Former Top Aide Tells Braude She’ll Run Against Him for Council in ’97 : Politics: Cindy Miscikowski reportedly has a friendly meeting with her onetime boss, but the race could be bitter. His status at City Hall has been buffeted recently.

In what looms as a bitter contest between members of a once inseparable political team, Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude has been told by his former top aide, Cindy Miscikowski, that she will challenge his reelection in 1997.

News of Miscikowski’s candidacy adds to a string of political troubles that vex the 75-year-old Braude, the council’s senior member in tenure and age.

Only Wednesday, in a messy leadership fight on the council floor, Braude lost his quest to retain the council’s second-ranking post of president pro tempore after earlier mounting a failed bid to unseat John Ferraro from the presidency.

Braude, who has made his mark fighting plans to drill for oil along Pacific Coast Highway and has been the council’s leading anti-smoking advocate, has told advisers he looks forward to running for reelection and is confident of winning another term. Since 1965, the councilman has represented the 11th District, which includes Brentwood, Encino and Pacific Palisades as well as Van Nuys, Woodland Hills and Tarzana.

“He’s very determined to run, and anyone who thinks he’ll be easy pickings is fooling themselves,” said Steve Afriat, a political adviser to Braude.

But one City Hall observer who insisted on anonymity said he still wonders if Braude will run. “If there are a half-dozen challengers and he needs to spend a half-million dollars to win, he might just have second thoughts,” said the source.

At a breakfast meeting at the Radisson Bel-Air Hotel two weeks ago, Miscikowski, the 47-year-old wife of attorney-lobbyist Doug Ring, heir to a real estate fortune, told Braude she felt compelled to throw her hat into the ring because several other political wanna-bes were circling the 11th District race.

Sources close to both Braude and Miscikowski said the meeting between the two--who once were said to have a virtual father-daughter relationship--was friendly. Miscikowski worked for Braude for 21 years and stepped down as chief deputy a year ago.

She declined to comment on the meeting, and Braude refused to say more than that he welcomed the chance to run for reelection.

Miscikowski, now executive director of the Skirball Cultural Center, a facility under construction in the Sepulveda Pass, lives in an art-filled home in Brentwood with Ring, who was an aide to former County Supervisor Baxter Ward. More recently, he was a city library commissioner under former Mayor Tom Bradley.

According to sources familiar with the Braude-Miscikowski talks, Miscikowski told her former boss she was being pressed by a number of people to run, felt concerned about the growing number of potential challengers to Braude and feared she could lose her chance to represent the 11th District on the council.

Miscikowski also warned Braude that she thought “he’d have a very difficult race in 1997,” said one source close to the former aide.

At least four other people are considering a possible run against Braude, including Lea Purwin D’Agostino, a deputy in the county district attorney’s office.

A source close to Miscikowski said she was relieved to have finally told Braude of her ambitions, a move that helped clear her conscience as her campaign shifts into gear. “Cindy did show some class by giving Marvin plenty of warning,” said one observer close to both.

Miscikowski would not be the first former aide to challenge her City Hall boss. In 1993, Councilwoman Joy Picus was unseated by Laura Chick, a former aide, in a bitter contest in which Picus accused Chick of betrayal.

Although both Miscikowski and Braude reportedly gave each other assurances at their breakfast meeting that they would keep their political fight clean, others at City Hall predict differently. “It’s got to get ugly,” said one observer.

Miscikowski’s Achilles’ heel is expected to be her husband. As a local lobbyist, Ring has business ties likely to come under close scrutiny. “Her problem is Doug, Doug and more Doug,” said one political observer who spoke on condition of anonymity.