L.A. ELECTIONS / 10TH COUNCIL DISTRICT : Riordan Calls Political Mailer Sent by Sanders Misleading

The hard-fought 10th District Los Angeles City Council race moved toward a furious end Friday as Mayor Richard Riordan issued a statement calling a last-minute political mailer by candidate J. Stanley Sanders “misleading.”

The mailer implied that Sanders, an attorney seeking to unseat Councilman Nate Holden, was endorsed by the mayor. The Holden-Sanders matchup will be settled in Tuesday’s election.

“The mailer is misleading,” the brief statement read. “Voters should know that while Stan Sanders’ campaign brochure may imply otherwise, Mayor Riordan has been neutral in the 10th Council District race.”

The Riordan statement also warned that a photo of Sanders with the mayor and a complimentary statement the mayor made about Sanders in 1993--as Sanders endorsed Riordan’s mayoral bid--were used without Riordan’s permission. Riordan issued his denial after Holden appealed to the mayor for help.

Sanders’ press secretary, Joe Scott, called Holden’s reaction to the mailer the “crybaby tactic of a guy whose campaign is in meltdown.”

Scott denied that the mailer was misleading and noted that the same picture of Sanders and Riordan and the mayor’s statement praising Sanders as representing “everything that is good about Los Angeles” had appeared as part of a 26-page Sanders mailer in the primary. “No one complained then,” Scott noted.

Voters in the 10th District began getting the mailer Thursday, according to Holden, who said it was targeted at a small--but potentially important--bloc of 10th District Republican voters who might be swayed by an endorsement by Riordan, a Republican businessman.

In a separate statement, Holden said the mailer was another example of his foe’s “reckless disregard for the truth” and heatedly denied other charges made in the piece, including allegations that Holden had “voted to increase his own pay by 75%” and had “asked taxpayers to pay over $250,000 to remodel his council office.”

Since Holden took office in 1987, council salaries have gone from $55,929 to $98,069, a 75% increase. But Holden noted that most of the increase could be attributed to a 1990 voter-approved measure.

Holden called the office remodeling charge “completely made up.” Randall Bacon, general manager of the Department of General Services, said Holden had had only minor remodeling work done on his council office. But in 1991, a Holden request to redo his office--at an estimated cost of $280,000--was turned down.