L.A. ELECTIONS / 5TH DISTRICT : Ambition and Altruism Drive Mike Feuer

Mike Feuer has always done well in life, which to him means doing good.

For 10 years he has directed Bet Tzedek, a highly regarded Jewish agency that provides legal services to the needy of all faiths, a job at which he has, by all accounts, excelled.

Now Feuer hopes to parlay his good works into a seat on the Los Angeles City Council--the 5th District post Zev Yaroslavsky held before becoming a county supervisor last year.

Not exactly a household name, Feuer is waging an uphill battle against better-known rivals--Yaroslavsky’s wife, Barbara, a community activist, and former school board member Roberta Weintraub. Businessman Jeff Brain is the fourth contender in the 5th District, which stretches from Sherman Oaks to Bel-Air and Cheviot Hills.

Yet his supporters say Feuer brings many resources to the race, including brains, ambition, energy and a strong track record.

He also has a resource many first-time candidates can only hope for: money. As of Feb. 25, the close of the most recent filing period, Feuer had raised $181,000, including $90,500 in matching funds from the city. Since then, he has brought in more than $20,000.

The campaign dollars will enable him to send at least 10, and perhaps up to 20 pieces of mail to district voters in hopes of making it into a runoff. He is also, as he puts it, “walking the heck out of the district.”

Feuer is selling himself as a fresh, reform-minded leader who has both vision and follow-through.

“I’ve always been idealistic about what could be and practical about how to get there,” said Feuer, 36, who lives in Beverlywood on the Westside with his wife, environmental attorney Gail Ruderman Feuer, and their two children, Aaron, 4, and Danielle, 18 months. “We’re the most important city in the world now. Either we’re going to be the role model or the object lesson.”

Feuer says that if he wins, he will make public safety his No. 1 priority by putting police substations in the district. (There are none now.) He doesn’t take contributions from political action committees and favors legislation that would prevent council members from voting on matters involving their contributors.

His most ambitious goal, he says, is to break through the cynicism and hopelessness that have led some Los Angeles residents to believe they can’t influence public policy. Among other things, he would create neighborhood advisory councils and listen closely to constituents.

“I think it’s outrageous how the City Council treats members of the public, ignoring them (at meetings),” he said. “They’re not treating them with respect.”

For the most part, Feuer has been well received on the campaign trail. At a Sunday afternoon candidates forum hosted by the North Beverly-Franklin Canyon Homeowners Assn.--one of dozens of active neighborhood groups in the politically astute 5th District--former association president Bob Ashen decided on the spot to vote for Feuer.

“He’s young, fresh, bright, articulate, energetic and has good ideas,” Ashen said.

Cliff Neiman, another past president of the group who described himself as an undecided voter, was also impressed. “He did his homework on what we care about,” Neiman said.

Feuer, the first of three sons of a school principal and a community volunteer who met at UCLA, was raised in working-class San Bernardino, spending many weekends visiting his grandparents in the Fairfax district.

“There wasn’t a good rye bread in San Bernardino,” he jokes.

Even in grade school, Feuer’s mother recalled, her oldest son had a well-honed sense of justice--and was willing to say so.

“The girls wanted to play baseball,” Stella Feuer said. “The boys said, ‘You can’t play.’ But Mike said, ‘If they’re good, why not?’ ”

President and valedictorian of his high school class, Feuer also played on the basketball team. He earned a Phi Beta Kappa key at Harvard College, while volunteering as a Big Brother to a fatherless child, and went on to Harvard Law School, again graduating with honors.

In law school, Feuer did free legal work for two agencies, advised younger law students and worked part-time. A coveted law clerkship with newly appointed California Supreme Court Justice Joseph Grodin followed graduation.

An obvious question, but one that irks Feuer, is whether he could be fairly described as an overachiever. “I hate that word,” he said.

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After a short stint at a Downtown Los Angeles law firm, Feuer wrote issue papers for Tom Bradley’s 1986 gubernatorial campaign, then taught at UCLA law school. At 28, he was selected to succeed former Assemblyman Terry B. Friedman, now a judge, at Bet Tzedek, where he doubled the budget and oversaw a staff of 55, plus 500 volunteers.

As director of Bet Tzedek, which means House of Justice, Feuer said he has initiated and lobbied for legislation at every level of government. He has created programs to help small business owners get back on their feet after the riots and to help Northridge earthquake victims navigate the government bureaucracy to secure disaster assistance.

To describe Feuer’s impact on Bet Tzedek, attorney Alan Friedman recalls when he asked another of the group’s board members how a critical decision would be made. The reply: “We’ll all listen very carefully and then we’ll all do exactly what Michael tells us to do.”

As is common for first-time candidates, Feuer lacks endorsements from officeholders. Still, his list of supporters reads like a “Who’s Who” of Jewish community activists and includes noted private and public interest attorneys. Many of them have longtime ties to Yaroslavsky, but are nonetheless supporting Feuer.

Bruce Corwin, president of Metropolitan Theatres Corp. and a longtime political player in the city, described Feuer as “a superb human being,” a “good listener” and “great with people.”

“It would be wonderful for this city to have someone of his abilities (on the council),” Corwin said.

He also has endorsements from Women For, a respected local women’s advocacy group, and the local chapter of the Sierra Club.

A renters rights group, the Coalition for Economic Survival, on Tuesday also gave Feuer the top marks among 5th District candidates for his position on tenant issues including rent control.

Grodin, now a professor at Hastings School of Law in San Francisco, remains a fan and supporter of his former clerk, praising Feuer’s ability to balance legal principles with their effect on people in the real world.

“From the outset, he had a degree of self-confidence that made him unusual,” Grodin said.

To some, however, that self-confidence has come across as self-importance.

“He’s smart, but I have heard his approach rubs some people wrong,” said opponent Brain. “I want to like Mike, but something about the way he presents his stuff makes me uncomfortable.”

Feuer has drawn cautious reviews from some homeowner group leaders, who mix praise with carefully worded questions about his commitment to their agenda.

“My concern is whether he’ll give homeowner groups a strong enough voice,” said activist Diana Plotkin.

To former client Jennie Swerdlow, though, Feuer is a hero. She says he saved her apartment and those of other Venice seniors, heading off a developer’s plan to turn the units into hotel rooms.

“The man treated us like we were his own parents,” Swerdlow said. “Besides voting for him, the people ought to pray he’ll get in.”

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Profile of Mike Feuer * BORN: May 14, 1958, in San Bernardino

* HOMETOWN: Beverlywood area of Los Angeles’ Westside

* EDUCATION: Magna cum laude graduate of Harvard University; cum laude graduate of Harvard Law School

* MARITAL STATUS: Married to environmental attorney Gail Ruderman, with two children.

* CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Director, Bet Tzedek legal services agency, 10 years; instructor, UCLA Law School; issues director, Tom Bradley’s 1986 gubernatorial campaign; attorney, Hufstedler, Miller, Carlson & Beardsley; and law clerk, Hon. Joseph Grodin, California Supreme Court