Run for State Assembly Seat May Be in the Cards for Korenstein

EYES ON THE ASSEMBLY: Dogged campaigner and Los Angeles school board member Julie Korenstein is likely to toss her hat into the ring for the state Assembly seat now held by Barbara Friedman (D-Van Nuys).

“I’m seriously exploring it,” Korenstein said this week of Friedman’s 40th Assembly District seat.

Friedman is expected to run next year for the 20th State Senate District seat being vacated by Sen. David Roberti (D-Van Nuys). Last week, state Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) declared himself uninterested in the Roberti seat.

Korenstein’s longtime political adviser, Parke Skelton, said a poll taken last week shows a favorable alignment of the stars for his client. She has a 55% name recognition and a 4-to-1 job approval rating among voters in the 40th, Skelton said.

Surprisingly, Korenstein has escaped being tarnished by her association with the school board. “She has separated herself from the board and the district,” said Skelton, who reported that the city’s much-maligned school system was viewed negatively by about three-fourths of those polled.

Skelton acknowledges his client does not live in the 40th; her current Sherman Oaks abode lies five blocks outside the district. A small detail, Skelton said. “She’ll move. It’s not as if she’d be coming from Long Beach.”

Maybe 1994 will be a big year for Korenstein, who has repeatedly had to scramble in her school board races and narrowly missed ousting Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson from office in their bitter 1991 race.

Also casting a covetous eye on the 40th is Gary Geuss (rhymes with nice), a deputy in the city attorney’s Van Nuys criminal branch.

Although a political novice, Geuss may have legs. His allies include Carol Blad, chairwoman of the San Fernando Valley Democratic Party, and Bonny Matheson, president of the Valley Industry and Commerce Assn. Also, City Atty. James Hahn and Los Angeles County District Atty. Gil Garcetti have endorsed Geuss.

According to the city attorney’s press office, Hahn is ready to be the featured guest at a Geuss fund-raiser next month.

Meanwhile, at a recent tete-a-tete, ex-school board member Roberta Weintraub reportedly assured Korenstein that she will not run for Friedman’s seat. Weintraub has not returned phone calls about her plans.

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JOY’S KIDS: Former Los Angeles City Councilwoman Joy Picus is back. Picus’ new career incarnation is as a “public policy advocate”--a.k.a. lobbyist.

But Picus says she won’t be an archetypal member of perhaps the world’s second oldest profession. Instead, she will be pushing an agenda for children and families. “Children are our largest single most disadvantaged group,” Picus said last week during an impromptu interview at the opening of the Mark Taper Intergenerational Center in Van Nuys. “I’m not doing this as a career to be paid. I don’t need the money.”

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SIGN LANGUAGE: Former candidate Walter Prince this week paid a $500 reward to a Northridge man and his wife who were key witnesses in a case that led to a lawsuit that Prince filed against businessman Alan Fox, a tire store owner and associate of Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson. That lawsuit, brought by Prince and Alan Hecht, both of whom challenged Bernson’s 1991 reelection bid, was settled for an undisclosed amount two months ago.

The Northridge couple testified in pretrial statements that they saw Fox and a still unidentified accomplice removing political signs for Prince, Hecht and a third candidate, Julie Korenstein, during the hard-fought 1991 primary. Prince and Hecht claimed hundreds of their signs were eventually stolen by Bernson partisans, and Prince offered a $500 reward to nab the culprits.

Scoring the $500 reward in this holiday season are Mark Lit, a retired Cal State Northridge professor, and his wife, Estelle.

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PHONE FRAUD?: The bitter legislative showdown over the North American Free Trade Agreement may be history, but the fallout in the Valley area continues.

Responding to a request from a staunch opponent of the treaty, Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) has alerted the Justice Department to the “possible improper use of my name as a member of Congress.”

McKeon, who eventually voted for the pact after wavering for weeks, said that he heard from two constituents prior to the vote who said they had received calls from someone posing as an aide to the freshman lawmaker. The caller reportedly asked whether he could mark constituents down as supporting the controversial treaty.

“Somebody had called them pretending to be a representative of Buck’s office and made a pro-NAFTA speech,” said Armando Azarloza, McKeon’s district director.

McKeon said that he had not authorized “the use of my name for this purpose” and “no member of my staff made these calls on my behalf.”

Brian Ages, district membership coordinator for Ross Perot’s United We Stand America, heard about the calls as well. He sent McKeon a letter on Nov. 16 asking the lawmaker to cooperate with federal agencies on “an investigation of wire fraud (in) relation to the phone poll in your district made by people representing themselves as employees of your office.”

McKeon responded on Tuesday by forwarding a copy of Ages’ letter and a cover letter outlining the events surrounding the mystery calls to the U.S. attorney’s office.

“I wanted to bring this matter to your attention in case further investigation is warranted,” McKeon wrote. He pledged his cooperation if it is needed.

This column was written by John Schwada in Los Angeles and Alan C. Miller in Washington, D.C.