Candidates Stay Clean and Green in Drive for Office

Torrance Councilman George Nakano already has the backing of the Sierra Club and the California League of Conservation Voters in his race to beat state Sen. Ralph C. Dills (D-El Segundo) in a district that includes Venice and nearby areas of the Westside.

But the help of such groups only goes so far. So last week he held a campaign event to announce backing from an environmentally conscious movie actor, Ed Begley Jr.

Begley, a member of Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan’s environmental commission, rode Torrance’s electric bus and showed off his own battery-powered Volkswagen Rabbit. The event was intended to underscore Nakano’s support for electric cars and clean-fuel technology.

But Nakano is hardly the only eco-minded candidate. Dills and another challenger, Venice attorney Mike Sidley, have said they would also push for the creation of “green technologies.”

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MISCIKOWSKI IS MISSING: What’s going on in Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude’s office? In recent days, Braude has learned that he’s losing two longtime aides, Cindy Miscikowski, his chief deputy and principal planning aide, and Rosalind Wayman, the head of his Valley office.

Miscikowski’s departure has provided grist for some weighty political conjecture around City Hall. Much discussed is whether Miscikowski, the wife of lobbyist-attorney and real estate heir Doug Ring, will run against Braude, much as onetime aide Laura Chick did against Joy Picus.

Picus cried foul throughout their 1992 City Council race, likening Chick to a trusted employee who steals trade secrets and then sets up a competing business. Despite it all, Chick won.

For the record, Miscikowski says she has no plans to run for Braude’s seat. Instead, she’s headed for the job of executive director of the Hebrew Union College’s Skirball Cultural Center. The center, which includes a museum featuring the works of Jewish artists, is scheduled to open next year at a prime location overlooking the Sepulveda Pass.

“It’s really time for a change,” she said, “a time to see if there’s life outside City Hall.”

Still, Miscikowski, a Brentwood resident like Braude, has long been considered a prime candidate for the seat Braude has held since 1965, and many observers find it hard to believe she will not seek election someday.

Glenn Barr, Braude’s press deputy, said recently that Braude has not ruled out the possibility of running again in 1997. Others wonder if the 73-year-old anti-smoking crusader, whose office has been essentially run for years by Miscikowski, will want to hang on if he must attend more closely to the affairs of office.

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TRY INHALING THIS ONE: Doing their civic duty in the newly formed Carthay Square neighborhood patrol, two residents spotted a suspicious-looking vehicle parked with its motor running outside a house that neighbors have long thought to be a den of iniquity.

Making a note in their patrol log, they were about to call in a report to the base station--”Drug deal going down!”--when a figure scurried out of the darkness and slid behind the wheel.

It was a pizza delivery man.