The Race Quickens in the 5th : Fighting It Out at the Grass Roots

Dozens of supporters hoisting blue and white campaign signs practically cheered themselves silly when Laura M. Lake recently announced her plans for a grass-roots political assault on Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky.

“We’ve beaten Zev before and we’ll beat him again,” Lake pledged as she formally kicked off her campaign in the shadow of the Westside Pavilion mall. “ . . . We will retake the 5th District block by block and house by house.”

From that day forward, Lake, the savvy Westwood community activist who poses the toughest challenge to Yaroslavsky in the April 11 primary, has been tirelessly working to attract the support of a broad range of her fellow 5th District activists. But it appears she has her work cut out for her.

In response to Lake’s assertions that his constituents are deserting him, Yaroslavsky recently released the names of more than 25 past and present community organization leaders who are already committed to backing him.

Undaunted by List

“You wouldn’t have this many homeowner representatives supporting my reelection if there wasn’t a certain level of satisfaction,” Yaroslavsky said. “I’m not surrendering one precinct in this election to anybody.”

Said Lake when she heard about the names: “I’m not going to get into matching lists with him. All that establishes is that he has 25 votes.”

Whether Yaroslavsky’s list of endorsements translates into significant support on Election Day, and most political observers believe that it will, remains to be seen. But at the very least, it shows that the councilman, who has been vilified by his opponents as a pawn of developers, still enjoys the good will of a good many grass-roots activists.

Richard Agay, president of the Westside Community Planning Council and the Westwood Design Review Board, is effusive in his praise of Yaroslavsky.

“Zev is the best one for the job for a number of reasons,” Agay said recently. “His performance is spectacular in terms of protecting homeowners and the environment. I don’t know how we could do better than we have with him.”

Called a Disaster

Richard Close, president of the powerful Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. is equally impressed. “I think that he has been very effective in our area,” Close said. “People view him as a leader trying to solve problems.”

Yaroslavsky’s list shows that he enjoys similar support from neighborhood leaders in Benedict Canyon, Century City, Carthay Circle, Beverlywood, Holmby Hills, Bel-Air, West Los Angeles, Studio City, Beverly Glen and Melrose Fairfax--areas that represent a broad cross section of the council district.

His problems come in places where development is especially intensive, such as Westwood and the Beverly-La Cienega area. After dealing with Yaroslavsky on the construction of the controversial Ma Maison Sofitel Hotel, Diana Plotkin, leader of the Beverly Wilshire Homeowners Assn., called him a disaster.

“He has completely neglected this community,” Plotkin charged. “He has had 13 years to destroy the 5th Council District, and he has done it.”

Sandy Brown, who has battled Yaroslavsky over the Westside Pavilion and other Westwood developments as a leader of Friends of Westwood and the Holmby-Westwood Homeowners Assn., says Yaroslavsky has worn out his welcome.

“There was a time when Zev was sensitive to what was happening,” Brown said. “Now, when you work with him, you feel like you’re getting screwed.”

Yaroslavsky’s council foes have been hammering home similar messages for weeks. Jack McGrath, who once served as his chief of staff and campaign manager, says Yaroslavsky has given his tacit approval to growth by failing to stop it. Ryan Snyder, a transportation consultant, says 5th District traffic problems are the issue.

Strongest Indictment

But the strongest indictment has come from Lake, who blames Yaroslavsky for robbing 5th District residents of their quality of life by allowing the community to buckle under the weight of unrestrained commercial growth.

As she circles the district in her compact car, seeking to add more voices to the chorus of discontent, Lake tells anyone who will listen that things could be better.

“If you go over the notorious projects he has been associated with, including the Wilshire Corridor, Westwood Village and a string of projects in the valley, you can see that he hasn’t been taking care of the district for the last eight years,” Lake said. “It has been too little too late.”

In recent interviews with more than 20 community leaders from the 5th District, a paradoxical portrait of the 40-year-old Yaroslavsky emerged.

To many, the councilman, who was first elected in 1975 and who ran unopposed in 1981 and 1985, remains the white knight of municipal government, ready to slay the development-hungry dragons. But to others, he personifies the dragon itself, prepared to crush whatever stands in the way of his lofty ambitions.

Yaroslavsky’s opponents say his performance started to decline years ago and became especially acute over the past 18 months, as he flirted with the idea of challenging Los Angeles Mayor Tom Bradley. They contend that his slow-growth image, molded on such high-profile efforts as his co-authorship of Proposition U, the landmark measure that cut densities citywide, is actually a facade.

‘Chasing Our Councilman’

Susan Brown, president of the Cheviot Hills Homeowners Assn., said she sees no evidence of Yaroslavsky’s commitment to communities. Instead, she said, she and her neighbors must constantly battle development projects independently.

“We’re chasing our councilman,” said Brown, whose group was involved in recent opposition to the expansion of the Westside Pavilion. “We’re trying to get him to play the role that this town needs. We have even had to fight to get people to adhere to Prop. U, because Zev wasn’t doing it.”

Mark Slade, a Bel-Air resident, became disenchanted with Yaroslavsky last year when a developer destroyed part of a mountain ridge at the top of Hoag Canyon, one of the most pristine sections of the Santa Monica Mountains.

Slade said residents were never notified of the city-approved modifications that allowed the developer to enlarge the project and grade the hillside. After months of negotiations, the developer agreed to restore part of the property, and Yaroslavsky introduced a proposal requiring planners to notify homeowners within 500 feet of project modifications or public hearings.

But for Slade and others affected by the long and bitter struggle to restore the hillside, the damage had been done. “We learned that you have to become very political to get anything accomplished,” said Slade, who is supporting Lake in the council primary. “We felt we could count on our City Hall representative wholeheartedly. But in the end we had to use force.”

