Brain Gives Barbara Yaroslavsky a Boost North of Mulholland

BACKING BARBARA: In her second endorsement from a San Fernando Valley community leader in as many weeks, Barbara Yaroslavsky Thursday won the support of Jeff Brain, a former candidate for the vacant 5th District City Council seat and past president of the Sherman Oaks Chamber of Commerce.

The endorsements come only a week after Yaroslavsky gained the endorsement of Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn. She cites both endorsements as evidence that her campaign is gaining momentum in the Valley, which represents 40% of the voters in the district.

Brain said he supports Yaroslavsky because he believes she is most likely to support Mayor Richard Riordan’s efforts to hire more police officers and streamline the city’s building-permit process.

But what was surprising about the endorsement is how critical Brain has become of Mike Feuer, Yaroslavsky’s opponent in the June 6 runoff. Brain once praised Feuer as being a “very bright man.”

In supporting Yaroslavsky, Brain accused Feuer of portraying himself as a conservative candidate to Republican voters and as a liberal to Democratic voters. As evidence, he cites a campaign mailer that Feuer sent to Republican voters during the primary race that took Yaroslavsky and former school board member Roberta Weintraub to task for being tied to “some of the most liberal politicians in the city.”

“This guy is clearly liberal, and if he can’t even stand up to his own colors, that really bothers me,” Brain said.

Feuer’s camp rejected Brain’s charges that he is a political chameleon and fired back, accusing Brain of hypocrisy because he supports Yaroslavsky even though he told voters during the primary that he believed she was not qualified for the post because she was unfamiliar with the issues.

“I thought Brain was a man of substance and integrity,” said Cynthia Corona, Feuer’s campaign manager.

Corona conceded that the mailer to Republicans came from Feuer’s campaign, but she rejected charges that Feuer was trying to deceive voters.

“I don’t think Mike has tried to portray himself as conservative or liberal,” she said. “I think he is not tied to the boundaries of left and right.”

Feuer, the former director of a legal aid program, took 40% of the vote in the April 11 primary, compared to Yaroslavsky’s 27%. The two will square off to see who will fill the post left vacant when Yaroslavsky’s husband, Zev, resigned last year to take a seat on the County Board of Supervisors.

Weintraub got 21% of the vote while Brain drew 12%. But his value to Yaroslavsky is that he got 21% of the vote in the Valley, compared to only 19% for Yaroslavsky, who came in last here.

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OFFICE SPACE: The primary for the vacant 5th District City Council seat drew more than $1 million in campaign contributions to the four candidates, and the runoff between the finalists is expected to generate almost as much.

But the prize these candidates are battling over may not be all it is cracked up to be.

Sure, the winner gets to represent the well-to-do area that stretches from Sherman Oaks to the Fairfax district. But the City Hall offices the victor will inherit are pretty bare, having been “cannibalized” by the previous occupant and other council members.

When Zev Yaroslavsky left the post in December to become a county supervisor, he took with him 120 boxes of records. Although a city historian has argued that the documents belong to the city, Yaroslavsky continues to hold on to the files.

What’s more, Yaroslavsky apparently liked his City Hall furniture so well that he bought nine pieces, including his desk, chair and sofa, and took them with him to the Los Angeles County Hall of Administration. The city sold him all nine pieces for the bargain-basement price of $129.80.

With Yaroslavsky gone, a scramble ensued among other council members eager to move into his former digs. Due to his seniority, Councilman Mike Hernandez won the right to take over the empty offices and Councilman Richard Alarcon, in turn, moved into Hernandez’s offices. The winner of the 5th District race gets Alarcon’s old offices.

Because Yaroslavsky took some of his furniture, Hernandez took some furniture with him to fill the gaps in Yaroslavsky’s old office. Alarcon, in turn, took furniture from his office to fill in the gaps in Hernandez’s old offices.

The big loser in this game of musical offices was the 5th District offices.

Avak Keotahian, the administrator assigned to oversee the 5th District until a new council member is elected, said he was forced to scrounge up replacement furniture to do his job.

The reception area is without the couches that were there before. The main office lacks a desk and chair. Other assorted pieces, such as the main conference room table, are also missing.

