Rumors of Moorhead’s Departure May Be Highly Exaggerated

CIAO, CARLOS?: This may very well be Rep. Carlos J. Moorhead’s last term in office, the congressman says. Then again, it may not.

“As of this moment, it’s premature,” Moorhead said this week in response to continued speculation that his long career will end in 1996. “I haven’t made up my mind yet.”

The 72-year-old Glendale Republican had considered not running in last November’s election but ultimately decided to take the plunge for a 12th term in the House. When he was bypassed for two committee chairmanships by incoming House Speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.), the pundits in Washington began to float his name as a probable retiree.

Moorhead, who has heard the talk about his impending retirement for years, says his new role as a subcommittee chairman and a member of the majority party has made the job as challenging as ever.

“I’ve got a busy schedule but the years wear on too, and you can’t plan to stay on in Congress until you’re 110,” said Moorhead. “There’s a possibility (of retirement), but whatever I decide, I’ll let people know in plenty of time.”

Perhaps, but “people” have already begun speculating on who might succeed Moorhead if he were to step down.

Among the early names being floated as potential candidates are conservative Los Angeles County Supervisor Mike Antonovich and Assemblywoman Paula L. Boland (R-Granada Hills). A weekly political gossip column also lists rising star Assemblyman James Rogan (R-Glendale), longtime state Sen. Newton Russell (R-Glendale) and veteran Democratic Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) as possibilities.

Of course, if Antonovich were to run, Boland, Rogan and Katz could decide to try for his supervisor’s seat instead.

But Boland, for one, said she hasn’t yet thought seriously about what to do after term limits force her to give up her Assembly seat in 1996.

“Because it’s been so busy here, I have not had an opportunity yet to look ahead,” Boland said in Sacramento. “I’ve been encouraged for the last year or so by people in the district saying, ‘Paula . . . we still need you. Please don’t get out of government.”

But, she added, “is Moorhead going to leave? Is Antonovich going to run for that seat? The whole thing is iffy.”

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FOLLOWING THE SCRIPT: There is an unwritten rule among candidates on the campaign trail that they must craft each speech to suit the audience they are addressing.

That was the golden rule this week when Fox Inc. and a citizens’ group called Friends of Fox hosted a forum for candidates vying for the 5th City Council seat left vacant when Zev Yaroslavsky resigned to join the County Board of Supervisors.

Catering to the show-biz-minded audience, several candidates worked movie lines and television references into their speeches. Some were folded in slyly. Others were clunky and awkward.

The first reference was a zinger by Lea Purwin D’Agostino, the 17-year prosecutor who proudly boasts the nickname “The Dragon Lady.”

“Everybody comes out of the woodwork to talk about safety because they know that is what you are concerned with,” she said. “But the closest any of my opponents have come to combatting the crime issue is when they solve the crime before Angela Lansbury on ‘Murder, She Wrote.”’

Then there was the somewhat confusing reference by Daniel McCrory, a labor activist and Sherman Oaks resident.

“Fox has established a reputation for innovation, for being on the cutting edge, for almost an in-your-face approach,” he said. “We need that again in the 5th Council District. We need a leader who is not afraid to take on the status quo, but at the same time, like ‘Married . . . With Children,’ be a leader that the people can identify with.”

Finally, there was Didacus Ramos, the urban planner who urged the audience to select their candidate carefully. He referred to a scene from the movie “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” in which an aging knight who is guarding a slew of grails tells the hero: “Choose, but choose wisely.”

By the way, this was the same forum that D’Agostino was leery of attending because George Vradenburg, executive vice president of Fox, has gone on record supporting Barbara Yaroslavsky to fill her husband’s vacant post and because Zev Yaroslavsky supported an expansion plan for the Fox studios in 1993.

Although D’Agostino feared the forum would be scripted to make Barbara Yaroslavsky look good and everyone else look bad, she attended and apologized for questioning the integrity of the event’s organizers.

“Perhaps it was I who prejudged,” she told the crowd.

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NOT-SO-BIG BUCKS: None of the San Fernando Valley-area lawmakers made the list of the 50 richest members of the House and Senate. Sen. Dianne Feinstein came in fourth, with a fortune estimated at $50 million. Southern Californians making the list included Rep. Jane Harman (D-Rolling Hills) at No. 13 (with an estimated $15 million) and Rep. Sonny Bono (R-La Quinta), who is listed at No. 50 with $2 million.

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THREE LITTLE WORDS: The term “unfunded federal mandate” may sound like bureaucratic gobbledygook, but what it really translates to is cold, hard cash.

Mandates are what the federal government is all about--the civil rights legislation, environmental legislation and other sweeping laws that impose common rules on urban centers and one-horse towns alike.

But it is the “unfunded” part of “unfunded federal mandates” that coaxes fury from local officials.

Even as the new reform-minded Congress attempts to crack down on the mandates, officials in Los Angeles say another sweeping federal regulation--without any local funding--may be on the way.

The National Committee on Uniform Traffic Control Devices is planning to recommend that the Federal Highway Administration require municipalities to increase the size of lettering on street signs from four inches to six. The committee decided on the change earlier this month.

Slightly larger signs may not appear to be too big of a deal. But the Los Angeles Department of Transportation says it could cost between $10 million and $15 million to alter the city’s 150,000 street signs.

“Without financial assistance, the city of Los Angeles is not in a position to comply with the proposed new guidelines for street signs, nor does there appear to be a compelling reason in an urban area to increase lettering on signs,” Councilwoman Laura Chick said this week in a motion calling on the city and Congress to oppose this unfunded mandate--and any other that Washington’s bureaucrats may have up their sleeves.

Rep. Howard P. (Buck) McKeon (R-Santa Clarita) agrees, and before the House approved the Unfunded Mandate Reform Act this week, he sent a letter to his California colleagues pointing out the proposed street sign changes.

“While this is one small example of a much larger problem, it is indicative of the costly federal mandates imposed on local governments,” McKeon said. But Ken Kobetsky, chairman of the transportation group that is pushing for the six-inch signs, is urging local officials to simmer down.

Calling the recommendation important to improve visibility, Kobetsky says the larger sign requirement would only apply to major roads. And the committee is sensitive to costs and will recommend that the larger signs be installed only when officials are already replacing signs.

“We certainly don’t want to recommend an unfunded mandate,” he said. “No way.”

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BLINKY GOES TO D.C.: William (Blinky) Rodriguez, the San Fernando Valley anti-gang activist who used his street smarts and religious devotion to help broker a truce among local gangs, bowed his head in prayer with President Clinton on Thursday.

But it was not during the intimate Oval Office meeting you might expect.

There were more than 3,800 other participants in the National Prayer Breakfast at the Washington Hilton--among them six foreign heads of state, numerous members of Congress and assorted other leaders. And Blinky was there.

But Rodriguez, a kick boxer who headed to the nation’s capital as a guest of the World Vision religious organization, missed a reception later in the day in which he and other urban activists were scheduled to meet with Sen. Ben Nighthorse Campbell (D-Colo.), Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Rep. Maurice D. Hinchey (D-N.Y.).

However, Blinky did get to recount the goings on in the Valley at an afternoon religious gathering featuring Washington Mayor Marion Barry. Mixing prayer, song and tough talk about the state of Urban America, the session was titled: “What God Is Doing in the Cities.”

Chu reported from Sacramento, Lacey from Washington and Martin from Los Angeles.