Poker-Faced Katz Sets Off Chain Reaction by Standing Still

THE KATZ EFFECT: The decision this week by state Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) to stay put in 1994 and not run for the seat being vacated by state Sen. David Roberti (D-Van Nuys) is still causing palpable aftershocks in the San Fernando Valley political community.

For example, there were anxious moments in the office of Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson after the pol and his cohorts read that Katz, presumably after winning reelection to his 39th Assembly District seat in 1994, plans to take a serious look at running for the Republican Bernson’s council seat. This is according to a highly placed Katz confidante.

“I doubt that he’d run against me, but you never know in politics,” said Bernson, whose term expires in 1995.

Does that mean Bernson may indeed seek reelection in 1995? “I’m seriously considering another term,” he said. “But it would strictly be my last term.” (Term limits would actually allow him to run one more time in 1999.)

Despite professions of mutual respect by Katz and Bernson, the two appeared to be pawing the ground.

Meanwhile, the Katz move solved one problem facing Los Angeles County Supervisor Ed Edelman, who is up for reelection next year. 1994 will be the first year Edelman stands for reelection in his newly redrawn and heavily Valleyized district. Feeling vulnerable under the circumstances, the veteran supervisor had been anxiously scanning the horizon, watching for a Katz challenge. “We breathed a sigh of relief,” admitted one Edelman intimate.

Katz’s decision also has forced several East Valley Latinos to temporarily shelve their growing political ambitions. The election last spring of Richard Alarcon, the first Latino the Valley has sent to City Hall, raised Latinos’ expectations that they could put one of their own in Katz’s Assembly seat. Among those who had eyed the seat were Al Avila, former chief deputy to Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre and an Alarcon adviser, and Rose Casteneda, field deputy to U.S. Rep. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City).

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HIRING HARVEY: Katz also kept the political pot boiling this week by saying he intends to hire political consultant Harvey Englander to run his Assembly reelection campaign next year. Given the fact that his reelection is likely to be a no-brainer, why bother to hire the hotshot Englander, unless Katz is positioning himself for another political office? Englander chooses to be Sphinx-like in regard to what it all means, saying that he wants to “try some new things and have some fun” in the upcoming Katz campaign.

Katz’s decision to skip the race for Roberti’s seat also should refute the suspicion that Katz only joined the movement to dismantle the Los Angeles Unified School District last August to make himself the logical heir to Roberti, an LAUSD breakup champion, says Englander.

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MORE ANXIETY: Edelman’s anxiety may not be over yet in the brave new world being shaped by term limits, a “Mad Max” society of roving bands of homeless politicians, hungry for office.

Although Katz may no longer figure in his nightmares, Edelman is reportedly still worried that Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky might be angling for his job. Zev has privately made noises about the seat.

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COP POWER: One of the Valley’s most outspoken policeman, LAPD Sgt. Dennis Zine, has won election to the Police Protective League board of directors. Zine becomes one of four new members on the union board in the midst of its sensitive pay talks with the city.

Zine, who came in third earlier this year in the 3rd District Los Angeles City Council race, said he wants to shift the league’s tactics from labor to political action, focusing the union’s not inconsiderable political power on City Hall politicians, notably Mayor Richard Riordan.

“We don’t want to go on strike,” Zine said. “But we do want to be treated fairly.”

Riordan, in particular, draws heavy criticism from Zine for making the hiring of more police, not improving working conditions for the current force, his top priority.

The Police Protective League was a key supporter of the mayor during his campaign last spring, sticking by Riordan even after his drunk-driving record came to light.

For the record: Zine still lives in West Hills. During his council campaign, Zine told voters that if they didn’t elect him, he would move out of the city.

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HARVARD HARDBALL: Flying back to Los Angeles after a recent appearance at Harvard University, state Sen. Tom Hayden fired the latest salvo in his long-running battle with Soka University of America.

From 35,000-plus feet in the air, the Santa Monica Democrat penned a letter to the assistant dean of the Kennedy School of Government, cautioning that Harvard was lending its good name to “an institution whose educational claims remain dubious.”

Hayden was referring to an arrangement Soka has with Harvard professor John Montgomery to run a postdoctoral Pacific Basin research center jointly with the Calabasas university, which has fronted the Ivy League school and the professor well over $800,000 for the center.

Hayden wrote that he found it “deeply troubling” that “Harvard is allowing its prestigious name to be used on behalf of a project that will be disastrous for the environment and is opposed by all appropriate state and federal officials.”

By that, he meant not the Pacific Basin Center per se, but Soka’s plans to expand its campus on property that is being sought for parkland.

Soka’s response? “He’s been making a lot of fuss over nothing. It’s cheap political rhetoric,” said Jeff Ourvan, Soka’s spokesman.

Montgomery’s response? “Tom Hayden seems to be a charming person but he doesn’t seem to know very much about Soka or the Pacific Basin program,” which has funded 28 postdoctoral fellowships since 1990.

This column was written by Times staff writers John Schwada in Los Angeles and Cynthia H. Craft in Sacramento.