L.A. ELECTIONS / 5TH DISTRICT : Jeff Brain Touts His Record in Long-Shot Bid

The scene was a small, crowded community hall in Sherman Oaks and Jeff Brain, one of the candidates vying for the vacant 5th District seat on the Los Angeles City Council, took the microphone to rattle off a litany of local accomplishments.

He started the Sherman Oaks street fair to raise money for area schools, he told the crowd. He was instrumental in getting a shuttle bus to run along Ventura Boulevard and headed a committee to oversee a revitalization plan for the busy thoroughfare.

After Brain sat down, Lea Purwin D’Agostino, then a candidate as well, jokingly promised that she would hire him to oversee the Sherman Oaks section of the district if she was elected.

Unfortunately for Brain, that backhanded compliment epitomizes his campaign: While the longtime activist and businessman boasts many praiseworthy accomplishments in his community, he is considered by some to be a long shot to beat three other hopefuls, all of whom have greater name recognition and larger bankrolls.

Brain had raised about $37,000 as of February while Barbara Yaroslavsky, whose husband, Zev, held the post for 19 years before resigning to sit on the County Board of Supervisors, had collected more than $307,000.

The other candidates are former school board member Roberta Weintraub and Mike Feuer, who headed the Bet Tzedek legal services agency.

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Nonetheless, Brain says he should not be counted out just yet. After all, he is still in the race for the April 11 primary, while D’Agostino has dropped out after failing to submit enough valid signatures on her nominating petition.

“I don’t have the money they have . . . but I feel really good about our chances,” Brain said during an interview at his Sherman Oaks apartment while his wife, Maricel, made campaign calls and his 10-month-old daughter, Jessie, squealed and wheeled around the living room in a walker.

A soft-spoken real estate broker and former Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce president, Brain, 35, is described by supporters as a leader with a hands-on approach to problem solving and a strong grasp of details--qualities they say he has demonstrated while spearheading the street fair and the boulevard’s revitalization plan.

But political observers and some community leaders who have seen him at candidate forums say he comes across as uncharismatic and dry. Even though the race is nonpartisan, he is a Republican in a district where Democrats outnumber Republicans 55% to 30%. The district stretches from Sherman Oaks to West Los Angeles.

Brain concedes that he is not a polished public speaker but said he does not count that as a major weakness. “What I lack in charisma, I make up for by getting things done,” he said.

As for his politics, he said he considers himself a moderate conservative, akin to Mayor Richard Riordan, and contends that his pro-business record will be welcomed by voters who are frustrated with anti-businesses sentiments that have hurt the city.

“I’m a fiscal conservative and that means someone who believes we’d best not tax people and we run government as lean as possible,” he said.

Brain also has a somewhat quirky side, as demonstrated by the “Brain Man” super-hero that is featured on his campaign buttons, literature, and the milk caps that have become a popular plaything for kids and that are his unique calling card in the race.

A caped crusader with sagging muscles and a huge, exposed brain, “Brain Man” is a character Brain said he introduced to add a bit of levity to the council campaign.

The son of an aerospace executive, Brain was born in Long Island, where he spent his early years. While growing up, the family’s five children moved back and forth across the country, following their father’s work. Brain settled in the San Fernando Valley in 1979 and earned degrees in real estate and accounting from Cal State Northridge.

After graduating, he joined an investment firm in Universal City, but left after two years to start his own real estate business, specializing in commercial leasing and sales along Ventura Boulevard. Last year, he closed the company to run for the council seat and took a job as senior vice president of Zugsmith-Thind Commercial Real Estate.

He first got involved in civic issues when a member of the Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce urged him to join, telling him that it would provide him a forum to network with other business owners. He joined in 1987 and became president of the group in 1991.

Although real estate sales made him a comfortable living, Brain said he drew more satisfaction from tackling community problems.

But when he began to take on civic issues, other community leaders said Brain was abrasive and confrontational with those who disagreed with his pro-business positions.

“When he first got heavily involved in the chamber he was more difficult to work with,” said Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. “He made more enemies than friends because he was more concerned with what was good for business.”

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They said he became more sensitive to divergent views as he took on leadership roles in the community, such as the presidency of a citizens advisory group formed to oversee Ventura Boulevard’s revitalization plan.

“I think he is maturing as a consensus builder,” said Fred Gains, a lawyer and community activist in Sherman Oaks. “He’s come a long way.”

In 1992, Brain jumped into a long-debated controversy when then-Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky appointed him to a citizens committee to oversee the implementation of the Ventura Boulevard Specific Plan, a blueprint to control growth and fund $220-million worth of improvements on the boulevard.

But soon after joining the committee, Brain began to pick the plan apart and eventually uncovered flaws in the city’s cost estimates and plans to widen dozens of intersections.

The plan, adopted in 1991 but retroactive to 1989, was to be funded by fees charged to businesses that generated new vehicle trips.

But Brain said he discovered that the city had overestimated the number of trips that would be generated and found that about half of the intersections that the city wanted to widen had buildings in the way--two errors that were confirmed by an independent consultant.

Embarrassed city planners eventually admitted the errors and worked with Brain and other community representatives to revamp the plan by cutting the price tag to $76 million and reducing the reliance on trip fees. A bigger portion of the bill will be paid for by an assessment district that spreads the cost of the project to all businesses along the boulevard.

The new plan was supported last month by the city’s Planning Commission and is scheduled for a council vote, probably next month.

Karen Rubenstein, a community volunteer who counts herself as a fan of Brain and his work, agrees with others who say he does not lead through inspiration or charisma. But she said charisma is overrated.

“I watch TV when I want to see celebrities with charisma,” she said. “I don’t go by charisma as much as I do by hard work and integrity.”