Ferraro Emerges as Favorite in Race for President of Council

Los Angeles City Councilman John Ferraro appeared Tuesday to have lined up enough of his colleagues’ support to become the new council president when the vote is taken today.

Winning the influential position would be triumph for Ferraro, 63, who lost the council presidency in 1981 and was soundly beaten in a mayoral race four years later. He would be taking over as the City Council enters a new period marked by a shake-up in its membership and a possible shift in city priorities.

According to City Hall sources, Ferraro has secured more than the eight votes necessary to win the council presidency, a high-profile job that carries the power to make committee assignments and has been the object of intense lobbying among the 15 council members.

Councilwoman Joy Picus, who had pushed her own candidacy as a representative of the council’s slow-growth advocates, was considered to have a good chance until her efforts to line up votes stalled short of the majority needed.

“Let’s say that I got up to seven votes, and I couldn’t get the eighth vote. And in the interests of consensus, we turned to John as the consensus candidate,” Picus told The Times.

Another candidate for the presidency, Joan Milke Flores, said Tuesday that she also has thrown her support behind Ferraro.

“I think I just ran out of time,” said Flores, who also said she had a firm seven votes but could not muster the final vote. “I came very close, but I didn’t think it was fair for the people supporting me to hang them up until the very end.”

The collapse of the Flores and Picus candidacies has apparently cleared the way for Ferraro to capture the post, although the veteran councilman remained cautious when approached by reporters.

“I’m encouraged,” Ferraro said, “but the deal’s not consummated until the check clears.”

Despite Ferraro’s reluctance to claim victory, council sources said he reportedly has the votes of Council members Hal Bernson, Marvin Braude, Robert Farrell, Ruth Galanter, Nate Holden, Gilbert Lindsay, Zev Yaroslavsky and Michael Woo, along with those of Flores, Picus and his own.

‘John’s Got It’

“It’s all over. John’s got it,” said one council supporter who asked not to be identified.

The vote for the president and president pro tem--the council’s second in command--will be the first order of business at the council’s biennial vote to choose officers today after a formal swearing-in ceremony for Galanter and Holden--the newest members of the City Council.

Both scored election victories last month, but it was Galanter’s stunning landslide over Council President Pat Russell that not only gave added impetus to a burgeoning slow-growth movement in the city but also set the stage for the selection of a new council president.

On the other side of the growth issue from Picus was Flores, the current president pro tem, who was viewed as the choice of pro-development forces. When neither could fashion a council majority, however, Ferraro stepped up his efforts as a compromise choice.

Some sources said Flores’ conservative ideology and Republican tag hurt her on a council stocked with more liberal Democrats.

Couldn’t Persuade Wachs

In Picus’ case, the key was her inability to persuade Wachs to support her, sources said. Picus had been counting on Wachs as her clinching vote, but he balked. Instead, he reportedly threw his support behind Ferraro, who two months ago helped bail him out of a fiscal jam when Wachs exceeded his council budget by an estimated $70,000.

Wachs said he spent the additional money on constituent services after his district boundaries had been redrawn by the council, and that Ferraro and two other council members transferred surplus money from their own budgets to Wachs.

Wachs would not identify the other council members who came to his aid and insisted that he has not committed his vote to Ferraro because of the help he received. “I have not made any commitment yet as to whom I am going to support,” he said. “I’ve carefully not made a commitment, but I am grateful to what John did.”

Sources, meanwhile, also said that Ferraro picked up the votes of slow-growth proponents by indicating that he would name Woo and Galanter--two slow-growth advocates--to the Planning Committee.

Two Switch Sides

Two leaders of the slow-growth coalition, Braude and Yaroslavsky, also switched from Picus to Ferraro, sources said. In return, Yaroslavsky is expected to keep his job as head of the influential Finance and Revenue Committee, while Braude is reportedly being considered for the job as president pro tem.

Braude would not comment on the council presidency.

Yaroslavsky said, “It’s my understanding that just about everyone is supporting John Ferraro. But I have no idea what committees I’m going to be on.”

Ferraro, who described himself as a moderate on the growth issue, insisted that he has not promised anyone any committee assignments, nor has he indicated who would be named as president pro tem. “Before I make the committee assignments, I am going to talk to each member,” he said.

Meanwhile, the woman Ferraro hopes to succeed as president--Pat Russell--was given a final tribute by the council on Tuesday. After being praised for her “courage and leadership” during her 17 years on the council, Russell thanked her colleagues and said that during today’s vote, she and her husband expected to be climbing Olancha Peak, a 12,135-foot mountain in the Sierra Nevada.