ELECTIONS / BOARD OF SUPERVISORS : Sights Are Set Beyond Yaroslavsky Victory

It says volumes about the 3rd District County Board of Supervisors race that political observers are not speculating about whether City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky will win but who will run for his City Hall seat when he does, with his wife being one often-mentioned potential aspirant.

“The only question is, does Zev get 65% of the vote or 80%?” said consultant Richard Lichtenstein. “The real focus is on who’s going to be the next councilperson.”

In fact, the city’s Ethics Commission is being pressed by impatient City Council wanna-bes to set a date when they can start raising money to run for Yaroslavsky’s 5th District seat. Current rules bar fund-raising until a special election to fill the seat--not normally open until 1997--has been set.

In his bid for election Tuesday, Yaroslavsky will rely heavily on voters from the West Side and San Fernando Valley hillside portions of the district to reflexively cast their ballots for him, with some urging from his cash-flush campaign machine.

“We expect to spend $400,000 to $500,000 total,” said Kevin Acebo, the veteran councilman’s campaign manager. Still, that will be about four times as much as Yaroslavsky’s leading challenger, retired city Fire Capt. Don Wallace, will have to spend and only half the $850,000 Yaroslavsky has raised.

The only glitch in this apparently seamless story of the political promotion of one of the city’s best-known elected officials was produced by the script’s own star--Yaroslavsky--when he was spotted on Memorial Day weekend removing several Wallace campaign signs from a busy intersection in Woodland Hills.

A city worker who saw Yaroslavsky with the signs and later reported the matter to police even took a photo of the candidate, in sunglasses, shorts and his shirttails out.

Wallace later filed a complaint accusing Yaroslavsky of political vandalism, sought an injunction against Yaroslavsky going near any of Wallace’s signs and called the sign caper a “crime against democracy.” His campaign manager likened the incident to Watergate.

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On Thursday, Superior Court Judge Diane Wayne denied Wallace’s application for injunctive relief but chided Yaroslavsky for acting in a “childish” manner while City Atty. James K. Hahn continued to juggle the issue of what to do with Wallace’s criminal complaint.

Wallace is also launching a cable television ad campaign in the final primary election weekend to spotlight the sign incident and cast Yaroslavsky as arrogant and ruthless.

The incident is being viewed by the Wallace campaign, frustrated by Yaroslavsky’s fund-raising clout and its inability to engage Yaroslavsky in more than two poorly attended debates, as its best bet for stalling the juggernaut.

Yaroslavsky has said he was not trying to sabotage Wallace’s signs but rather was gathering evidence that the signs were illegally placed on public or private property and lacked proper identification.

The councilman subsequently filed a complaint of his own, asking the city’s Bureau of Street Maintenance to take steps to remove the Wallace signs from where they were posted on city property. Such postings are illegal.

Despite this 11th-hour flap, there are few political observers who think Wallace, 53, can pull off an upset and force Yaroslavsky into a November runoff.

In fact, most political consultants are speculating not about Zev Yaroslavsky’s prospects, but Barbara Yaroslavsky’s.

Barbara Yaroslavsky did not return The Times’ call to ask about this issue, but her husband said the couple have not discussed the matter. “We’re focused on this election,” he said.

Roberta Weintraub, the flamboyant former Los Angeles school board president, and Michael Feuer, executive director of Bet Tzedek, a Jewish legal-services organization, have already said they are running for Yaroslavsky’s seat. Also considering the race are Lea Purwin D’Agostina, a deputy in the district attorney’s office; Carol Schatz, director of government affairs for the Central City Assn., and possibly one or more of the losing candidates in the intensely competitive 42nd Assembly District race now raging on the West Side.

But for the time being, such would-be candidates are cooling their heels, waiting for Yaroslavsky to take over the Board of Supervisors seat now held by Ed Edelman. The seat, representing the West Side and much of the San Fernando Valley, opened in December, when Edelman suddenly announced he would not seek reelection.

Edelman’s seat was coveted by a number of politicians but finally it was Yaroslavsky, 45, who tossed his hat into the ring and began a voracious drive to raise money for the race even as he pledged to bring campaign-finance reform to the county Hall of Administration.

During the campaign, Yaroslavsky, who has been endorsed by scores of elected officials and civic leaders, including Mayor Richard Riordan, has promised to shake up a sleepy, inefficient and secretive county bureaucracy and bring to the Board of Supervisors the same spirit of reform that has marked his 19-year career at City Hall.

At one of the debates, Yaroslavsky told a Woodland Hills homeowners group that county government has run amok and that as the tough-minded chairman of the city’s Budget and Finance Committee, he had the moxie and experience to put the county’s fiscal house in order and bring financial stability as well to the Metropolitan Transportation Agency, the area’s huge mass-transit body. The supervisors have a big say in MTA decision-making.

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Meanwhile, Wallace has tried to outflank Yaroslavsky on reform by calling not only for progress on campaign finance but term limits for supervisors (Yaroslavsky opposes them) and an end to their perks, including taxpayer-financed cars.

The retired fireman and former Edelman aide who in 1988 ran a credible campaign against Supervisor Mike Antonovich also has billed himself as the environmental candidate, pointing to his endorsement by the local League of Conservation Voters while damning Yaroslavsky as a “coward” for not agreeing to more debates.

As for Yaroslavsky’s long experience at City Hall and his formidable fund-raising ability, Wallace paints it all as a sign that Yaroslavsky is a career politician, in bed with special interests, who, as a supervisor, would lack the willpower and independence to shake up county government.

Also running is youth counselor Elgin Trammell Sr. and environmental consultant Michael Hirsch. Any candidate who garners more than 50% of the vote on Tuesday, will win. If none do, a runoff will be held Nov. 8.