaun pointed to Zeltner’s role in a controversial 1982 “hit” piece targeted at former council members Dan Branstine and Jo Bennitt and paid for by a committee controlled by then-Assemblyman Bruce Young (D-Norwalk).

The mailing linked the two candidates, who were later defeated, to what was called the “radical politics” of Tom Hayden, who was later elected to the Assembly. In 1983, the state Fair Political Practices Commission fined Young $13,000 for campaign law violations, including the failure to properly identify the mailer.

Zeltner, who was supporting other candidates in the election, did not design the mailer but acknowledges that he had lobbied Democratic legislators to oppose Branstine and Bennitt because they were being supported by Assemblyman Dennis Brown (R-Signal Hill).

Zeltner’s name did not surface in the complaint against Young. Nonetheless, Zeltner said he would not engage in similar campaign tactics again. “I was, in effect, responsible for getting the thing started and I felt badly about that. . . . because of the bad feeling that it caused among some people in the city.”

As a councilman, Zeltner has devoted much of his time to two legislative initiatives that have broadened his political exposure.

In 1978, he successfully pushed through a Lakewood ordinance aimed at keeping drug paraphernalia out of the view of minors. He helped form a group that mounted a national campaign based on Zeltner’s conviction that the sale of paraphernalia should be outlawed or controlled.

Cable Television Act

Among other things, Zeltner persuaded state Sen. Robert Presley (D-Riverside) to carry a bill, which won passage in 1980, to ban teen-agers from sales rooms where drug items are sold.

In 1984, Zeltner turned his attention to cable television regulation as one of a half dozen negotiators for the National League of Cities. Negotiations between the league and the National Cable Television Assn. resulted in passage of the Cable Communications Policy Act of 1984, which reaffirmed the authority of municipalities to award exclusive franchises to cable operators and to demand such services as public, educational and governmental access channels.

Zeltner “was a particularly tough negotiator,” said Steve Tuttle, vice president of public affairs for the cable association.

Zeltner regards his experience with drug legislation and cable television as good background for serving on legislative committees in Sacramento.

Besides Waters, he faces Peace and Freedom Party nominee Vikki Murdock, 38, of Lakewood.

Zeltner had no opposition in the June GOP primary. In an attempt to draw attention to his candidacy, Zeltner entered the Democratic primary as a write-in candidate, but he only captured 203 votes.

Still, Zeltner contends that Democrats are angry about Waters and his ties to the Democratic leadership in Sacramento, including his mother and Assembly Speaker Willie Brown (D-San Francisco).

“I believe the voters of this district can’t and won’t be bought by Sacramento money no matter how much is put in the pot.”