L.A. City Council Candidates Stage Last-Minute Drive

Walking streets shaded with the lavender jacaranda blooms of April, candidates kept busy this weekend handing out brochures and shaking hands in the seven City Council districts where Los Angeles voters will make choices in Tuesday’s election.

City Council President Pat Russell has the most at stake, facing five challengers in the Westchester-Venice district. They are campaigning against Russell’s support for new growth and the strong ties of her closest adviser to local developers.

As the most powerful member of the council, Russell has played a key role in the approval of new high-rises and other traffic-snarling developments that stirred voters to pass Proposition U last November. Russell angered homeowner groups by opposing Proposition U, which cut future growth in some areas.

Support From Bradley

But she also was the council’s chief motivator behind a new ordinance that allows the city to charge developers a fee to raise money for street improvements that could help reduce future traffic jams. Mayor Tom Bradley, who is a longtime ally, and many other top officials support Russell’s reelection.

Russell needs anything over 50% of the vote in the 6th District to escape her first runoff since joining the council in 1969. Failing that, the top two finishers would meet in the June 2 runoff election.

Tuesday’s vote could also be telling for Bradley, who is not only backing Russell but also putting his prestige and political clout on the line in the 10th District.

Forests of lawn signs from Pico-Fairfax to Palms to West Adams are evidence of the interest the 10th District race has generated. There has been no incumbent since Dave Cunningham resigned last fall to go into business, and 14 residents--some only recent arrivals--are fighting for the open seat.

The 10th has all the racial and cultural variety Los Angeles is known for. It was once represented by Bradley and includes the mostly black Crenshaw area, Koreatown, the densely crowded areas of Latino immigrants west of downtown and the long-established Jewish neighborhoods near Wilshire and Pico boulevards.

Besides lawn signs, the candidates have unleashed an interesting array of inducements on voters. Former state Sen. Nate Holden sent birthday greetings to some voters and has persuaded some Baptist ministers to walk precincts for him.

Candidates Kenneth Orduna and Arthur Song Jr. have greeted voters on Southern California Rapid Transit District buses, while Jessie Mae Beavers and Geneva Cox, a longtime field deputy for Cunningham, have opted to meet the voters by attending coffees in private homes.

Bradley gave his blessing to a former member of his administration, one-time Police Capt. Homer Broome Jr., in the race. The mayor’s endorsement has helped Broome raise the most money, much of it from Bradley campaign sources.

But other prominent officials have also endorsed candidates in the heated race, which has seen little differences on issues between the candidates.

Holden has counted heavily on the backing of his boss, ailing Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn. Orduna is the chief deputy for Rep. Mervyn M. Dymally (D-Compton), a former lieutenant governor, and has the support of United Farm Workers chief Cesar Chavez. Song, a Korean-American, is backed by City Councilman Michael Woo and other Asian-American leaders.

Myrlie Evers, a corporate executive and widow of Medgar Evers, the civil rights activist killed in Mississippi in 1965, is getting help from some key mid-city Democrats, including state Sen. Diane Watson and Assemblywomen Maxine Waters, Gwen Moore and Teresa P. Hughes, all Los Angeles Democrats.

Recent Arrivals

Four of the best-connected candidates--Broome, Evers, Holden and Orduna--have been criticized by the others for only recently moving into the 10th District, which had its boundaries changed in the recent redistricting.

Otherwise, the most heated race is far to the north in the San Fernando Valley. There, longtime Councilman Joel Wachs is trying to win over voters in the new district he was handed by enemies on the council in the redistricting fracas.

Instead of Studio City and the Hollywood Hills, where Wachs had reigned as the undisputed favorite since 1971, he is running for the first time in a new 2nd District, which is more rural and less cosmopolitan than the urbane Wachs would choose for himself. He has drawn three challengers who hope to exploit the wide gap between Wachs’ liberal record and the district’s more rustic political leanings.

Wachs has a citywide reputation as a champion of rent control and laws protecting gays from discrimination. He supported the 1982 gun-control initiative that voters rejected, especially voters in the Sunland-Tujunga area, perhaps the highest gun-owning region of the city.

