Dana’s Ads Misleading, Molina Says : Politics: The supervisor demands that her name be deleted from his campaign literature, which says they are working together to fight county pension plan.

County Supervisor Gloria Molina has demanded that her colleague Deane Dana stop using her name in his campaign literature, saying that he is misleading voters.

With less than a week to go in the hotly contested race in the 4th Supervisorial District, Supervisor Dana agreed to stop sending out copies of a letter in which voters are told: “Deane Dana is working with Supervisor Gloria Molina in reversing Los Angeles County’s obscene pension spiking practice.”

The mailer, signed by former state Democratic Party Chairman Peter D. Kelly III, had been sent several weeks ago to Democrats and was reissued last week in another mass mailing that also carried an endorsement from Supervisor Kenneth Hahn.

Hahn called Dana “one of the most honest, caring and effective leaders I ever had the privilege of working with.”

But Molina, who has fought a largely lone battle against the county’s controversial $265-million increase in pension benefits, said: “I’m shocked at what (Dana) is doing. He is misleading the voters and I want to set the record straight.”

She said she does not consider Dana an ally in the fight against pension abuse. “He’s working with me? That’ll be the day,” Molina said.

“It would be wonderful if I could get (Dana) on my side, but he’s just not there,” said Molina, shown in polls as one of Los Angeles’ most popular politicians.

Don Knabe, Dana’s campaign manager, said he agreed to stop sending the letters after Molina complained. But at the same time, Knabe defended the letter, citing a motion Dana made several months ago seeking to scale back minor elements of the pension plan.

When asked about the statements he made about Dana working with Molina, Kelly said: “My letter says that? . . . I, frankly, took (Dana’s) word on the whole deal. If it’s not true, that’s between (him) and Gloria.”

Dana’s challenger, Rolling Hills Mayor Gordana Swanson, said, “Unfortunately, in this campaign, Deane Dana has latched on to any source that can be of political help to him. . . . It’s a sign of a desperate incumbent.”

Molina stopped short of endorsing Swanson, but said “as a woman, I’d loveto see her here.” If Swanson prevails in the wide-open race, she would help form a female majority on the five-member board.

Dana did not return phone calls Wednesday seeking comment.

Other campaign statements by Dana also have been questioned.

In August, Swanson sued Dana, alleging that he was making untrue statements about her record and his own. A Superior Court judge ruled that Dana had to delete questionable claims about Swanson’s record from his official ballot statement, but found that Dana could make virtually any statement about himself, calling it simply “political puffing.”

The pension controversy has been a central campaign issue.

For months, Dana had consistently backed the pension plan, which would boost retirement benefits by up to 19%. Then, facing a tough primary election in June, Dana begin voicing concerns about the program.

But two weeks ago--when Molina sought to expedite the release of a county study that criticized the pension plan and the Board of Supervisors--Dana voted to delay the issue until after the November election. In a confused vote of the board, Dana appeared to violate parliamentary procedure, changing his vote after the fact to tip the balance in favor of delaying release of the report.

A draft of the long-awaited report concluded that supervisors failed to exercise proper oversight, allowing bureaucrats to spend hundreds of millions of tax dollars on extraordinary retirement benefits.

Molina said she was disappointed by Dana’s vote. “If he was truly a reformer, he would have voted with me last week,” she said.

At the time, Dana said he wanted the study to be thorough and wanted to give county staff sufficient time to complete it.