3rd District Candidates a Study in Contrasts as Tallies Came In

Dennis Zine, a bundle of frenetic energy from start to finish, wasn’t in a mingling mood.

Locked in the city’s tightest contest on election night--a race he led by a precarious 132 votes Wednesday--Zine was barely a guest at his own victory party as he paced the hallways of the Warner Center Marriott and ducked outside to gulp fresh air from a 17th-floor balcony.

“Talk about stress,” he muttered. “I just can’t keep still.”

A few miles away in her Encino condo, his rival, Judith Hirshberg, was a portrait of unruffled cool as the votes were counted. At least until the wee hours of the morning, when the gracious hostess finally camped out in front the television to scrutinize the results.

Up by 186. Down by 42. It was like an all-night arm-wrestling match, muscles straining and elbows slipping as one contestant, then the other, gained a fraction of an inch.

More than 40,000 people cast ballots in the 3rd Council District, stretching from Van Nuys to West Hills, but they were so evenly divided that Zine’s edge amounted to just one vote per precinct.

For three hours after the polls closed, the West Valley might as well have been China for all the news that was getting out. Results were steadily tumbling in from other parts of the city, but word was scarce from the far-flung precincts of Woodland Hills and Canoga Park--more than 20 miles from the city’s vote-counting hub downtown. Only the absentee ballots had been tallied, awarding Hirshberg a slender lead.

“I’ve always felt that I was going to take the race,” she said in the same matter-of-fact tone she used during much of the campaign.

After all, the 68-year-old former council aide had scored a spot in the runoff by just 89 votes. She’d won the endorsement of the woman she aimed to succeed, Councilwoman Laura Chick, and she was a Democrat running in a largely Democratic district.

But a front-runner? For much of the race, it was anybody’s call.

Zine, a former charter commissioner, had finished first in the April 10 primary. He outspent Hirshberg even though she took in slightly more money in campaign contributions.

A police union director, Zine also tapped a rich vein of union support. The Police Protective League spent more than $115,000 to put him in office.

But Hirshberg, who racked up an impressive list of Democratic endorsements, fought back with a hard-edged mailer that accused Zine of neglecting his police duties as he campaigned. In a move Zine called “desperate,” the mailer also reminded voters that he was once relieved of duty after a female officer accused him of making inappropriate sexual advances. A police disciplinary board had cleared Zine of all charges.

But if the campaign was bruising, it was impossible to discern who would be left standing. Even hours after the polls closed, there was no clear sign of a winner.

As supporters clustered around two tiny televisions in Hirshberg’s condo complex, the candidate chatted amiably with old neighbors, hardly glancing at the results flashing across the screens.

But by 11:43 p.m., Zine had pushed ever so slightly ahead. Still, the 53-year-old police sergeant--a burly man who marshaled motorcycle cops against surging mobs during the 1992 riots--hardly seemed blessed with nerves of steel. More like Silly Putty.

“Are you kidding me?” he said as the night wore on. “I’m a wreck.”

At 12:33 a.m. Wednesday, his whisker-thin lead had slipped to 20 votes. Twenty minutes later, he was up by 103. He kept pacing, occasionally calling for his son Christopher to join him.

In Encino, Hirshberg’s weary guests were drifting home. Her husband of 47 years, Arthur, and her daughter Diane hovered close by. Hirshberg invited the remaining guests to move from the rec room into her home, where she kicked off her shoes and plopped onto the sofa.

Finally, at 1:40 a.m., the verdict was in. With all precincts reporting, Zine had clinched 20,296 votes to Hirshberg’s 20,164.

Suddenly his animated self again, Zine strutted from one end of the hall into a roomful of cheering fans. Someone popped open a bottle of Dom Perignon. Zine began throwing his arm over the shoulders of everyone in sight and calling the men his “brothers.” Across the Valley, a silence fell over Hirshberg’s family room. Her friends and family looked crestfallen. Hirshberg finally piped up. “Boy,” she said. “That was close, wasn’t it?”

It was so close that, by Wednesday, she was still refusing to concede. Zine, however, was quick to claim victory.

“It was an emotional roller coaster, no question about it,” he said. “I’m willing to declare victory. The numbers are the numbers.”

A small pile of provisional ballots remained to be counted, and Hirshberg’s campaign manager said she hoped to close the gap.

It was not clear whether Hirshberg would seek a recount. Late on election night, her campaign strategist, Larry Levine, advised against it unless her margin narrowed to about 10 votes.

But, as in the Tom Hayden campaign in the nearby 5th District, Hirshberg’s camp suggested Wednesday that trouble at the polls may have affected the outcome.

Hirshberg campaign manager Pamela Gomez said a volunteer had discovered one polling place that was shut down for an hour because the machines weren’t working.

Another volunteer reported seeing Zine riding around Tuesday on what appeared to be a city firetruck, Gomez said. A Zine spokesman denied the claim.

Zine, meanwhile, was already planning his first moves on the City Council. At the top of this Harley-lover’s agenda: kick-starting the neighborhood councils.

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Election Night Lead Change

The race between Judith Hirshberg and Dennis Zine for Los Angeles’ 3rd Council District representing the southwestern San Fernando Valley was so tight it may not be finally determined for two weeks. A look at how the lead seesawed as the votes were counted into the early hours of Wednesday:

Judith Hirshberg’s Lead

Hirshberg took an early lead after the mail vote count that grew to a 755-vote lead with 23% reporting.

Dennis Zine’s Lead

At 11:43 p.m., with 51% of the vote tabulated, Zine took a 42-vote lead over Hirshberg. After all of the 40,460 votes were counted, Zine held the lead by a slim 132-vote margin.

Researched by ANDREW BLANKSTEIN / Los Angeles Times