Support Grows in Diverse 4th District : Dana Strengthens Hold on Supervisor’s Post

When Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana holds his annual summer fund-raiser later this year, he will have some good news for his supporters. The powerful labor forces that tried to oust him in 1984 have apparently given up the fight.

William Robertson, the head of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, said his 700,000-member organization has no plans to oppose Dana in his 1988 reelection bid. Robertson said organized labor may even endorse Dana, a Republican who controls the vast coastal territory from Malibu to Long Beach.

“The labor movement is not going to spearhead any movement to provide opposition to Deane Dana,” Robertson said Tuesday. “He has been a relatively good county supervisor in the sense that he certainly hasn’t attacked labor.”

Robertson’s labor organization was among the strongest backers of former county Assessor Alexander Pope, a Democrat who challenged Dana in 1984. By electing Pope, union forces had hoped to shift the balance of power on the Board of Supervisors from the Republicans to the Democrats. Although elections for the board are nonpartisan, the contests usually break along party lines.

Strengthens Support

Robertson said Pope’s poor showing--he captured 36% of the vote to Dana’s 57%--convinced labor that Dana has a firm grip on the post. “I can’t see anybody out there who would be a formidable opponent,” Robertson said.

Democratic leaders in the 4th Supervisory District, who had portrayed Dana as a pawn of big-money interests, also claimed to be unaware of any strong contenders for the supervisor’s job. Some even credited Dana with strengthening his base of support in the broad and diverse district.

“He is very strong and he has worked parts of the district very well,” said U. S. Rep. Mel Levine (D-Santa Monica). “He has been a critic of offshore oil drilling even though the Reagan Administration wants it, which is real important to that district. And he has also worked within the communities.”

“I am not aware of any deep-seated dissatisfaction with what (Dana) is doing,” said Long Beach City Auditor Robert Fronke, who was once mentioned as a possible Democratic contender for the job. “There are no big problems.”

Dana has not officially declared himself as a candidate for reelection, but sources close to his office said the 60-year-old supervisor will definitely seek a third term. He is expected to formally announce in January.

Possible Contenders

Dana had no comment Wednesday on labor’s possible backing of his candidacy. In an earlier telephone interview, Dana said he assumes that there will be a Democratic contender in the 4th District race, but he declined to speculate on who it might be. “I haven’t heard any names mentioned,” Dana said.

The county supervisor acknowledged that he is off to a strong head start financially. He has already raised about $1 million and will solicit more campaign donations in the months ahead. Democratic activists said anyone who opposes Dana will need to start raising large sums of money immediately.

Several Democrats have been named as possible contenders. The most notable is Los Angeles City Controller Rick Tuttle. Tuttle, who has close ties to the Westside’s powerful political organization headed by U. S. Reps. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles) and Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City), said he has not given the idea serious consideration. “I’ve been pretty busy,” Tuttle said. “I appreciate being thought of. But the fact is I haven’t focused on it.”

Another possible Democratic contender is Roger Carrick, a party activist who was an assistant attorney general under state Atty. Gen. John Van de Kamp and the California coordinator for the Hands Across America campaign.

Carrick, a private attorney who lives in Santa Monica, said he has been asked to consider running by several people but is uncommitted.

“I have been approached and asked to think about it,” Carrick said. “And you always like to be responsive to your friends. But that’s all it is at this point. People have approached me and I am thinking about their suggestions.”

Assemblyman Dave Elder (D-Long Beach) also has been mentioned as a possible contender by some Democrats. Elder, however, has expressed no interest and said he would be surprised if any stiff competition emerged.

But there are some Democrats who refuse to give up hope. “Deane Dana doesn’t have any image with the voters,” said one prominent Westsider who asked that his name not be used. “And a well-financed candidate could shape Dana’s image for him. It would be very easy to define Dana as the bumpkin puppet of the development community. With the anti-development fervor, he is vulnerable.”

“We don’t have a supervisor, we have a king,” said Madelyn Glickfeld, a well-known Malibu environmentalist. “An experienced, identifiable candidate with some financial resources could mount a very serious campaign here.”

But geography alone may be enough to discourage all but the most ambitious candidates. The long and narrow district, which measures more than 465 square miles, starts at the Ventura County border and extends all the way to the Orange County line. Its major communities include Malibu, Santa Monica, Venice, Marina del Rey, Westchester, El Segundo, Hawthorne, Lawndale, Gardena, Carson, Torrance, Manhattan Beach, Hermosa Beach, Redondo Beach, Palos Verdes, Rolling Hills, Lakewood, Long Beach, Bellflower, Cerritos and Norwalk.

Democrats outnumber Republicans 379,620 to 287,792, according to the county registrar of voters, but many of them are known to cross party lines. Residents in the 4th District also tend to have vastly different priorities.

“It’s a strange district,” said Santa Monica City Councilman William H. Jennings, who considered entering the 1984 race against Dana. “It goes from the extremely liberal Santa Monica-Malibu area to the conservative Torrance-Palos Verdes area to the moderate Long Beach area. In effect, you have to run three campaigns there and you have to be effective in all three places.”

“It’s difficult to pinpoint one thing in that massive district that everyone has on their minds,” said Pope, who did not muster much excitement in 1984. “The diversity makes it expensive and difficult to campaign.”

First Won in 1980

Dana, a former telephone company manager from Palos Verdes, first captured the seat in 1980 by defeating Yvonne Brathwaite Burke, who had been appointed to the 4th District post by then Gov. Edmund G. Brown Jr. Dana won the campaign by focusing most of his attention on conservative voters.

Political strategists say it’s doubtful that anyone could defeat Dana without the support of some moderates and conservatives. So a candidate from the liberal northern part of the district would be at an automatic disadvantage.

“It would be best if you came from the southern part of the district and worked your way up,” said Kam Kuwata, a political consultant who worked for former Los Angeles City Councilwoman Pat Russell. “For that seat you need a moderate-to-conservative Democrat or a moderate-to-liberal Republican.”

In Dana’s favor, strategists note that he has avoided creating any kind of districtwide dissent. When Russell was defeated by a coalition of slow-growth advocates who opposed her support for massive commercial development in the Westchester area, some people wondered if Dana might also be vulnerable.

He is widely regarded as a pro-development vote on the board, and a recent survey of campaign reports showed that 14 of Dana’s top 25 contributions during the past six years came from real estate, development and construction interests. Democratic Party activists said Dana’s reputation could cost him votes on the Westside, but added that there is no evidence the slow-growth movement will spread throughout the district.

Dana said voters understand his philosophy on development. “As long as we are a growing, prosperous area you are going to have development in the outlying areas of the county,” Dana said. “With good planning and provision for schools and other infrastructural matters pretty much guaranteed, it just seems that the growth issue shouldn’t be that much of a problem.”

Dana and other supervisors have also faced a lot of heat over the homeless. The City of Santa Monica even sued the county, charging that it failed to provide adequate services for vagrants who have descended on most communities. But no one expects the homeless issue to cost Dana his seat.

The one area where Dana is probably most unpopular is Malibu, where residents are engaged in a long-running and bitter battle against county plans for a $65-million sewer system. Dana says the sewers are necessary, and the county declared that Malibu’s septic tanks posed a health risk, but residents say Dana favors the sewer plan because he hopes to open the area to more commercial and residential growth. Some activists have taken to calling him “Sewer King Dana.”

Dana, who knows that Malibu voters have little bearing on his political prospects districtwide, says residents are just too cheap to pay for the system. “I wonder if those who are complaining are driving $20,000 Cadillacs?” Dana asked.