Beilenson Decision Leads Group to Rescind Invitation to Sybert

SOUNDS OF SILENCE: Forget that first mano-a-mano debate between U.S. Rep. Anthony Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills) and attorney Richard Sybert, the GOP challenger, set for July 7 at the Warner Center Marriott and sponsored by the Valley Jewish Business Leaders Assn.

Beilenson nixed it.

Beilenson’s staff said their boss didn’t know it was a debate that he was getting into. He thought it was a solo flight, a chance for him to schmooze with local Jewish business leaders alone and unencumbered. When it turned into a debate, the congressman did an about-face.

“He had a problem with it,” said Michael Turner, public relations director for the event. “He wasn’t going to show up if it was a debate, so we had to dis-invite Sybert.”

How this situation arose in the first place is still not exactly known, “but it is rather embarrassing,” Turner conceded.

According to Craig Miller, a Beilenson political adviser, Beilenson is more than happy to debate Sybert, “but we’re not going to allow Sybert to turn every appearance the congressman makes in the Valley into a debate.”

Meanwhile, James Vaughn, Sybert’s campaign manager, said the incident shows that Beilenson is “already ducking the debates” he had promised to have with his GOP challenger. “This is typical Beilenson--saying one thing and doing another.”

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LABOR PAINS: Their vote of support for the North American Free Trade Agreement is haunting U.S. Reps. Howard Berman (D-Panorama City) and Beilenson.

Two weeks ago, anti-NAFTA die-hards effectively vetoed a move by delegates of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, AFL-CIO, to endorse Berman and Beilenson’s reelection bids this fall. Before the delegates was a recommendation to endorse the pair made by the federation’s political wing and its new secretary-treasurer, Jim Wood. But the recommendation failed to win the two-thirds voting approval needed for adoption.

According to dissident Carl Kessler, a veteran federation delegate from the International Assn. of Machinists and Aerospace Workers, the rejection was unprecedented. The delegates routinely adopt the recommendations of the federation’s political wing, he said. “I’ve been here since 1959 and it’s never happened before,” he said.

Wood, who recently replaced Bill Robertson as federation leader, blamed himself for tactical errors that contributed to the defeat of the proposal. A union endorsement of the congressmen may still be forthcoming when the matter is taken up again at a state convention of labor unions later this month(, Wood said. But he refused to make a prediction. “This issue is real emotional, and I wouldn’t want to predict an outcome,” he said.

In the past, Berman and Beilenson have effortlessly won the valuable endorsements of such union organizations.

MUCH ADO: Two mailings in recent months that went to several thousand residents living outside his district have rekindled speculation that state Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) is casting about for new political worlds to conquer after term limits force an end to his Assembly career in 1996.

The Katz mailings--one alerting blind, disabled and senior citizens about tax rebates available to them, the other warning quake victims to beware of unscrupulous building contractors--reached some constituents of state Assemblywoman Paula Boland (R-Granada Hills), who represents the adjoining 38th Assembly District, state officials have confirmed.

Boland was subsequently moved to question whether it was proper for Katz, who reigns over the 39th Assembly District, to spend tax dollars sending mail into her district.

But what really is at issue here is that some of the folks who got the mailing (and do not live in the 39th District) reside in Los Angeles City Councilman Hal Bernson’s district.

And that, coupled with previous reports that Katz has been looking at the possibility of running for Bernson’s seat, raised some political eyebrows. The mailings, the speculation went, was a sign that Katz was trying to ingratiate himself with voters in Bernson’s district as a prelude to challenging the incumbent, whose term expires next year.

Although he did not go so far in his own analysis of the situation, Boland’s chief field deputy, Scott Wilk, remarked that the mailings were “suspicious” and the explanations that they were done inadvertently were “unbelievable.”

Armando Azarloza, press deputy to U.S. Rep. Howard (Buck) McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), who got one of the mailings at his own home (he lives in Bernson’s district but not in Katz’s), said it is obvious to him that Katz is eyeing Bernson’s seat. “He’s definitely shopping around for a place to go after term limits, and Bernson’s seat is one he’s looking at,” Azarloza said.

With Bernson’s reign troubled by his support of the huge Porter Ranch development and bedeviled by questions about his use of campaign funds on high dining and foreign travel, “I think Richard thinks he can walk in there and pull Republicans and Democrats and beat Bernson,” Azarloza said.

Katz says speculation about his two mailings into Bernson’s district are ludicrous. “These people ought to get a life,” Katz said. “Right now, all I’m doing is looking at getting reelected to my 39th District.”

Katz claims the mailers went outside his district because of a computer glitch. The constituents reached by the disputed mailing actually were in his old 39th District before the 1992 reapportionment plan moved them into Boland’s district, he said. Someone in the Assembly Rules Committee failed to update his constituent mailing after reapportionment. There was no chicanery or ulterior designs involved, Katz insisted.

“It’s a mystery to us how it happened,” added Bob Connelly, chief administrative officer to the Rules Committee, which maintains Assembly members’ computer files.

Meanwhile, Bernson accepts Katz’s explanation. “Richard and I have a good relationship and I’m not going to read anything into this situation,” the councilman said this week.