Keotahian replaced the desk with an old fold-out table. Pushed up next to it is a worn, greenish-yellow chair that Keotahian found. The large table that once adorned the conference room has also been replaced by another fold-out table.

Welcome to City Hall. Take a seat.

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UP IN SMOKE: Kenneth W. Starr, the independent counsel in the Whitewater investigation, has his sights set on Rep. Henry A. Waxman (D-Los Angeles).

No, Waxman did not join President Clinton and the First Lady in their ill-fated development in the Ozarks. He made no investments in James B. McDougal’s now-defunct Madison Guaranty Savings and Loan. And he didn’t abscond with papers in Vince Foster’s office after the White House deputy counsel shot himself to death.

No, Waxman has nothing to do with the Whitewater mess at all.

Starr has been retained by tobacco giant Brown & Williamson to force Waxman and Rep. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) to hand over confidential documents the congressmen received that the company says were pilfered from its files.

A U.S. district judge quashed the company’s subpoenas last year in a ruling that held such legal action directed against a member of Congress as unconstitutional.

The company appealed the decision and Starr faced off with Solicitor General Barbara Bracher before the U.S. Court of Appeals Thursday.

House Counsel Cheryl Lau, in an interview, said congressmen like Waxman are exempt from subpoenas under the Constitution “as long as they are operating in the legitimate legislative sphere.” Waxman’s committee hearings aimed at exposing the goings on in the tobacco industry were just that, she said.

Bringing Starr aboard, Waxman aide Phil Schiliro said, was meant to intimidate Waxman and others who dare take on King Tobacco. After all, Starr is a legal hotshot who has served on the U.S. Court of Appeals himself and was solicitor general under former President George Bush. His name is frequently mentioned as a future Republican Supreme Court nominee.

But Starr’s impressive legal skills have had no demonstrable effect on Waxman: Not quaking in his wingtips one bit, the congressman remains confident he will put the legal battle behind him when the appeals court issues its decision soon.

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ERASING THE RED: With Election Day ’96 still a long way off, Rich Sybert is in the midst of an aggressive drive to erase his campaign debt and start building a financial nest egg for his planned challenge of Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson (D-Woodland Hills).

The former planning director to Gov. Pete Wilson had a year-end campaign deficit of $566,877.29 after the neck-to-neck contest to represent the 24th Congressional District. But Sybert says his financial state is not so grim as those numbers make it appear.

Most of that debt is from money Sybert himself donated to his campaign and does not expect to recover, he says.

To fill his campaign coffers, Sybert recently staged a joint fund-raising reception with the Republican Party of Los Angeles County. Held at a private home in Beverly Hills, the event featured Massachusetts Gov. William F. Weld, a popular Republican whose name has been floated as a future presidential prospect.

The Sybert-Beilenson rematch received its first infusion of cash last month when Sybert hosted another GOP VIP--Haley Barbour, chairman of the Republican National Committee. He snagged about $12,000 there.

“People have a little bit of donor fatigue because the election is so fresh in people’s minds,” Sybert acknowledged. “But I’m raising the money steadily and I’m going to keep on building.”

The Republican Party itself is excited that Sybert is back but is unwilling to officially endorse anyone so far in advance of the election.

“Beilenson is a target,” said Craig Veith, spokesman for the National Republican Congressional Committee. “But it is too early to get behind any one candidate.”

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HALL OF FAMER: They spend their days now in separate Downtown government buildings, but accused double murderer O.J. Simpson and Los Angeles City Council President John Ferraro have a common past.

Both were football standouts at USC. And in a month, Ferraro will join Simpson as a member of the university’s Athletic Hall of Fame, whose luminaries include Frank Gifford and Buster Crabbe, among others.

Ferraro’s days on the playing field predate the Juice’s by two decades. Ferraro, at 6 feet, 4 inches and 235 pounds, was a two-time All-American tackle for USC during World War II and played in three Rose Bowls.

He lettered for four years “at a time when four-year lettermen were rare,” said a mini-biography put out by USC, and “he was one of the biggest players of his era.”

The June 17 induction ceremony, which Ferraro is expected to attend, will mark the second class of inductees to USC’s Hall of Fame. Simpson was inducted in last year’s charter class.

Martin and Chu reported from Los Angeles and Lacey from Washington, D.C.