ELECTIONS / L.A. CITY COUNCIL 2ND DISTRICT : Clary on Quixotic Quest Against Wachs

When Joel Wachs won his first term on the Los Angeles City Council in 1971, Watergate had yet to become a household word, the Vietnam War still raged in Southeast Asia and Bill Clinton was just another Yale law student.

Twenty-four years later, Wachs, 56, is running for his seventh term in office, positioning himself as an advocate for cost-effective government and increased police protection.

But his sole challenger, Wayne Clary, 48, a computer consultant from Sunland, charges that Wachs has had long enough to cut waste and improve public safety. He accuses the veteran councilman of becoming entrenched and out of touch with his constituents.

If this sounds as if it has the makings of an old-fashioned, knockdown drag-out political battle, think again.

Political consultants favor Wachs to beat Clary easily because, in part, Clary has no political track record and Wachs has two dozen years of experience, the support of Mayor Richard Riordan and a $173,500 campaign war chest that dwarfs Clary’s $10,500 account.

In fact, Wachs is so confident he will be reelected that he skipped one of the few candidate forums Monday night because it fell on the night UCLA played the University of Arkansas for the national basketball championship.

“I wasn’t going to miss that,” said Wachs, a UCLA alumnus.

The City Council’s 2nd District that Wachs represents is an oddly shaped jurisdiction that includes the communities of Sunland in the northeast San Fernando Valley, Studio City in the southeast Valley and Van Nuys in the central Valley.

Since he was first elected as a young tax attorney only six years out of Harvard Law School, Wachs has easily won reelection five times. In 1993, he ran for mayor a second time, gathering 11% of the vote citywide and finishing third overall. In his district, he finished second with 17% of the vote.

During his tenure, Wachs has championed the creation of the city’s Endowment for the Arts, rent-control laws to protect tenants, utility-rate discounts for senior citizens and laws barring discrimination against gays and lesbians.

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Although the race is nonpartisan, Wachs changed his party registration from Republican to Independent during his 1993 mayoral bid, saying he identified more closely with Independents than Republicans.

Clary, an associate pastor at his church and a former deputy sheriff in Wisconsin, is a Republican who has worked as a volunteer in the campaigns of former President George Bush and former Gov. George Deukmejian. “I’m a fiscal conservative but I’m liberal when it comes to addressing social problems,” he said.

In his campaign literature, Clary advocates increasing police patrols, adding more Neighborhood Watch programs, breaking up the Los Angeles Unified School District, slashing government red tape and improving communication between residents and city government.

For his part, Wachs has emphasized his recent efforts to cut waste at City Hall. With the support of Riordan, Wachs has led the charge, for example, to reform the city’s antiquated purchasing system, a plan that he said could save the city up to $70 million annually and help pay to hire hundreds of additional officers. The council put the purchasing reform plan on the April 11 ballot.

In fact, the idea is so popular that candidates for other council seats have campaigned on the purchasing reform plan, saying that the savings could fund improved police protection.

“I really see a huge opportunity for big savings if we follow through on this,” Wachs said. “I see the charter amendment as only a first step.”

Clary said he has nothing against Wachs’ reform plan, but questions the councilman for not proposing it sooner. “Why is it that he suddenly brings this up just before an election?” Clary asked.

Wachs has responded by saying that it was only after Riordan was elected in 1993 that he felt he could garner support for such reforms in City Hall. “I’ve been almost a lone voice on this,” he said.

That aside, Clary said he has other fundamental differences with Wachs.

For example, he cited a Times article last year that reported that Wachs and several other council members had transferred about $125,000 from public-service and neighborhood cleanup programs over a three-year period to pay for their staffs’ salaries.

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Wachs himself diverted nearly $39,000, according to the Times analysis. Clary criticized Wachs over the diversion, saying he would have used the money to help clean up graffiti-marred neighborhoods. Wachs has defended the transfer, saying it was used to retain staff that otherwise would have been eliminated due to budget cuts.

As for Clary’s charge that Wachs is out of touch with his constituents, Wachs said he spends many hours each week listening to residents’ concerns. Although he has not formed as many citizen advisory groups as some of his colleagues, Wachs said he keeps in touch mostly with homeowner groups, chamber of commerce leaders and school organizations.

“The very reason I’m going to win by a large margin is that I’m in touch with my constituents,” Wachs said.

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Profile of Wayne Clary

BORN: March 2, 1947, in Fresno

RESIDENCE: Sunland

EDUCATION: Associate’s degree in business from Columbia Basin College in Washington, and three years of graduate studies in computer science and business accounting

MARITAL STATUS: Married, two children

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: 1965-69, U.S. Air Force; 1977-78, deputy sheriff in Wisconsin; 1980-81, wrote two books on computer science; 1984-86, computer instructor at West Coast College in Fresno. Currently works as a computer consultant for the Los Angeles County office of education and has been an associate pastor in Sunland for the past five years

Profile of Joel Wachs

BORN: March 1, 1939, in Scranton, Pa.

RESIDENCE: Studio City

EDUCATION: Bachelor’s degree, UCLA; law degree, Harvard University; advanced degree in tax law, New York University

MARITAL STATUS: Single

CAREER HIGHLIGHTS: Practiced law in Los Angeles for six years. First elected to City Council in 1971 and served as council president 1981-83. Currently heads the council’s committee on government efficiency