ELECTIONS / CITY COUNCIL : Feinstein Goes to Bat for Her Ally Picus in a Pinch

Embattled Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus got a boost Wednesday when her reelection bid was personally blessed by U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

Although political observers expected Feinstein to back Picus--a longtime ally--it was only Wednesday that the California Democrat personally endorsed the Picus campaign and made herself available as the featured speaker at a $500-a-plate fund-raiser for the councilwoman at the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City.

“I know no one who cares more about the Valley than Joy,” Feinstein said during her brief remarks to about 90 people at the breakfast before discussing her legislative work in Washington.

“Please win it in the primary, Joy,” Feinstein urged Picus, whose campaign consultant predicted last week that Picus would be forced into a runoff election.

Picus, seeking a fifth term, faces five challengers Tuesday to represent the 3rd District, covering the southwestern portion of the San Fernando Valley. If no candidate gets more than 50% of the vote, the two top vote-getters would be matched up in a runoff June 8.

Picus told the diners Wednesday morning that while the political future is difficult to forecast, she felt “very, very good” and--in contrast to her own consultant’s predictions--she believed she would win reelection outright next Tuesday.

“It’s my unremitting, unrelenting goal to win it in the primary,” she told the breakfast group.

Feinstein and Picus’ friendship goes back to the days when Feinstein was mayor of San Francisco. When Feinstein ran for the U.S. Senate last year and for governor in 1990, Picus was among her early supporters.

A mailer trumpeting Feinstein’s support is in the works, said Bill Carrick, a political consultant for Picus.

Later Wednesday, Picus’ leading rival, Laura Chick, unveiled a political mailer accusing the incumbent of the “height of political arrogance” for charging the city $433.96 for expenses she incurred last October while staying two nights at a downtown Los Angeles hotel.

The mailer, entitled “Joy Picus Takes Junket to Downtown Los Angeles at Taxpayer Expense,” includes a reproduction of Picus’ official request for reimbursement for expenses while she attended a two-day League of California Cities conference at the Westin Bonaventure.

Spokesman Tim Lynch of the city controller’s office confirmed that his office authorized payment of the expenses. “It met the city criteria for official expenses,” Lynch said. Picus is a city delegate to the league and “typically these conventions tend to work morning to night and around meals” so the expenses were deemed valid, he said.

But Harvey Englander, Chick’s main political adviser, called the expenses shameful because of the city’s money shortage. Chick has pledged that she would pay such expenses only out of her personal or political funds, Englander added.

The piece drew a return salvo from Carrick, who called Chick a hypocrite for complaining about junketing city officials, saying that her husband, Robert Chick, a former city airport commissioner, was one of “the city’s all-time junketing champions.”

“That’s all the Airport Commission did was junket around the world at taxpayer expense,” Carrick said. “If she’s offended by this, she ought to be really offended by her husband’s trips.”

At a debate Wednesday night at Parkman Junior High School in Woodland Hills, the 3rd District challengers clashed with Picus over the term-limits measure on the April ballot.

All the challengers--including businessman Mort Diamond, Los Angeles Police Sgt. Dennis Zine and Woodland Hills homeowner activist Robert Gross--joined Chick in supporting term limits.

Picus, however, opposed the measure. “We already have term limits,” she said, reminding the audience that they go to the polls every four years to select their leaders. She called the proposal a quick fix that will force good lawmakers out of office with the bad.

Later, all the candidates agreed that a city Police Commission rule barring police officers from referring arrested illegal aliens to the federal Immigration and Naturalization Service should be rescinded. The highly emotional issue drew the strongest cheers from the audience of 200.

Picus told the audience that if illegal aliens “commit a crime, they should go to jail and go back to where they came from.” Picus was criticized by Chick when she urged the audience to write their legislators to support stronger immigration rules. Chick said Picus should not pass the buck to her constituents, but should go to Washington herself to lobby for stronger laws.