Yaroslavsky Won’t Oppose Bradley for Mayor’s Office

In a move that stunned friends and political supporters, Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky has decided not to oppose Tom Bradley in this year’s mayoral election, sources close to the councilman said Thursday.

The decision clears the way for the 71-year-old Bradley to run for an unprecedented fifth term without any known serious opposition. With only three months to go before the April primary election, no other major candidate has indicated a willingness to challenge the mayor.

Sources close to Yaroslavsky said the councilman and his wife made the decision last week after he studied the results of a recent citywide poll of voters and consulted with about 20 people, including a core group of five key political advisers.

The poll, which showed voters overwhelmingly favoring Bradley, persuaded Yaroslavsky that “he can’t win,” said a former top Yaroslavsky aide. “In the last few weeks evaluating what you have or don’t have, he’s come to the conclusion that he doesn’t have it.”

Yaroslavsky, who spent Thursday calling a close circle of friends, refused to be interviewed when confronted by a reporter at the Beverly Hills political consulting office of Michael Berman and Carl D’Agostino.

“Don’t ask me anything because I’m not here,” said a subdued Yaroslavsky, who turned on his heel and disappeared behind a closed door.

The mood among some of Yaroslavsky’s campaign staffers who gathered on Thursday at the BAD office appeared relaxed, although at one point Yaroslavsky slammed the door as he entered an inner office and could be overheard speaking on the phone quite loudly.

One of the calls Yaroslavsky placed was to Steve Saltzman, an announced candidate for the councilman’s 5th District seat.

“He called to tell me that he had made a difficult decision to terminate his 18-month candidacy for the mayor’s office, and further that he was planning to become a candidate for reelection (to his council seat),” Saltzman said.

Saltzman described Yaroslavsky as “low keyed and extremely reserved. He said to me that he was (emotionally) let down. He was disappointed.”

Yaroslavsky has scheduled a City Hall press conference for this morning to announce his plans.

The decision surprised Yaroslav sky’s political supporters and his allies on the City Council because he had led them to believe over the last several months that he would challenge Bradley.

Si Frumkin, one of Yaroslavsky’s closest friends, said: “I’m very surprised and saddened because I felt he was determined to run, and I felt he had a very good chance to make it. He worked very hard. . . . I think he would be a hell of a good mayor.”

Councilman Michael Woo added: “He’s been maintaining a steadfast position that it’s up or out for him and he intends to go ahead.”

City Council President John Ferraro said that without Yaroslavsky in the race, “I see him (Bradley) getting reelected without much opposition, if any.” Ferraro said he does not know of any other possible challengers to Bradley. Ferraro said he has no plans to run again, as he did in 1985 and lost. “I gave the people a chance last time, and they said no.”

‘Mayor Very Popular’

“The mayor is very popular,” Ferraro said.

Until recently, Yaroslavsky appeared eager to take on Bradley for the seat he has coveted over the last decade. He had assured Saltzman “over the past year and a half, in more than a dozen conversations, that he is absolutely committed to running (for mayor),” Saltzman said.

But when the councilman’s sister, Shimona Kushner, called from Israel on Dec. 21 to wish Yaroslavsky a happy 40th birthday, he told her he had not yet made up his mind and had until the Jan. 14 filing deadline to decide. “I was in the dark,” Kushner said early Thursday.

And last month his wife, Barbara, expressed mixed feelings during an interview over whether her husband should take on Bradley. On the one hand, Yaroslavsky needed a new challenge after spending 13 years on the City Council. “Zev is getting really bored where he is,” she said. “You can’t stay in council the rest of your life. That is not good.”

But she expressed concerns that he would have to give up his $58,592-a-year council salary to run for mayor. “I have a husband who may come home one day in April and be out of a job.”

Hired Campaign Staff

Yaroslavsky had positioned himself to run for mayor over the last year by hiring a full-time campaign staff, raising more than $1 million in political contributions and attacking Bradley for growing stale and sluggish in dealing with gang violence, traffic and environmental problems. Yaroslavsky also assembled a campaign steering committee that included several former Bradley supporters and major figures in the entertainment industry, including Ed Sanders, a prominent Los Angeles attorney; Barry Diller, chairman of 20th Century Fox, and Walter Mirisch, former president of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences.

But Yaroslavsky suffered a serious setback in August when two controversial memos that were used to help formulate his campaign strategy were leaked to The Times. The memos, which were written by political consultants Berman and D’Agostino and kept in Yaroslavsky’s City Hall office, mocked Bradley’s intelligence and implored the councilman to focus his fund-raising efforts exclusively on “wealthy” Jews who live on the city’s Westside.

With Yaroslavsky out of the race, the concern among several community leaders that a confrontation would develop between blacks and Jews in the coming election now seems moot.

At the time the memos were released, Yaroslavsky said they contained “offensive, contemptuous and insulting” language and vowed not to hire close friends Berman and D’Agostino to run his mayoral campaign. But after the Berman-D’Agostino firm successfully ran the anti-oil drilling initiative campaign in November, Yaroslavsky began hinting in recent weeks that he might again hire the firm.

This admission hurt Yaroslavsky politically at a time when he had not yet recovered from the Berman-D’Agostino memo debacle, said one City Council ally who asked not to be identified. Nevertheless, Yaroslavsky indicated that he was “extremely determined to make this race and to make it as formidable as possible” in discussions with a number of friends, the council source said.

Began to Fall Apart

The council ally said that the Yaroslavsky campaign for mayor also began to fall apart in recent weeks.

“I’ve been hearing a lot of rumors about morale not being good in his campaign office,” the ally said. “There was a problem with disorganization. There was a perception that the campaign doesn’t seem well organized at this point.” But Yaroslavsky still believed that he could defeat Bradley until recent weeks when a poll was taken on various issues affecting the city, said a source close to the Yaroslavsky campaign. The poll, conducted citywide several weeks ago, focused on Bradley’s popularity and how he may be perceived as vulnerable on issues such as the environment, growth management and crime.

To Yaroslavsky’s surprise, the poll showed that Bradley’s personal popularity transcended all issues, the source said. Yaroslavsky determined that the mayor was so well liked that any effort to attack him on the issues would backfire. This was the only poll that Yaroslavsky had taken in preparation of his mayoral race. He had it commissioned to determine what sort of message he could present to the voters in the spring campaign.

Announcement Delayed

The source said that although Yaroslavsky told close friends of his decision during the last week, he waited until today to make a public announcement because he was still reassessing his chances and the poll data.

So Yaroslavsky, who for the last decade has made no secret of his hopes to run for mayor, decided to wait at least four years before trying again.

Under campaign reform laws, Yaroslavsky will not be able to use the more than $1 million he raised for the mayor’s race to fund his council reelection campaign.

The candidates who had hoped to succeed Yaroslavsky on the City Council had decidedly different reactions to the councilman’s decision.

Laura Lake, a slow-growth advocate who has been at odds with Yaroslavsky on some development issues, said that since Yaroslavsky intends to run for his council seat again, “I’ll have to reassess things.”

Another possible council candidate, Lisa Specht, could not be reached for comment, but it is considered unlikely that she would run against Yaroslavsky.

Saltzman, who said he had raised about $150,000 in contributions, said his plans at the moment to run for Yaroslavsky’s seat remain unchanged.

“I’m a bit stunned,” he added.

Times staff writers Richard Simon, Alan Miller and Kevin Roderick contributed to this article.

The man behind Bradley’s political resurgence. Part II, Page 1.