But none of the challengers are as familiar to voters as Wachs, and he has sought to endear himself to voters by opposing development plans for the locally beloved Big Tujunga Wash and instructing his staff to give better service than the district received before.

In last-minute campaigning in the 2nd District, opponents of Wachs sent mailers to 22,000 homes accusing the councilman of promoting activities that spread AIDS. Saying that homosexuals were to blame for the spread of acquired immune deficiency syndrome, the mailer attacked Wachs for his participation as grand marshal in the 1983 Gay Pride Parade in West Hollywood.

Mailer Assailed

Wachs angrily branded the mailer as “sleazy” and not a threat to his reelection.

The mailer was sent by Daniel C. Faller, president of the Apartment Owners Assn., which has urged landlords throughout Los Angeles County to help defeat Wachs, the council’s leading rent-control proponent.

In other parts of the city, lackluster campaigning by the opponents has reduced the election to little more than a referendum on the record of the incumbents.

In the 8th District, an inner-city area of South-Central Los Angeles, Councilman Robert Farrell seems to be resisting the challenge of five opponents who have long community ties but none of the outside financial support that Farrell enjoys. Despite their lack of campaign funds, the opponents have tried to turn the election into a straw poll on Farrell’s plan to tax 8th District residents in order to put more police on the streets in the south part of the city.

2 Oppose Alatorre

On the city’s Eastside, Councilman Richard Alatorre has escaped a repeat of the fired-up opposition he defeated in 1985 to join the council after 13 years in the state Assembly. Only two challengers are opposing Alatorre in the 14th District, and both are playing the campaign low-key.

Like his predecessor, Arthur K. Snyder, Alatorre’s short tenure has been marked by controversy. The worst came last year when Alatorre agreed to pay $141,966 in fines and restitution for violations of the city’s campaign ethics law and the state Political Reform Act. Alatorre also admitted personal negligence as part of the settlement with City Atty. James K. Hahn, who sued Alatorre and his campaign committees.

In the northwest corner of the San Fernando Valley, Councilman Hal Bernson, who got his start in politics by leading a push for the Valley to be divided from Los Angeles, has only one minor opponent standing in the way of a third term. His district, the 12th, has been represented for decades by conservatives who use their City Hall savvy to make developers feel welcome, and Bernson has been no exception.

In the Hancock Park-Wilshire area’s 4th District, longtime Councilman John Ferraro also faces only a single opponent. Ferraro has been reelected easily since 1967 and, if anything, the district was made more friendly to him by redistricting.

LOS ANGELES CITY COUNCIL CANDIDATES District 2 Jack E. Davis Retired railroad brakeman Jerry Allan Hays Businessman Joel Wachs Councilman Georgetta Wilmeth Homemaker District 4 John Ferraro Councilman Sal Genovese Community activist District 6 Rimmon C. Fay Marine biologist Ruth Galanter Planning consultant Salvatore Grammatico Realtor Virginia Taylor Hughes Community activist Patrick McCartney Community activist Pat Russell Councilwoman District 8 Mervin Evans Business consultant Robert Farrell Councilman John S. Jackson Businessman Earlene Walton James Community activist Alice M. Moore County probation officer Tony Parent University professor District 10 Jessie Mae Beavers Human relations commissioner Homer Broome Public works commissioner Geneva Cox Council field deputy Jordan Daniels Jr. County commissioner Myrlie Evers Community activist Denise G. Fairchild City planner Nate Holden Deputy county supervisor Esther M. Lofton Educator Kenneth M. Orduna Congressional staff chief Michael Schaefer Attorney Arthur Song Jr. Lawyer Grover P. Walker Lawyer William A. Weaver Public utilities inspector Ramona Raquel Whitney Educator District 12 Hal Bernson Councilman Richard K. Williams II University administrator District 14 Richard Alatorre Councilman Rex Gutierrez Legislative aide Loren Leonard Lutz Businessman