ELECTIONS 38TH ASSEMBLY DISTRICT : Allert, Boland Make Last-Minute Jabs in Campaign Mailers

The already bitter race between Assembly candidates Irene Allert and Paula Boland became increasingly caustic during the last weekend before the election, with each candidate sending out hard-hitting mailers questioning the integrity and honesty of the other.

Spokesmen for both campaigns on Sunday decried the tactics of the opposing camps, challenged the accuracy of each other’s mailers and insisted that they had run clean campaigns.

The mailers repeated many of the themes raised throughout the campaign, with Democrat Allert suggesting that Republican Boland was a tool of big business and developers, and Boland saying that Allert was a tax-loving liberal endorsed by labor unions, Jane Fonda and Tom Hayden. Each spokesman disputed the characterizations.

The leaflets arrived in the mailboxes of registered voters in the 38th Assembly District late last week and more are expected to arrive today. Both candidates are seeking to replace Marian F. La Follette (R-Northridge), who is not seeking reelection.

Among other issues, the two candidates have repeatedly returned to their views on abortion rights. Boland is anti-abortion and Allert favors abortion rights.

Each campaign blasted the content of the other’s latest mailers, but Allert’s backers said they were particularly offended by a Boland flyer that said Allert, who has portrayed herself as an environmentalist, agreed to allow oil drilling in Kagel Canyon. The camp said the charge is spurious.

Boland’s supporters, meanwhile, denounced an Allert mailer that suggested Boland does not have the mental capacity to serve in the Legislature. “Paula Boland does not have the skills to represent us in Sacramento,” the flyer said.

The mailer reproduced portions of a newspaper story that quoted a Boland critic, who said the longtime Republican activist and real estate executive would be “good at handing out plaques.” The flyer featured a caricature of Boland holding a plaque.

“This one is ruthless,” Boland campaign spokesman Mark Thompson said of the flyer. The attack on Boland’s intellect was positive “proof of who’s waged a dirty campaign.”

Allert’s campaign countered the allegations of oil drilling in Kagel Canyon. “I’ve done maybe 100 campaigns in the last decade and that is the stupidest charge I’ve seen in my life,” said Parke Skelton, an Allert spokesman.

Skelton said the Boland flyer actually referred to Allert’s husband, Bob Allert, who in 1984 leased his property in Kagel Canyon to Mikelson Oil Company, which was considering drilling in nearby Little Tujunga Canyon.

Skelton said several property owners in Kagel Canyon leased the mineral rights of their property on the off chance that a large pool of oil under Little Tujunga Canyon extended to their canyon. The lease expired in 1989 and drilling never took place, he said.

He said the lease did not prove that Allert supported oil drilling in Kagel Canyon. But Thompson took the opposite view. “She claims she’s an environmentalist,” he said sarcastically.