Negative Ads Fly as Election Day Approaches

While the six major mayoral candidates fanned across the city Saturday glad-handing voters, their campaigns continued their dogfight on the airwaves, hoping to pull ahead in the closing days of what remains a tightly contested race.

Councilman Joel Wachs gently canvassed senior citizens in person, but his latest television advertisement fired at businessman Steve Soboroff, accusing him of wasting money during his time as the head of the school repair and construction oversight committee, failing to curtail spending on the Belmont Learning Complex, and selling land to a political donor even though it had been promised to the school district.

Wachs said he ran the new ad because was fed up with the “scurrilous attacks” on him in mailers sent out recently by the Republican Party on Soboroff’s behalf.

Phil Paule, a spokesman for Soboroff, called the ad “desperate” and said the charges were untrue.

Meanwhile, former Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa launched a radio advertisement to combat attack recent ads paid for by the Morongo Band of Mission Indians. Villaraigosa’s radio spot calls the attack ad “a last-minute dirty trick” and implies that City Atty. James K. Hahn was behind the tactic.

Hahn has denied any connection to the ad, and Villaraigosa has not proven otherwise.

In another ugly turn, a recorded phone call went out to voters on Passover Eve purporting to be from Soboroff’s campaign in which a man claimed Soboroff’s polling numbers were falling and the campaign has “become entirely dependent on Jewish money.”

Ace Smith, Soboroff’s campaign manager, deplored the tactic: “It’s sick. Whoever is behind it should be ashamed of themselves.”

As they barnstormed across the soggy city Saturday, the candidates themselves tried to rise above the charges and counter-charges by their operatives.

A jovial Soboroff, for instance, toured parts of Los Angeles with Mayor Richard Riordan, his most important supporter.

“Hola,” Soboroff greeted a family eating in an open-air Mexican restaurant on Olvera Street, trying out his rusty Spanish. “Esteban para alcalde. Steve for mayor.”

They nodded and smiled without answering.

Hahn was miles away, following a scripted walk of precincts in Arleta. His campaign workers had already fanned out over the suburban neighborhood to figure out who was home--and whether they planned to vote for Hahn.

“Mary’s a definite voter, but George isn’t sure,” an aide told Hahn as they bustled down Nagle Avenue toward one pre-screened house, a dozen volunteers and reporters trailing behind.

Mary Shelemba threw open her door as the entourage approached.

She asked for Hahn’s autograph, telling her husband, who was leaning toward Villaraigosa: “If he’s anything like his dad, I want him.” The candidate’s father, the late Kenneth Hahn, was a much-loved Los Angeles County supervisor.

“I am just like him,” Hahn replied.

Villaraigosa spent the morning pumping up the enthusiasm among his campaign’s foot soldiers--more than 1,000 union members who defied the morning rain to attend a rally under a tent in the parking lot of a Mid-City union hall.

“Isn’t it fitting that people from every corner of this city, from every community of this city, are sitting together side by side under a big tent?” Villaraigosa shouted above the crowd. “Because if this candidacy is about anything, it is about the big tent that is Los Angeles.”

Underdogs Rep. Xavier Becerra and state Controller Kathleen Connell campaigned valiantly, insisting that they weren’t daunted by their low showings in the polls.

Becerra said 300 of his volunteers plan to wake up at 4 a.m. today to hang campaign literature on doors.

“It’s very encouraging when you see the number of volunteers coming out with their support,” said Becerra, standing in the drizzling rain during the unveiling of an angel statue at Plaza de la Raza in Lincoln Heights.

Connell spent her Saturday lunch hour marching with a group of protesters, some dressed as frogs and turtles, trying to save the Ballona Wetlands in West Los Angeles.

Dressed in hiking boots and an anorak, Connell said the “only thing that really matters at this point is getting the people out to vote.”

As for Wachs, the veteran councilman eased into his final campaign lap with a quiet visit to the Villa Scalabrini retirement home in Sun Valley, where many of the 200 residents are in their 90s.

Wachs said he was counting on a hefty turnout from elderly voters to propel him into the runoff, but it was unclear whether many of the frail folks he met at the center, a Catholic home filled with imported Italian furniture, would even make it to the polls Tuesday.

“Your name is Joel Wachs?” asked Virginia Innes, 85, a great-grandmother who once lived in Van Nuys. “OK, I’ll remember.” A moment later, she asked a visitor: “What’s his name again?”

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Times staff writers James Rainey, Jeffrey L. Rabin and Noaki Schwartz contributed to this story.