LOCAL ELECTIONS L.A. CITY COUNCIL : Bitter Rivalry Fuels ‘Zev and Laura’ Rematch

It is an unusually intense rivalry, one deeply rooted in hard-fought battles over Westside development, that pits environmental activist Laura Lake against powerful Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky.

From Westwood Village to Beverly Center and many battlegrounds in between, the two adversaries have for years on opposite sides of one development fight after another. And now, they face each other again in another race for the Los Angeles City Council.

Lake’s second bid to oust Yaroslavsky from City Hall after his nearly 18 years in office has struck a nerve with the councilman. He makes no secret of his disdain for the challenger.

“Laura is not a principled person,” Yaroslavsky said. “She is obsessed with me and that’s her problem. I hate to be so direct about it, but that’s the problem.”

As might be expected, Lake believes it is Yaroslavsky who has a problem--with being challenged. “He obviously doesn’t take that very well,” she said. “He keeps talking about Laura Lake. I’d call that an obsession.”

Obsession or not, Westside community activists in recent years have learned to expect almost any significant development issue to eventually become polarized, with “Zev and Laura,” as they are universally known, on opposite sides. Those active in civic affairs say remaining neutral is difficult--and indeed, most activists are solidly in one camp or the other.

“It has become a bitter rivalry,” said one Westside community activist said. “They have been political enemies for so long, been on opposite sides for so long, it has turned into a somewhat personal thing for both of them.”

Such feelings are close to the surface in the race for the 5th Council District, which cuts a broad swath across the city from the Fairfax District to Bel-Air and Sherman Oaks to North Hollywood.

There is a third contender on the ballot, city building inspector Michael Rosenberg of North Hollywood, but most attention in the campaign has focused on the contest between Yaroslavsky and Lake. Although the economy, jobs and crime are dominant issues, deep differences over growth and development separate the two.

Based on their history, it was all but inevitable that the latest clash between Yaroslavsky and Lake would involve Fox Studios’ plan to expand its production and office space in Century City.

Yaroslavsky favors Fox’s expansion, on condition that the project be scaled back slightly and built in stages. He talks of the importance of preserving jobs, particularly at a time when Los Angeles is suffering from a deep recession.

But Lake opposes the Fox expansion because of the potential for increased traffic on already congested streets and residential neighborhoods near the studios.

Lake, a former UCLA environmental sciences professor and founder of the slow-growth group Friends of Westwood, says she wants real protection for the neighborhoods and “not voodoo mitigation” to offset the increased traffic spawned by the project.

“The time for sacrificing the environment in the name of business is over,” she said at a recent public hearing on the studio project. “It is smart to invest in the environment and not to ignore it.”

The issue is not jobs, Lake says, but keeping Los Angeles livable. “We all want Fox to stay,” she said.

But she argues that the studio merely wants to shuffle jobs by consolidating its operations in Century City and moving television station KTTV from Hollywood. “It’s not an increase in jobs,” she said. “It’s moving jobs around.”

Such talk draws a sharp rebuttal from Yaroslavsky, who accuses Lake of trying to evict Fox from the historic Westside movie lot. “You are talking about our hometown industry,” he said, “an industry that has employed many people who live in that immediate area. It is the backbone of L.A. Why wouldn’t we want to try to synthesize their interests with the community’s interest instead of having a knee-jerk reaction which Laura Lake had?”

Yaroslavsky promises to work to protect the neighborhood as much as possible without losing the studio. Lake counters that Fox’s proposed mitigations, which she dismisses as “a few speed bumps and stop signs,” will not achieve that balance.

“Each time over-scaled projects are permitted, we mortgage the future and drive families and businesses away,” she said.

The battle lines over Fox mirror other land-use fights that have found Lake and Yaroslavsky at odds.

One of the hottest involved plans to expand the Westside Pavilion shopping mall at the crowded intersection of Westwood and Pico boulevards. Homeowner groups in the vicinity complained bitterly of the traffic that spills into residential areas.

Lake joined in their efforts to resist the expansion project and later to oppose retail outlets on a pedestrian bridge connecting the original mall with the new stores across the street.

Yaroslavsky’s support for the Westside Pavilion became a rallying cry in Lake’s first City Council campaign in 1989, so much so that her candidacy was launched in a neighborhood near the mall. Yaroslavsky went on to win that election by a margin of almost 2 to 1.

In a curious footnote, when the City Council redrew council district boundaries last year, Yaroslavsky’s 5th District was substantially changed to drop the neighborhoods surrounding the Westside Pavilion and divide the Cheviot Hills community near Fox Studios with Councilwoman Ruth Galanter.

At the same time, parts of Westwood, including Lake’s home, were removed from Yaroslavsky’s district. In order to run against him this year, Lake had to move to an apartment within the new district boundaries.

Lake believes that the changes were not a coincidence but a deliberate effort to isolate her and her supporters. Although Yaroslavsky was involved in the redistricting process, he has insisted that the changes were merely the result of population growth elsewhere in the city that forced three Westside council districts to shift northward.

In a humorous sidelight to their longstanding rivalry, James Lake, the candidate’s husband, chased a Yaroslavsky aide through a Westwood neighborhood last month after she drove by the Lake home in a city car.

Lake believes that Yaroslavsky’s long-time planning deputy, Ginny Kruger, was spying on the house in an effort to determine where the challenger actually lives.

Kruger said she drove by the home unintentionally after dropping off a city report on the Fox Studios issue nearby. After the car chase, Kruger said she thought it was odd that James Lake was following her.

Yaroslavsky called the accusation of spying nonsense and dismissed the whole episode as “either a tempest in a teapot or a desperate attempt to make something out of nothing.”

But time and time again, the councilman has shown that he is willing to lash out at his opponent. Yaroslavsky is particularly critical of Lake’s role in negotiating settlements with developers whose projects she has been involved in challenging.

“This is not some saint coming out of the environmental movement,” he said. “This is someone who is power-hungry and has used whatever leverage she has over developers to try to advance her own cause.”

For years, the councilman has contended that Lake and her allies “shook down” the developers of the Ma Maison Sofitel Hotel across the street from the Beverly Center by joining in a challenge to a liquor license for the hotel.

Lake said Friends of Westwood participated in advising neighborhood activists concerned about the parking problems and traffic impacts in their area.

Ultimately the developers reached agreement with the neighbors and promised to set aside $800,000 for additional parking and establish a $250,000 trust fund for the community. “No one involved in the original liquor license challenge has benefited in any way,” Lake said.

Lake’s activism has been seen elsewhere, particularl in the Wilshire Corridor where she joined in challenging high-rise condominium and office projects, and in Westwood, where she has long been involved in efforts to preserve the character of the business district near UCLA.

After years of doing battle, Lake blames Yaroslavsky for being a polarizing influence. “If you have a difference of opinion, you’re an enemy,” she said. “They become polarized because it’s his way or no way.”

With the election little more than six weeks away, Lake said the issue before the voters is Yaroslavsky’s record in office.

The councilman said he is willing to be judged on his record at City Hall. And then, once again, he turns his attention to the challenger.

“I am not just a negative nabob in the community,” Yaroslavsky said. “I am not just a community gadfly.”