STATE ELECTIONS : 72ND ASSEMBLY DISTRICT : Malathion Is Still an Issue, Says Yudelson

Underscoring his campaign image as an activist and an environmentalist, Democratic Assembly candidate Jerry Yudelson and a group of Hollywood celebrity supporters sought Sunday to turn Orange County’s outrage over malathion spraying into an election victory on Tuesday.

In Orange County’s heaviest malathion spray area, all three candidates seeking the 72nd Assembly District seat--including Yudelson’s Democratic opponent, Tom Umberg--have called for a halt to the aerial spraying. And state officials said the last scheduled aerial application of the pesticide in Orange County was completed last week.

But at a noontime rally on a grassy field in Garden Grove that was sprayed just last Wednesday, Yudelson told a sparse audience of about 40 people that the issue must be kept alive or state officials will try again to eradicate the Medfly with helicopter spraying.

“All we need is one more fly to be found and they will be back,” he said. “If you have to go into the streets to protest your own government, I’ll be there with you.”

Yudelson, whose wife, Jessica Stuart, is an actress, was joined by celebrities Gary Busey, Jan Smithers and James Brolin. Vietnam veteran Ron Kovic, who considered running for an Orange County congressional seat this year and is the subject of the movie “Born on the Fourth of July,” also attended.

Umberg, meanwhile, walked door-to-door in Westminster on Sunday as one of Orange County’s most contentious campaigns of the year wound down toward the election. With just one day left, the two Democrats are competing in a race too close for experts to predict. The winner will face Assemblyman Curt Pringle (R-Garden Grove) in the November general election.

The district includes parts of Garden Grove, Santa Ana, Westminster and Anaheim.

The primary has been dominated by unabashed hostility between the candidates, which has split the loyalty of county Democrats and worried some that the contest might damage the party’s chances of unseating Pringle. Democrats consider this seat their best chance in 1990 of breaking the GOP’s lock on Orange County’s state assembly seats.