6 City Hall Veterans Aim to Get a Seat for Themselves

After paying their dues in supporting roles and waiting for term limits to give them a chance, six candidates with a combined 78 years of experience at City Hall are vying to represent the southwest San Fernando Valley on the Los Angeles City Council.

The race for the 3rd District seat in the April 10 election includes a police union director, a veteran city building inspector, a city prosecutor, one council deputy and two former council aides.

“It’s absolutely a wide-open race. They all have pockets of support,” said Harvey Englander, who was the political consultant for incumbent Laura Chick’s two successful campaigns for the seat. Term limits are forcing Chick from her seat.

They are competing to represent an area under the domain of City Hall but not always under its spell. At its western edge, the district reaches far from downtown, and it feels more like suburbia than America’s second-largest city. Compared with South-Central or some Eastside neighborhoods, crime is low and incomes high.

Homicides in West Valley, for instance, numbered just four all last year and typically don’t break 10--a pittance compared with some more dangerous communities. But there have been several high-profile killings this year that have residents on edge.

Fear of crime and dissatisfaction with City Hall run deep in the diverse district, home to more than 230,000 people--from working class neighborhoods in Reseda, Canoga Park and Van Nuys to gleaming office towers in Warner Center, the Valley’s business hub.

As a result, police services and secession--with school district breakup--dominate the debate.

“There is a ton of support for secession here,” said Joe Vogt, who owns a coffee shop and construction company in Canoga Park. “People are looking for someone who can get things done.”

In the early stages of the campaign, council deputy Francine Oschin of Reseda and police union director Dennis Zine of West Hills appear to be ahead of their rivals, at least in terms of endorsements and name recognition and, in the case of Oschin, money.

But Englander said ex-council aide Tsilah Burman of Woodland Hills is “nipping at their heels.”

Former 3rd District Councilwoman Joy Picus said ex-council aide Judith Hirshberg of Encino, whom she has endorsed, also is among the leading contenders.

In fact, Hirshberg, who was a longtime aide to former Councilman Marvin Braude, has raised the second-largest amount--$79,800--and has been endorsed by Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina, U.S. Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) and Sheila Kuehl (D-Santa Monica), who represents part of the district in the state Senate.

Oschin has raised $120,000, tops in the race as of Dec. 31, and has the endorsement of Mayor Richard Riordan. Zine showed vote-getting ability in 1997 when he won an election over two others to represent the 3rd District on the city’s elected Charter Reform Commission.

Burman, meanwhile, has worked for many of the Valley’s top politicians, including Rep. Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles) and Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky when he was on the Los Angeles City Council.

The other two candidates, senior building inspector Frank Bush of Reseda and deputy city attorney Jason Dominguez of Van Nuys, are trailing the others in fund-raising and are struggling to mount grass-roots campaigns without major endorsements or high public profiles.

“It’s going to go down to the wire,” predicted Helen Norman, president of the Tarzana Property Owners Assn. “And it’s going to be feisty.”

The quality of policing--and the heated debate over how best to manage the LAPD--already has captivated the candidates as they try to make their cases.

Zine, 53, in particular has identified those issues as core campaign messages. The sergeant, who has worked for the LAPD for 32 years, argues that he is the best qualified contender to understand and solve policing problems. He favors increasing police patrols and restoring the popular senior lead officer program, as well as bringing back a special auto theft detail.

“Being in law enforcement, I have the experience to make sure the West Valley gets its proper share of resources,” Zine said.

His rivals bring different backgrounds to the police debate, but offer some of the same suggestions for change. Oschin, for instance, endorses expansion of the LAPD to 10,000 officers, a long-standing pledge of Riordan, who failed to fulfill it. She also supports providing at least one paramedic ambulance at each area fire station.

“I decided to run because I really think the city needs to refocus its priorities on its primary responsibilities, which are keeping neighborhoods safe and free of crime and violence,” said Oschin, who is 57.

Bush, 45, has worked with the senior lead officers and supports restoring that program. Like Zine, he also favors restoring the LAPD’s stolen car program.

While those three agree on their opposition to the city’s recent decision to enter into a consent decree with the federal government--which will bind the city to implement reforms over the next five years--other contenders voiced support for that approach.

Hirshberg, for instance, says she reluctantly supports it, and Burman says the time for it has come.

“The Police Department had many opportunities to make changes, and they didn’t,” said Burman, who is 42.

A former deputy district attorney, assistant city attorney and high school teacher, Dominguez, 32, emphasizes fighting crime and blight and uniting communities. But he too endorses the consent decree as a way of pushing the LAPD toward progress.

“The federal government is going to make sure we achieve certain goals,” he said. “But it is up to us as well to make those goals a reality.”

Amid the talk of reforming and refocusing the LAPD, the candidates for the 3rd District seat also are addressing a broader, more fundamental issue: whether to stay with the rest of the city at all.

And yet, despite some evidence of support for secession in the district, none of the candidates in the race expressed unqualified support for municipal breakup.

Two--Bush and Hirshberg--are openly opposed, while their rivals endorse a range of views, from fighting to improve city services to considering a different kind of breakup: that of the school district.

“I am interested in leading a resurgence of interest in breaking up the Los Angeles Unified School District, which has just become more and more mediocre every day,” Oschin said.

On Valley cityhood, though not ruling it out, Oschin said: “I could support secession if it is proven that it is a better deal for Valley taxpayers.”

Hirshberg, who has 20 years of experience in City Hall--including stints with former Mayor Tom Bradley and former Councilman Marvin Braude--opposes the secession drive but has not taken a position on school district breakup.

“It hasn’t been proven to me what we are going to get will be better for the city,” she said of Valley cityhood.

Instead, she favors efforts to tackle the underlying causes of secession, mainly the widespread unhappiness with city services. “People want trees trimmed, sidewalks fixed, graffiti gone,” she said. “They want to live in a safe, clean, beautiful community.”

That’s a call widely echoed in the campaign thus far.

“The city isn’t providing an adequate level of services, so what I want to see is a reprioritization of the budget so that we get back to basics,” said Burman, adding that the police, fire and street maintenance departments should get priority.

Of the candidates traversing the West Valley in pursuit of support, Dominguez comes closest to endorsing secession as a remedy to the region’s ills. He calls himself neutral on a school district breakup, but says of secession: “Depending on the numbers, I most likely would support it.”

Like all the candidates, Dominguez sees plenty of room for improvement in city government.

Bush agrees.

As a senior building inspector, Bush said he is running because he has seen ways that the city can do a better job in neighborhoods.

“I’m tired of seeing a lot of things that need to be changed, and I want to get in and turn them around,” Bush said.

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District 3

Key issues:

Secession, school district breakup, oversight of the LAPD

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Candidates:

* Frank Bush, 45, senior city building inspector, lives in Reseda.

* Tsilah Burman, 42, South Valley planning commissioner and marketing manager for the firm CB Richard Ellis Investors, lives in Woodland Hills.

* Jason Dominguez, 32, deputy city attorney, lives in Van Nuys.

* Judith Hirshberg, 67, retired deputy for former Councilman Marvin Braude, lives in Encino.

* Francine Oschin, 57, aide to Councilman Hal Bernson, lives in Reseda.

* Dennis Zine, 53, LAPD sergeant and director of the Police Protective League, lives in West Hills.