In Post-Zev Horse Race, Feuer’s Out of the Starting Gate Early

LET THE GAMES BEGIN: By Thursday morning, less than 36 hours after Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky had been elected to the Board of Supervisors in Tuesday’s balloting, candidate Michael Feuer said he had raised $21,500 to run for Yaroslavsky’s 5th District council seat.

That the executive director of Bet Tzedek, a legal-services group, would be out of the gate raising money early was no surprise. Feuer had earlier asked the city Ethics Commission to issue a ruling about when the fund-raising stampede might begin in the yet-to-be-set special election to fill Yaroslavsky’s shoes.

Their ruling: as soon Yaroslavsky was elected and a candidate had filed the necessary paperwork with the commission. At 9:08 a.m. Wednesday, Feuer had filed the paperwork.

But Feuer, an attorney by trade, is only one of many 5th District wanna-bes burning up calories thumping potential financial contributors on the back and interviewing campaign consultants at the Pacific Dining Car.

The 5th District is about half in and half out of the Valley. It includes Westwood, the Fairfax area, Bel-Air, Sherman Oaks and Van Nuys.

Feuer has even installed a separate phone at Bet Tzedek’s Beverly-Fairfax office so he may raise political funds at work without using the nonprofit legal firm’s resources. “I wanted to do this right,” he said. “So I have this separate phone at my desk for political purposes.”

Besides making a beeline for the cash, Feuer has also already put together a solid list of top-drawer supporters, including Bruce Corwin of Metropolitan Theatres, a confidant of ex-mayor Tom Bradley; Rabbi Allen I. Freehling of University Synagogue; Heal the Bay leader Dorothy Green; Laurie Levinson, a Loyola University law professor; former U.S. Secretary of Education Shirley Hufstedler; former U.S. Atty. Andrea Ordin; Tom Quinn, president of a media company and a top aide to former Gov. Jerry Brown, and Tom Umberg, the Democratic Party’s current nominee for state attorney general.

Feuer, a Harvard Law School graduate, has run Bet Tzedek since 1986. The organization has a $2.9-million budget and has distinguished itself by providing legal services to seniors and disabled people embroiled in disputes related to housing, government benefits and consumer fraud.

The group’s hallmark litigation has established seniors’ right to full government housing and Social Security benefits even if they are receiving restitution payments from Germany as Holocaust survivors, Feuer said recently.

One of Feuer’s few adventures in municipal affairs involved Los Angeles’ Farmer’s Market and a group he co-founded to oppose plans to develop a shopping mall at the historic site.

“We saw this development as a threat to one of the city’s most definable neighborhoods,” Feuer said. The project, approved in 1991, is in limbo.

Others eyeing Yaroslavsky’s seat are former Los Angeles school board President Roberta Weintraub; Leah Purwin D’Agostino, a deputy district attorney who practices out of the Van Nuys Courthouse; and possibly a few others, including Barbara Yaroslavsky, the councilman’s own wife. Carol Schatz, government affairs director for the Central City Assn., has reportedly begun to shy away from the idea of running for Yaroslavsky’s seat.

As of Thursday afternoon, only Feuer and Ryan Snyder, a transportation consultant who ran against Yaroslavsky previously, had filed the requisite paperwork at City Hall to raise money.

The cash-strapped city is expected to consolidate the Yaroslavsky succession race with the other Los Angeles races next spring. In April, 1995, seven City Council seats will be up for grabs, including those of Valley lawmakers Hal Bernson and Joel Wachs.

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KUDOS FOR KUEHL: And speaking of Weintraub, the former conservative Republican has certainly changed since switching to the Democratic Party in 1991.

For example, Weintraub’s name and photo appeared on political mail endorsing Sheila Kuehl, the Santa Monica progressive and former TV actress who won the Democratic nomination for the 41st Assembly District seat in last Tuesday’s balloting. Kuehl said she wants to be the first openly gay member of the state Legislature.

“Sheila has been a devoted educator both in our colleges and junior highs,” trumpeted the quote attributed to Weintraub in a mailer targeted at Democratic voters in the Valley. “I trust her to be a strong voice for Valley schools and to fight to decentralize the LAUSD.”

And speaking of Wachs, he, too, shared a spot on the same mailer. “Sheila Kuehl has a proven record of fighting for the rights of victims of violent crimes,” Wachs said. “I trust her to fight for more police and funding to implement community based policing throughout the Valley.”

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THE WRIGHT STUFF: State Sen. Cathie Wright (R-Simi Valley) won Tuesday’s GOP primary in the lieutenant governor’s race, handily beating Assemblyman Stan Statham (R-Redding) by a 2-1 margin. Statham got some attention because of his scheme to split California into three states, while the 64-year-old Wright ran a campaign that emphasized her anti-tax, pro-business conservativism.

Wright’s 19th Senate District includes Chatsworth, Northridge, Granada Hills and North Hills. If she loses in November to state Controller Gray Davis, the Democratic nominee for lieutenant governor, Wright will be able to keep her Senate seat. Her current term in the four-year seat expires in 1996.

But if she wins, Wright would become the state’s first woman lieutenant governor. Her political promotion would put her Senate seat up for grabs and probably trigger a land rush of office-seekers.

After Tuesday’s victory, Wright talked about the role she could play helping to purge the state of the Pat and Jerry Brown family legacy, noting that her foe in November, Gray Davis, was a top aide to Gov. Jerry Brown in the 1970s.