Taking Sides in L.A.’s 5th District Runoff

Shame on you for your biased coverage of the Yaroslavsky/Feuer 5th District City Council seat race. It is no secret that The Times has endorsed Feuer. However, you are still this city’s only major metropolitan newspaper. It is therefore incumbent upon you to report the news--not distort the angle of it to your liking.

Barbara Yaroslavsky has been my friend for better than 17 years. She is the most honest, sincere, dedicated, capable, knowledgeable, hard-working person I know. She is also not a lawyer--which by default, makes her the best person for the job.

That’s my opinion and you’re entitled to yours--on the editorial page, not on the front page.

Shape up.

JUDY POMERANTZ

Tarzana

* I find Mr. Charles Robbins’ idea (Letters to the Editor, April 30) in speaking of Barbara Yaroslavsky, suggesting two family members in political government service is “unthinkable,” to be silly and outdated. Such productive women as Elizabeth Dole and Rep. Susan Molinari, both of whom have asked constituents to support them on their own terms, are examples of highly qualified women that would be kept out of government service by virtue of their husbands’ political careers.

However, with regard to the candidacy of Ms. Yaroslavsky, what I do find objectionable--and maybe this is what might be said of the women mentioned above--is Ms. Yaroslavsky has failed to provide any evidence that she is her own person, leaving most of us to believe that we would be electing at best an unknown quantity and at worst a mere extension of Zev (as Mr. Robbins seems to fear).

While promising to be more accessible, after a primary campaign in which she was roundly criticized for missing a slew of candidates’ forums, Ms. Yaroslavsky is again avoiding the public speaking opportunities in which we constituents might better find out exactly who she is. While it was noted in The Times (April 28) that her campaign, as evidence of accessibility, points to 21 events she will attend, in reality she has once again avoided the larger community-based forums open to the general public, instead organizing her own “coffees” and accepting invitations to affiliated groups with limited memberships and small meeting venues.

For example, Yaroslavsky has agreed to participate at the May meeting of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn.; this will be her third visit to this group since February. At the same time, she has yet to agree to attend a nonpartisan candidates forum to be held at Sherman Oaks Riverside Drive Elementary School on May 16 (the invitation for which was extended to her two days after the primary election to avoid any scheduling conflicts), sponsored by the various Democratic clubs across the Valley but widely promoted to the general community and expected to attract a large, broad-based audience of unaffiliated Valley voters of all parties. All five other runoff candidates for offices affecting the Valley, including Yaroslavsky’s opponent, have readily agreed to participate.

One might feel compelled to remind Ms. Yaroslavsky that if she is elected, in representing the interests of her constituents she will not be able to pick and choose formats of meetings or dictate circumstances of debate, running away from all but the small and amenable gatherings absent of significant opposition.

JOAN H. LEONARD

Sherman Oaks