ELECTIONS CITY COUNCIL : Mailers Increase Level of Political Bickering : Politics: Bickering goes up a notch as flyers embellish accomplishments and trade campaign insults.

Political mailers, those funny mirrors of reality, are stacking up in mailboxes as the City Council primary season draws to a close.

In the week before Tuesday’s vote in the 2nd, 4th and 6th districts, council candidates have showered residents with campaign mailers brimming with self-promotion and attacks on opponents.

Howls of protest have been uttered over some claims, launched like missiles into enemy territory.

Take for instance, 4th District Councilman Tom Clark’s assessment of some of the statements in challenger Charles G. (Jerry) Westlund’s mailers: “Total out-of-the-blue lies.”

Westlund, unfazed, stands by his assertions and hurled more insults at Clark.

In the 2nd District, Councilman Wallace Edgerton and opponent Alan Lowenthal are both fuming over the other’s campaign leaflets. And in the 6th District, challenger Doris Topsy-Elvord is steamed over Councilman Clarence Smith’s claims about his accomplishments. “I guess Clarence would take credit for the birth of the Blessed Virgin Mary if he could,” Topsy-Elvord declared sarcastically.

Smith replied that is he is simply taking credit for helping city projects move forward. “I just work to make it happen. I don’t do nothing by myself.”

Certainly facts have been massaged a bit in some of the brightly colored brochures that are slipping through mail slots. For example:

In one of Westlund’s mailers, he states: “Each year the Long Beach Police Department presents a budget to the Long Beach City Council--and every year the police budget is cut.”

Though neither the Police Department nor any other city department gets everything it asks for in preliminary budget requests, the final police budget has steadily increased in recent years, from $76.2 million in 1988 to $98.5 million this year.

Another Westlund mailer complains of Clark’s “lavish overseas travel” and his use of city funds for campaign purposes. Although Clark is one of the council’s most frequent travelers, his trips are domestic. He said he has not been overseas at city expense in nearly a decade.

Clark is sending mailers, carrying his name, at city expense during his campaign, but they are not campaign leaflets. They discuss district business, and in the case of one mailing Westlund complains about, Clark cleared the material with the State Fair Political Practices Commission.

“It’s just wrong. He’s skirting a gray area,” countered Westlund, who also accused Clark of misrepresenting endorsements from Republican figures in his campaign material.

On one fund-raising flyer, Clark listed Assemblyman Tom Mays (R-Huntington Beach) and several others as “honorary chairmembers.” In response to an inquiry from Westlund, Mays has since said he is not making any endorsements in the district--although a Mays spokeswoman said the state legislator did agree to help chair the fund-raiser.

Westlund also disputes a mailer in which Clark claims the endorsements of Gov. Pete Wilson, Sen. Robert G. Beverly (R-Manhattan Beach) and County Supervisor Deane Dana. A Wilson aide said the governor has not made an endorsement, though he did “lend his name” to Clark’s fund-raiser. However, spokesmen for both Beverly and Dana said their bosses had indeed endorsed Clark.

In the 2nd District, Lowenthal has complained about the design, as well as the content, of Edgerton’s mailers. One recent leaflet prominently carried the phrases “Voter Guide” on one side and “League of Women Voters Candidates Forum” on the other.

“It’s very misleading,” observed Erla Honig, co-president of the Long Beach area league. “It certainly gives the distinct impression that the league put it out.”

Edgerton’s reelection committee is identified, in much smaller letters, and Edgerton said he was simply urging voters to watch reruns of the league’s candidate forum, broadcast on a local cable television channel. “It’s very obvious it comes from us,” Edgerton said.

Edgerton also grumbled that Lowenthal’s campaign material is portraying a “false image” of the councilman as a pawn of developers.

One Lowenthal mailer alleges that because Edgerton “took a walk” and missed a vote on apartment development in 1986, “hundreds of single-family homes were bulldozed and replaced with over 3,000 tacky high-density condos and apartments.”

Edgerton did miss a vote that would have slowed or temporarily halted apartment development while city parking requirements were reviewed in April of that year. The week after the measure failed without his vote, more than 100 apartment building applications were taken out by builders. Still, Edgerton has on a number of other occasions voted to stop apartment construction. According to the city Planning Department, the district is zoned for about a third of the population it was zoned for when Edgerton took office in 1975.

Lowenthal, for his part, is irate over Edgerton’s statements about Lowenthal’s involvement with a lawsuit and his sabbatical.

A Cal State Long Beach psychology professor, Lowenthal is on sabbatical this year to help develop a program for businesses and local educational institutions to join forces to help students. In a mailer, Edgerton asserts that Lowenthal is “using a tax-paid education grant to campaign full time.”

Lowenthal retorted, “That’s a lie. I can document all the time I put in. I’m using it to do what I said I would.”

In other campaign pieces, Edgerton has repeatedly linked Lowenthal and the political watchdog group of which he is a member, Long Beach Area Citizens Involved (LBACI), to a lawsuit to “force” the city to “allow more high density, public assisted housing along our 2nd District traffic corridors.”

Supporters of Lowenthal were involved in a suit that challenged a moratorium on development in the district, claiming it violated city planning policy and discriminated against the poor. However, neither Lowenthal nor LBACI were parties to the suit, and he publicly stated at the time that the civic organization did not oppose the moratorium.

Over in the 6th District, Topsy-Elvord and Dan Cangro, another candidate, maintain that Smith is claiming credit for virtually anything that happened while he was in office. For instance, his election mailers cite the expansion of Poly High school--a school district project--and the recruitment of women and minorities in city management--a matter of city policy.

“I’m taking credit for getting involved and helping it happen,” Smith responded, saying that the city had to negotiate a land deal for the high school parking lot.