Memo Fallout Spreads to Yaroslavsky-Backed Oil-Drilling Initiative

Acrimony over strategy memos written for Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky on Friday spilled over from his expected mayoral campaign into another of his political fights--the ballot initiative to prevent oil drilling in Pacific Palisades.

The Los Angeles chapter of the NAACP said that because of the racial and ethnic gibes contained in the memos, Yaroslavsky should dump the firm that wrote them as consultants in the anti-drilling campaign.

But Yaroslavsky and his initiative’s co-sponsor, Councilman Marvin Braude, said later that despite the controversy over the memos, they will retain the embattled firm, Berman & D’Agostino (BAD) Campaigns, for the Nov. 8 election. The firm has received $50,000 so far this year from the no-drilling forces. Earlier this week Yaroslavsky, after denouncing the BAD memos, said he would not hire the firm to run his likely campaign for mayor next year.

BAD Memos Defended

The NAACP chapter is the first organization to call publicly for BAD’s firing from the anti-drilling campaign since two BAD memos advising Yaroslavsky on strategies for the mayoral race were reported in The Times earlier this week. The two memos, dated March 29 and May 4, were laced with irreverent references to Jews, blacks, Latinos, environmentalists and other groups. The consultants, Michael Berman and Carl D’Agostino, have defended the memos as humorous, private communications reflective of the real world where political battles are won and lost.

The 10,000-member National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People chapter is being heavily lobbied by opponents of the anti-drilling initiative. The opponents are backers of a rival initiative supported by Occidental Petroleum Corp. that would preserve the oil company’s right to drill in Pacific Palisades. Drilling project supporters have strongly pushed the theme in the city’s minority communities that the anti-drilling forces are “elitists” attempting to protect their neighborhoods while tolerating oil wells in other areas.

NAACP President Anthony Essex told The Times that the civil rights organization has not decided which ballot measure to support. But, in a reference to one of the most controversial excerpts from the two BAD memos, Essex said that unless Yaroslavsky moves to mend fences with the black community, “he’ll have to see whether we have enough IQ points to remember to vote (for the anti-drilling measure) in November.”

Essex was referring sarcastically to an excerpt in one of the BAD memos to Yaroslavsky that said the councilman could beat Bradley because he had a 50-point IQ advantage. Although Berman and D’Agostino have insisted that they respect Bradley and that the IQ statement was meant in a humorous vein, Bradley supporters and other black leaders have branded it racist.

“Statements of these type cannot and must not be tolerated by anyone in public office nor anyone who is employed by one elected to serve the public interests,” Essex said, referring to Yaroslavsky’s relationship with BAD.

Specific Objection

Asked specifically which excerpts he found racially offensive, Essex said one of them dealt with “Mr. Yaroslavsky’s intellectual level. He doesn’t seem to be that smarter than the mayor. The mayor is a very intelligent person.”

While Essex said that Yaroslavsky must be commended for deciding not to hire the political consulting firm for his mayoral race, he and Braude have hired it for the anti-drilling measure and, “The Los Angeles NAACP feels there cannot be a partial condemnation of BAD in this issue.”

Essex also called on a number of black officeholders who have been represented by Berman and D’Agostino to consider hiring other political firms for future campaigns.

In their statement, Yaroslavsky and Braude said that, largely because pro-drilling forces had hired a number of political consulting firms to run the rival initiative’s campaign, they will not abandon BAD.

“The campaign firm of Berman & D’Agostino has represented the best and strongest of environmentalist candidates and issues,” said the Yaroslavsky-Braude statement, which was also endorsed by leaders of the Sierra Club and No Oil Inc. “Only Occidental Oil would benefit if Berman & D’Agostino were not involved in our campaign.”

In addition to support for the anti-drilling initiative, Yaroslavsky would want to attract disaffected black voters who may not wish to support Bradley in his bid for a fifth term. To that end, the NAACP’s challenge to fire BAD could be merely the first of many such hurdles to gaining black support that Yaroslavsky may face in the coming months.

In other developments in the BAD controversy, Bradley’s chief of staff launched a new attack on the firm’s memos, asserting they had urged the Yaroslavsky campaign to engage in “illegal” tactics to raise money for next year’s mayoral race.

Excerpt Questioned

Deputy Mayor Michael Gage has in previous interviews confined his attacks to memo excerpts that mocked various ethnic and racial groups. But on a KABC radio talk show Friday, Gage said that one excerpt advocated an illegal act.

That reference urged Yaroslavsky “to make a complete list of mainstream Jewish charities. Our first job . . . is to list every possibility any of us can think of. The list will include . . . United Jewish Fund, Federation Council, etc. Find a person in each charity to slip us a list with name, address and phone numbers of $1,000-and-above contributors.”

Gage later told The Times the suggestion “. . . literally jeopardizes the charitable organization’s IRS standing. No charitable lists are supposed to be used for political purposes.”

Berman and D’Agostino have refused to grant on-the-record interviews to The Times about the memos since The Times first published some of their contents. But Berman, in a call to the KABC radio show Friday, accused Gage of “taking a cheap shot for the mayor’s interests.”

“We have not suggested an illegal act,” Berman said. “This (the charity list suggestion) is a prod for strategy discussion. . . . (It) has nothing to do with urging illegal acts.”

For the second day, Berman told the radio audience that he had played a strong role in Bradley’s various campaigns--in contradiction to the mayor’s contention that Berman was not a key player. Berman said that in addition to Bradley’s first two mayoral campaigns, he was frequently consulted by campaign manager Tom Quinn when Bradley ran for governor in 1986. Quinn confirmed that account.

And in yet another development, there were conflicting accounts of whether a three-page memo sent to reporters with the two more controversial ones was really prepared by BAD. The undated memo, entitled “Things to Do” and containing some of the same irreverent humor that was in the other memos, was denounced Thursday as a phony by Yaroslavsky campaign adviser Ann Hollister and BAD.

The third memo was included in those received by The Times originally on Monday night but Berman and D’Agostino, while confirming they wrote the first two memos, disavowed through a spokesperson Friday any knowledge of the third memo.