Wachs’ Challengers Cry Foul as Council OKs Pre-Election Fair

Despite complaints that it will be a “campaign party” for City Councilman Joel Wachs, the Los Angeles City Council voted Friday to sponsor a country music festival April 4 and 5 in Hansen Dam Park.

The Wachs-proposed Country Fair will be staged less than two weeks before the veteran councilman faces what might be a stiff reelection challenge.

Jerry Hays, one of five candidates who have announced plans to oppose Wachs in the April 14 primary election, said Friday that he was “outraged that the council would approve what is nothing more than a city-financed campaign party for Joel Wachs.”

Another Critic

Also carping at the festival was former Councilman Bob Ronka, who announced Tuesday that he would not oppose Wachs in the primary.

Ronka, who represented the northeast San Fernando Valley from 1977 to 1981, said the festival was a case of “Wachs using taxpayer money to help himself politically.”

Wachs said critics of the fair “seem to be saying that, if I do something good for the district, I can’t benefit from it politically. That’s nonsense.”

The councilman, whose revised district is more conservative than his former one, said he proposed the fair because “it seemed like an event that would appeal to my new constituents.” He said, “If they like it, then I’ll benefit politically. That’s how the system works.”

In the recent redistricting, Wachs lost 90% of his old 2nd District, which had been anchored by Studio City and Sherman Oaks.

The district, which he has represented for 16 years, was shifted to the northeast Valley, and includes much of what had been the late Councilman Howard A. Finn’s 1st District.

As of Friday, candidates filed to run against Wachs, besides Hays, were Marguerite A. Hudson of Tujunga, who listed herself as a homemaker; Jack E. Davis of North Hollywood, a retired railroad brakeman; Dan Connally of Shadow Hills, a businessman, and Thomas J. Iaccino of Sepulveda, who listed himself as a senior technical estimator.

The filing deadline is noon today.

Wachs compared the country festival to the annual city-sponsored Street Scene in downtown Los Angeles and the city’s Beach Scene in San Pedro in August.

Cost Set at $10,000

Sylvia Cunliffe, head of the city Department of General Services, said the city’s only expenditures for the Country Fair will be $10,000 for liability insurance and the cost of added police protection at and around the festival.

She estimated that the three-stage festival will cost $177,000, of which $100,000 will be contributed by the fair’s sponsors, country-music stations KLAC and KZLA-FM.

The rest of the cost will be covered by booth rentals and the sale of food and beverages, Cunliffe said.

The weekend of April 4-5 was selected, she said, because the Academy of Country Music is scheduled to conduct its nationally televised annual awards ceremony Monday, April 6, at Knott’s Berry Farm in Anaheim.

“Many of the top country entertainers will be in town for the awards,” she said, “and many of them will perform at the festival without the sponsors having to pay their transportation costs.”