Felt Abandoned

Harold Hahn, president of the South of Burton Way Homeowners Assn., said Yaroslavsky abandoned their community when residents challenged developers of the Ma Maison Sofitel Hotel at the corner of La Cienega and Beverly boulevards.

Hahn said homeowners, who feared that traffic from the hotel would flood their already congested streets, had to wage their own fight to win concessions from the developer. “We were trying to mitigate what the city had done,” Hahn said. “Zev could have helped. But he decided he knew better.”

Yaroslavsky remains critical of the agreement hammered out between the developer and neighbors, in which $800,000 was set aside for additional parking and $250,000 for a special fund established by the homeowner groups.

But Hahn said Yaroslavsky’s greatest weakness is sensitivity to criticism, a charge leveled by others who have clashed with the volatile and sharp-tongued councilman.

“Zev is one of the brightest people on the City Council,” Hahn said. “But he has a habit of personalizing things. He really didn’t like the fact that we staged a public protest (against Ma Maison). He told me repeatedly, ‘I’m in charge of the district. I was elected to represent it. You were not.’ ”

Yaroslavsky’s clash with Hahn, however, pales in comparison with the battles the councilman has waged with some Westwood residents over the years.

Disagreements over developmental standards for Westwood Village, the Wilshire corridor and Westside Pavilion are just some of the issues that have placed Yaroslavsky at odds with such activists as Lake, a UCLA environmental science professor. Yaroslavsky says he has done everything possible to protect those areas, including downzoning. But others dispute that.

“We have had to take a club and hit Zev on the head and say we didn’t want what was planned for the village,” said Brown of Friends of Westwood. “We weren’t getting anywhere with him privately. It was not a question of caring. The fact is that he is not slow-growth, at least not in the 5th District.”

Westside Pavilion Veto

Yaroslavsky’s splits with certain Westwood factions may also have contributed to the undoing of his mayoral bid. In December, Bradley, acting at the behest of Westwood residents, such as Brown, vetoed the 105,000-square-foot Westside Pavilion expansion plan sponsored by Yaroslavsky on the grounds that its connector bridge violated Proposition U development standards.

Yaroslavsky’s supporters called the veto a cheap publicity stunt and said Proposition U would have been observed. But a frustrated Yaroslavsky dropped his mayoral bid two weeks later, citing unfavorable polling results.

The Westwood Design Review Board’s Agay, one of many Westwood activists who still stand behind Yaroslavsky, said that in the heat of battle, many people forget the good deeds the councilman has done. Like many Westwood residents who have remained in his corner through the years, Agay said growth would be worse if it weren’t for Yaroslavsky.

“His plan dramatically downzoned the village,” Agay said. “And the new community plan implemented reductions in the size of growth. And it was his commitment that he never wavered from that downzoned Glendon Avenue so that a hotel could not be built at the corner of Glendon and Wellworth avenues.”

Responded to Group’s Needs

Sara Berman, president of the West of Westwood Homeowners Assn., echoed Agay’s endorsement. Berman said the councilman has always responded to her group’s needs, whether they were opposing an elevated Metro Rail line or adding a review process to projects planned for Sepulveda and Pico boulevards.

Berman even credits Yaroslavsky for his work on the Westside Pavilion. “We believe that his office had a part in the negotiations to ensure that there is no major anchor store (in the expansion), and that there’s additional parking and an overhead connection,” Berman said. “It’s easy to say you represent slow growth. But Zev has proven that. He puts his commitments into action.”

In other parts of the district, Yaroslavsky also continues to maintain good relations with constituents.

John Baldoni, president of Carthay Circle Homeowners, said Yaroslavsky reacted instantaneously when a commercial developer illegally demolished a house in their area. “His office just jumped on it,” Baldoni said. “Zev came out on two days notice and had the building and safety department writing citations. He and his office have always been there for Carthay Circle.”

In the Beverly-Roxbury area, homeowner representative Philip Brown credits Yaroslavsky with stopping an effort to replace single-family homes with a multifamily development. “We would not have won without his help,” Brown said.

‘Total Confidence’

Ronnie Gootkin, president of the Rancho-La Brea Neighborhood Assn., said Yaroslavsky supported the group’s challenge to development plans for the Pan Pacific Auditorium on 3rd Street. The councilman, who lives within their boundaries, also obtained new stop signs for busy intersections. “His deputy is always at our meetings,” Gootkin said. “I feel total confidence in him.”

Kurt Hunter, president of the Valley Village Homeowners Assn. of North Hollywood, said Yaroslavsky has always been the most responsive of the five councilmen who ended up with portions of their area during redistricting.

“On our side of the hill, I feel that he has really responded to some very difficult issues,” Hunter said, “especially the light-rail issue. He has taken a stand (against it), whereas others have avoided the issue.

Lucille Saunders, leader of the Detroit Neighbors Assn., a group that includes Melrose-Fairfax area residents, credits Yaroslavsky with enacting height restrictions that limit stores along Melrose Avenue to two stories.

“We were worried that once Melrose was no longer Glitter Gulch, we would have a lot of empty buildings and transients if they were allowed to exceed two stories,” she said. “Now we coexist with Melrose nicely. We have a very stable residential area.”

Yaroslavsky contends that come Election Day neighborhood activist supporters, such as Saunders, Hunter, Gootkin and Brown, will help put him over the top easily. He said Lake’s support remains limited.

“We’ll find out on April 11 whether Laura’s feelings are shared by other 5th District residents,” Yaroslavsky said. “I don’t think they are.”

Lake, however, said the existence of Yaroslavsky’s list of supporters raises questions about his confidence. “The fact that he has compiled this list shows that he is very much on the defensive,” Lake said. “He’s running scared.”