Yaroslavsky Accuses Foe in Council Race of Planting Spy in Her Campaign

Embarrassed that secret information from her campaign was being leaked to her opponent, 5th District City Council candidate Barbara Yaroslavsky on Tuesday accused Mike Feuer of planting a spy in her campaign.

Feuer’s camp conceded that they have benefited from leaks within Yaroslavsky’s campaign office, but rejected charges that they planted a spy.

“Information comes our way in phone calls or letters,” said Cynthia Corona, Feuer’s campaign manager. “We have not made a conscious effort to put someone in their camp.”

Yaroslavsky’s advisers said they were going public about the leaks to charge Feuer’s people with running a “Nixon-age” campaign, complete with undercover moles and strategic preemptive strikes.

“It shows again a lack of character on this man’s part,” Yaroslavsky campaign consultant Rick Taylor said of Feuer. “It reminds me of old-style campaign politics. It sounds like Nixon-age stuff.”

The charges were denied by Feuer’s campaign.

“There is a difference between getting information by windfall and aggressively seeking information,” Corona said. “We don’t have time to play these stupid games.”

Despite Taylor’s demands that Feuer reveal the source of the leaks, the informant’s identity remains a mystery. Feuer’s advisers would only say that the source may be someone or some people in Yaroslavsky’s camp who privately favor Feuer and are leaking information to help him win.

Information received by Feuer included the results of a poll conducted for Yaroslavsky’s campaign. The poll showed that Feuer was doing well among voters and that only a fraction of those polled held negative feelings toward him.

The information saved Feuer the cost and trouble of conducting his own poll and proved accurate. Feuer, the former head of a legal services clinic, was the top vote-getter in the April 11 primary election, drawing 39% of the vote, compared to 26% for Yaroslavsky.

Some information wasn’t so accurate.

Last week, Feuer was tipped that Yaroslavsky planned to attack his position on the death penalty, possibly using a photo of the bombed-out Oklahoma City federal building to suggest that Feuer would not support the death penalty for the convicted bombers.

An angry Feuer wrote Yaroslavsky that he would support the death penalty in the bombing case.

Yaroslavsky wrote back, telling Feuer that he had received bad information. Her camp would never use the Oklahoma tragedy to make political points, she said in her response.

While angry about the leaks, Taylor seemed unconcerned about the damage they caused.

“The ironic thing about this spy, whoever it is, is that he’s giving out some bad information,” he said.

Feuer and Yaroslavsky will face off in the June 6 runoff to fill the 5th District council post left vacant when Yaroslavsky’s husband, Zev, resigned the seat last year after he was elected to the County Board of Supervisors.