ELECTIONS / BOARD OF SUPERVISORS : Yaroslavsky, Wallace Feud Over Campaign Signs

If their official complaints are to be believed, political rivals Don Wallace, a retired fire captain, and Zev Yaroslavsky, a Los Angeles city councilman, spent their Memorial Day weekend toiling at either illegally posting political signs or illegally tearing them down.

The salvos of complaints from Wallace and Yaroslavsky, both contenders for a seat on the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, began with a criminal complaint filed by Wallace with the Los Angeles Police Department, accusing Yaroslavsky of personally stealing some of Wallace’s signs from a busy intersection near the Ventura Freeway and Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

Among the artifacts in the complaint: a candid color photo of a rumpled-looking Yaroslavsky, his shirttail out and sleeves rolled up.

This photo was purportedly taken by a Chatsworth couple moments after they say they spotted Yaroslavsky removing several Wallace signs next to the Ventura Freeway in Woodland Hills and confronted him.

“We took the photo and Zev said, ‘Oh, Jesus,’ ” said Matt Leigh, a mechanic for the city of Los Angeles who said he took the photo about 7:30 p.m. Sunday while driving with his family on Topanga Canyon Boulevard.

Earlier, Leigh said that he and his wife--whose mother is a Wallace supporter--spotted Yaroslavsky carrying one of Wallace’s orange signs, stopped in their car and questioned Yaroslavsky about what he was doing. “He said the signs were illegal,” Leigh said. “But he wouldn’t tell us his name.”

Joe Castille, Wallace’s campaign manager, who believes the flap may dent Yaroslavsky’s big lead in the race, has seen political sign wars before. But this one--with Yaroslavsky allegedly in the trenches himself--takes the cake. “It’s as if Richard Nixon himself put on a trench coat and went out to commit the Watergate break-in,” Castille rhapsodized.

“I’m shocked and disappointed that Zev can’t find time to debate me . . . but he can find time to tear down my signs,” Wallace fumed. “It’s pettiness and a crime against democracy.”

Yaroslavsky, who has raised almost $1 million for his campaign and is widely viewed as a shoo-in to win the seat now held by retiring Supervisor Ed Edelman, has been reluctant to debate Wallace.

In his police complaint, Wallace said his campaign has been bedeviled in recent days by the loss of 150 to 200 of its lawn signs.

But the situation is not as simple as Wallace has maintained, said Kevin Acebo, Yaroslavsky’s campaign manager. Acebo conceded his boss took two of Wallace’s signs--not as an act of political sabotage but to gather evidence for a complaint of his own.

That complaint, filed Tuesday with Caltrans and the city’s Bureau of Street Maintenance, alleged that Wallace had illegally placed the disputed signs and hundreds of others either on public property or on private property without the consent of the owners. “The signs are illegal,” Acebo said.

Yaroslavsky did not return phone calls asking for comment.

But his campaign office made available copies of complaints he filed asking Caltrans and the city street bureau to remove the allegedly illegal Wallace signs in their rights-of-way. The request to the bureau asked that it take steps to force Wallace to reimburse the city for the removal cost.

The Yaroslavsky campaign has also asked the state Fair Political Practices Commission to determine if Wallace violated state law by not placing a statement on his signs identifying what political committee paid for them.

Wallace knows all about the signs Yaroslavsky is alleged to have removed--because the candidate, strapped for money and help, put them up himself last Saturday, he said.

And, Wallace admitted, he did not get the permission of Bank of America to place a sign at its Woodland Hills branch office at Topanga Canyon Boulevard last Saturday. “How could I have?” he asked. “They were closed.”

Besides, Wallace argued, although Yaroslavsky said he was concerned the signs were an eyesore or perhaps illegal, he removed only Wallace’s signs and not those of four other candidates, also tacked up on the same pole in the Bank of America parking lot.