ELECTIONS / L.A. CITY COUNCIL : Valley Realtors Spend $4,800 to Put Chick on Slate Mailer

A San Fernando Valley real estate group has spent $4,800 on a political mailer to 36,000 voters, urging them to support challenger Laura Chick’s bid to unseat Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus in the southwestern San Fernando Valley.

The mailer was paid for by the Independent Expenditure Committee of the San Fernando Valley Board of Realtors as part of an unusual move by the real estate sales industry to influence the hotly contested 3rd District race.

Under the city’s ethics laws, individuals are barred from directly contributing more than $500 to a City Council candidate’s campaign. However, individuals or groups may spend unlimited amounts to take independent action in a campaign, if the expenditures are not coordinated with the candidate they help.

The $4,800 buys Chick a position on a slate mailer going to 3rd District residents with a strong history of voting in local elections. The slate mailer was assembled by a political consultant who could not be reached for comment Thursday.

The realty board’s political-finance arm spent another $1,200 to put the name of state Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) on the same slate mailer. Katz is a candidate for mayor in the April 20 election.

Chick expressed surprise Thursday when told of the expenditure on her behalf. “This is exciting,” she said.

The realtors’ support supplements Chick’s already well-financed campaign. Chick, a former aide to Picus, has raised more than $165,000 for her campaign. Picus has raised about $175,000, only recently catching up with Chick in fund raising.

Four other candidates are in the race: Dennis Zine, a Los Angeles police sergeant; Robert Gross, a Woodland Hills homeowner activist, and businessmen Mort Diamond and Charles Nixon III.

Thousand Oaks realtor Ken Flowers refused to say why the realty board’s Independent Expenditure Committee, which he chairs, was backing Chick. “I don’t want to go into it,” Flowers said.

Flowers did say that the expenditure was a first by the board’s political-finance arm. “This is all new to us, and all I know is the less I say, the better off I am,” Flowers said.

“It should be obvious, however, that we want to help people who are good for the industry and for property ownership.”

Real estate interests have long been critical of the city’s rent-control law. More recently they have opposed the City Council’s decision to sharply increase the documentary transfer tax, a levy paid when real property changes owners.

During her interviews with realty board members, Chick said she told them that, if elected, she would ask them to help her upgrade neighborhoods in the 3rd District.

“Realtors are heavily invested in communities,” Chick said Thursday. “I’d like to work with them on neighborhood beautification projects.” The candidate said, for example, that real estate agents could sponsor and fund contests for landscaping and otherwise improving neighborhoods.

Chick said she would not abolish the city’s rent-control law, but that “my impression is that it’s not working” to regulate rents.

Chick added that she would strongly favor the use of government incentives, including federal financing, to stimulate the construction of more lower-cost housing.

The Times was unable to reach Millie Jones, the realty board’s public affairs head, for an explanation of the Chick endorsement and to obtain copies of the slate mailer. Jim Link, executive vice president of the organization, said he had no information “about this political stuff.”

Independent political expenditure programs for Los Angeles City Council candidates have been rare. Only two previous instances stand out. In 1987, an environmental group intervened with its own campaign to defeat Council President Pat Russell. In 1991, Browning-Ferris Industries Inc., a landfill operator, spent more than $15,000 in an unsuccessful effort to defeat Councilman Hal Bernson, a foe of the company’s landfill in Sunshine Canyon.

In compliance with state law, notice of the realty board’s expenditure was filed with the Los Angeles Ethics Commission last week.