Advertisement

LOCAL ELECTIONS / L.A. CITY COUNCIL : When Money Talks, It Says, ‘Incumbents’

Share
TIMES STAFF WRITERS

From entertainment to trash-hauling, real estate development to cable TV, the people and corporations that do business with City Hall have placed their bets in the Los Angeles City Council races.

To the shock of no one, they are backing the incumbents.

Fueled by an outpouring of such special-interest contributions, Los Angeles City Councilmen Zev Yaroslavsky and Marvin Braude have amassed the financial resources to vastly outspend their challengers in the closing days of their reelection campaigns.

Final pre-election campaign finance reports late last week underscored the power of incumbents to raise money from those with an interest in what happens at City Hall. At the same time, the reports highlighted the difficulty that challengers face in raising the money necessary to make their case to voters in the crucial days leading to the April 20 election.

Advertisement

The gap was particularly evident in the race between Yaroslavsky and environmental activist Laura Lake in the 5th Council District, which extends from the Fairfax district to Bel-Air on the Westside and over the Santa Monica Mountains to Sherman Oaks and North Hollywood.

By the end of the latest reporting period last weekend, Yaroslavsky had raised $234,003 to finance his bid for a sixth term on the council. In her second bid to oust him, Lake had raised $64,000, half of it last year.

But a more telling indicator of their respective abilities to reach voters is the cash in their campaign treasuries. Yaroslavsky reported having $132,779 on April 3. Lake had $12,715, which will be supplemented by several thousand dollars in public matching funds. Yaroslavsky has declined to accept matching funds for his campaign.

The report of the third candidate in the race, Mike Rosenberg, a city building inspector, was not available at edition time.

Between March 7 and April 3, Yaroslavsky, who chairs the powerful Budget and Finance Committee, collected $184,735.

Lake reported raising only $9,400 during the latest period. In a brief statement accompanying the release of her campaign records, Lake, a former UCLA professor, sought to emphasize the positive. “It is clear that voters are becoming excited and are willing to commit their own money to change the City Council,” she said. “Many small checks add up.”

Advertisement

But her contributions were hardly a match for the long list of contributors willing to give $500 apiece--the maximum allowed by law--to Yaroslavsky.

He drew heavily from real estate developers, cable television executives, construction companies, real estate agents and attorneys.

Among television and motion picture interests, for example, Yaroslavsky picked up $3,950 from a dozen executives and others associated with the Prime Ticket cable network.

Other entertainment executives who gave $500 apiece included Sony Pictures’ Peter H. Guber and Raleigh Enterprises’ George Rosenthal and Mark Rosenthal; Gini Barrett and Nicholas J. Counter III of the Alliance of Motion Picture & Television Producers, and Marc Nathanson of Falcon Cable TV.

Yaroslavsky picked up $500 contributions from dozens of other individuals and businesses. The list of real estate developers included the Alexander Haagen Co.; Amir Development; Adler Development; Joan Nancy Borinstein and Pearl Borinstein of Westwood Development Co.; the Central City Assn.; Friedman Development Co.; Sheldon Gordon, chairman of the Gordon Co., and Carmen Kobor-Escobar of G. K. Development.

Other supporters included Joseph Anthony of Cal State Realty, Burton Glazov and Stuart C. Nathan of JMB Realty Co., Beverly Gold of the Jon Douglas Co. and Steven Shapiro of Stan Herman and Associates.

Advertisement

Yaroslavsky received $500 from investors Art and Jack Lumer, Joseph Mitchell and Jerrold A. Perenchio; parking company executives Thomas Barnett and Dennis Nasabal of Ampco Parking, and Alex Martin Chaves of Parking Co. of America, as well as from several attorneys.

Among the builders on his list were Steve and Louise Bubalo of Bubalo Construction Co.; Norman and Irving Feintech of Liberty Building Co. and George Kobor of G.E.K. Construction Co.

The councilman, who co-authored Proposition O, the “No Oil” measure prohibiting coastal oil drilling, nevertheless picked up $500 contributions from the head of Occidental Petroleum and from Arco.

Other $500 donations came from the Los Angeles Rams football team, singer Don Henley, actor Richard Dreyfuss, and Angels owner Gene Autry and his wife, Jackie, who is vice president of Golden West Broadcasters.

The story was much the same in the adjacent 11th Council District, where Braude is running for an eighth term on the council. For the first time in a dozen years, the veteran councilman has opposition, although both rivals are running far behind in fund-raising.

