Late Barrage of Pleas Launched by Candidates

Using tactics ranging from “infomercials” to 900 phone numbers, local candidates and causes are bombarding voters with last-minute campaign pitches leading up to Tuesday’s election.

The blitz is being fueled in part by a flurry of late contributions, including the largest single donation to the campaign to reform the Los Angeles Police Department: $56,000 from the president of the Walt Disney Co.

In the hotly contested district attorney’s race, incumbent Ira Reiner is airing an ad accusing his two main challengers--Gilbert L. Garcetti and Robert K. Tanenbaum--of exploiting the riots for political purposes by campaigning during the crisis.

Garcetti and Tanenbaum are also on the air. Garcetti, a veteran county prosecutor who was once Reiner’s chief deputy, has spent $480,000 of the $750,000 he has raised on a television ad that opens by attacking the eight-year incumbent for being too political.

“Ira Reiner?” the ads begin. “The politician? For D.A.? No way!”

Garcetti is also running a radio ad that asks the public to contribute to his campaign by calling 1-900-DUMP-IRA. And he is sending mailers to voters on the Westside, informing them that he has the endorsement of City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky.

Tanenbaum, a former New York City prosecutor and now mayor of Beverly Hills, has spent about $120,000 on television advertising. He is also sending 175,000 pieces of mail, primarily to voters in the San Fernando Valley, where he has the endorsement of the local newspaper, the Daily News.

Meanwhile, late contributions in the race included a $50,000 loan to Tanenbaum from Beverly Hills attorney Norman Tyre, a $25,000 loan to Garcetti from Patricia Roth, whose occupation was not listed, and a $10,000 loan to another challenger, Sterling Norris, from Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

In the final stretch of the campaigning for Charter Amendment F, the police reform measure, Citizens for Law Enforcement and Reform (CLEAR) planned get-out-the-vote rallies and precinct walks in Latino and African-American communities this morning in support of the measure.

The Police Protective League, the leading opponent of the measure, was beefing up its phone bank operations in the San Fernando Valley and downtown Los Angeles, and began canvassing hard in Los Angeles’ Latino communities.

The police union also began airing Spanish-language radio commercials featuring LAPD Detective Rick Barrera, president of the 1,000-member Latino police organization, La Ley.

A massive outpouring of last-minute financial support for the “Yes on F” campaign included a $56,500 donation from Walt Disney Co. President Frank G. Wells, $20,000 from businessman and civic activist Richard Riordan and $5,000 from Barbra Streisand.

Late contributions to the “No on F” campaign were far more modest. The Los Angeles Police Command Officers Assn. weighed in with a $5,000 contribution. The campaign also received $1,000 from the California Organization of Police and Sheriffs, and $1,000 from the Peace Officers Research Assn.

In the 2nd District supervisor’s race, front-runners Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Diane Watson stepped up attacks on each other with mailers that started to arrive Thursday and Friday.

“Where was Yvonne Burke during the Los Angeles riot?” asks a Watson mailer sent to homes in the district, which stretches from the Wilshire district to Watts.

The Watson mailer pictures an empty-looking Burke campaign office and says that while Burke was virtually “invisible” during the rioting, Watson converted her campaign office into a relief center.

Responded Burke: “We were distributing food out of Galilee Baptist Church. She was distributing it out of her campaign headquarters, which says to me she was using (the rioting) as a campaign gimmick.”

Burke also has made the riots a centerpiece of her campaign, as she continues up to Election Day to appear in three commercials for U. S. Senate candidate Mel Levine--including one in which she declares: “I don’t ever want to see that kind of lawlessness again.”

In addition, Burke has sent out a last-minute mailer calling attention to a $21,000 fine paid by Watson in 1989 for dipping into her campaign treasury to pay for personal travel, a family reunion, clothing and jewelry.

The mailer also alludes to Watson’s rating by California Journal magazine as “one of the least effective senators, ranking 30 out of the 39 senators.”

“I get reelected by 70% to 80% of the vote,” Watson retorted. “You ask them (the voters) if I perform.”

On the fine, Watson insisted that all her expenses were justified but she agreed to pay the penalty to avoid a costly court battle.

The mailers are only the latest tools that Burke and Watson are using to reach voters.

Groves of lawn signs are evidence of the interest the 2nd District race has generated. It is the first time since the dawn of the Eisenhower Administration that Supervisor Kenneth Hahn is not on the ballot. Thirteen candidates are running to succeed him, and if no one receives more than 50% of the vote, the top two vote-getters will face off in November.

The Watson campaign, employing a technique that has been used to sell everything from blenders to car wax, plunked down $7,500 to air a 30-minute “infomercial” on TV at 11 p.m. Sunday. It featured the state senator touting her credentials for the supervisor’s job.

Some of the mail during the closing weeks of the campaign has been misleading.

A Burke mailer pictures the candidate with Supervisor Gloria Molina, who is neutral in the race. A Watson newsletter quotes Hahn--accurately--as calling Watson an “excellent candidate.” But Hahn has endorsed Burke.

In the 4th Supervisorial District, incumbent Deane Dana sent out a last-minute mailer attacking challenger Gordana Swanson--a move viewed by political analysts as a tip-off that the three-term supervisor is worried about a backlash against incumbents this year.

The mailer says that Swanson “even charged the taxpayers for her laundry and limousines” while traveling abroad as a member of the Southern California Rapid Transit District board.

“It’s a lie,” Swanson replied. She said she never charged taxpayers for her laundry, and the “limousine” she allegedly took was actually a shuttle bus.

Swanson, meanwhile, has aired a radio ad disputing Dana’s claim of leading the effort to establish the 911 emergency telephone system. “The next thing you know Deane Dana will claim credit for the Pacific Ocean,” the ad says.

In the 5th Supervisorial District race, Supervisor Mike Antonovich, facing six challengers, has tapped his $1-million campaign kitty to air 600 radio and 87 TV commercials trumpeting his law-and-order record.

One ad boasts of Antonovich’s leadership in funding the Sheriff’s Gang Enforcement Team, which, ironically, was targeted for budget cuts earlier this week by Sheriff Sherman Block.

William Paparian, a challenger to Antonovich, has run a radio ad beginning with a tune that has a Muzak quality--a piece he says is one of his favorites: “Balboa Blue,” recorded in 1962 by the Marquettes.

After an applause track, Paparian pipes in with the statement, “Los Angeles government is no longer working for us. . . . We’re fed up with these pampered supervisors gorging themselves at our expense.”

One thing that has not become the subject of a costly media campaign is Proposition A, a $100-million bond measure to equip older county high-rises with sprinklers. The proposed 20-year issue, which requires two-thirds voter approval, would raise taxes by $2.71 in the first year on property assessed at $125,000. It was prompted by the fire that devastated the county health department headquarters in February.

City and county fire chiefs say the measure is needed because there is not enough money in the county budget to pay for the sprinklers.

Opponents include the chairman of the Libertarian Party. In his ballot argument against the measure, he said: “If these sprinklers are really necessary, then pay for them . . . out of the existing bloated county budget--and save taxpayers $80 million in interest.”

Times staff writers Amy Pyle, Louis Sahagun and Sheryl Stolberg contributed to this story.