Campaign finance reports show Braude has raised $178,408 for his reelection drive since last July.

Advertisement

By contrast, West Los Angeles attorney Daniel Pritikin has collected $41,439 to finance his campaign. Brentwood restaurateur John B. Handal II listed $14,320 in contributions.

Braude’s total was bolstered by a $58,500 personal loan that the councilman made to his campaign last month.

The loan, which Braude said was necessary to ensure his campaign had adequate resources, triggered the first lifting of campaign contribution limits in a City Council race.

The city’s new ethics law, intended to limit special interest influence, usually restricts contributions to a council candidate to $500 per election, unless one candidate has given more than $30,000 to his or her own campaign.

Having raised far more than his rivals, Braude has far more money available to make his closing pitch to voters in the district, which stretches from Palms to Pacific Palisades on the Westside and from Van Nuys to Woodland Hills in the San Fernando Valley.

Braude had $96,132 in cash on hand at the close of the reporting period. Pritikin had $9,405 before he received $21,238 in matching funds from the city. Handal had $12,820 on hand.

Advertisement

Like Yaroslavsky, Braude’s report reflected the ability of an incumbent to tap the special interests.

Braude has received four checks for the maximum $500 from developers Robert Maguire and James Thomas and their wives. Their company, Maguire Thomas Partners, will soon seek city approval for the first phase of the massive Playa Vista project near Marina del Rey. Several attorneys that advise the developers also contributed.

Other developers writing $500 checks to the Braude campaign included Eli Broad, Catellus Development Corp., the Central City Assn., C.L.L. Development, Jona Goldrich, Howard Hughes Properties, R&B; Development, Nathan Shapell, Thomas Safran, Tishman West Companies, Topa Management, Voit Development Co. and Ira Yellin.

City Hall lobbyists Frances Savitch, Clark Davis, Ken Spiker, Rose & Kindel and Afriat/Blackstone Consulting all gave $500.

Fox Inc., Paramount Pictures and Warner Bros. wrote $500 checks. So did Southern California Edison, Pacific Telesis, Pacific Enterprises, AT&T;, Arco, BankAmerica Corp. and the political arm of the AFL-CIO.

Trash companies--BKK Corp. and Browning-Ferris Industries--joined in backing Braude, along with executives of SuperShuttle, Checker Cab, SunAmerica Inc., WEB Service Co., Raleigh Enterprises and Valley Cablevision Industries.

Advertisement

Braude’s contributor list also includes his and Yaroslavsky’s old foe, Occidental Petroleum, which gave Braude $500 despite his successful effort to prevent oil drilling near the beach in Pacific Palisades.

Although Braude has sought to restrict billboards, two outdoor advertising companies each gave him $500.

Challenger Pritikin received a significant amount of his campaign funds from family members and relatives. He also lent the campaign $6,500.

The largest single contribution came from the California Trucking Assn., which gave $1,000. The Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. sent a $500 check, and a vice president of the Tobacco Institute gave $250.

Political consultants Ronald Smith, Fred Karger and Spencer-Roberts Associates sent at least $250 each.

Handal, who failed to file a campaign report during the last period, listed contributions of $5,000 apiece from Lorraine and Linda Sanucci of Sherman Oaks. He said the contributors are the wife and daughter of the owner of a Brentwood restaurant.

Advertisement

Advertising man John Byk of Brentwood contributed $500 in cash and $1,500 in services to Handal’s campaign.

Meanwhile, in the wide-open race for the 13th District, campaign reports show four candidates have exceeded $100,000 in contributions in the fight to capture the council seat being vacated by Councilman Michael Woo, who is running for mayor.

The district stretches from Hollywood east to Glassell Park and includes the communities of Los Feliz and Silver Lake.

The top fund-raisers are school board member Jackie Goldberg; City Council aide Tom LaBonge; Tom Riley, a former aide to U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer’s campaign, and AIDS health care foundation President Michael Weinstein. He reported making a $25,000 personal loan to his campaign.

Campaign statements also show businesswoman Virginia Stock Johannssen has raised $30,000, with $22,500 of it in personal loans.

The only other statement filed Thursday was for Sal Genovese, who reported $25,740 in contributions, almost all of it in loans.

Advertisement

No statements were immediately available for former union organizer Conrado Terrazas and executive marketing consultant Gilbert Carrasco.

Staff writer Greg Krikorian contributed to this report.

Advertisement