Feuer Says Foe Got Illegal Campaign Contribution

Councilman Mike Feuer, a leading candidate for Los Angeles city attorney, on Friday accused his main competitor of colluding with a billboard company to receive an illegal campaign contribution.

In a letter to the city’s Ethics Commission, Feuer’s campaign consultant said a new Web site for Deputy Mayor Rocky Delgadillo uses graphics identical to one that Eller Media Co. used on billboard signs it recently put up to support Delgadillo.

Eller earlier this week reported the $40,000 in signs as an “independent expenditure,” spending which, under the city’s anti-corruption law, must be made without any coordination with the campaign. On Friday, Eller reported that it had put up an additional $21,000 worth of signs supporting Delgadillo.

A Delgadillo spokesman said the accusations “are completely unfounded and without substantiation.”

Feuer campaign consultant Larry Levine said the Web site, still under construction and consisting of just the one page bearing the graphics, appeared shortly before Eller put the same graphic on eight large billboards around the city and before the logo appeared on campaign brochures.

“It’s clear that the campaign used the Web site to surreptitiously provide the graphic design to the billboard company,” Levine said in a news release announcing his complaint. “The only way the billboard company could have known to look for the Web site and find the graphics there would be if the Delgadillo campaign directed the company to look there.”

Levine urged the commission to consider Eller’s signs a direct “in kind” contribution (and therefore illegal because it exceeds the donation limits) and to refuse Delgadillo any public campaign funds he would otherwise receive.

In keeping with the panel’s long-standing policy of not commenting on complaints or possible pending investigations, an Ethics Commission representative on Friday declined to say even whether it had received the Feuer campaign’s letter.

Attorney Jerry Neuman of the Delgadillo campaign said the graphic was unveiled at Delgadillo’s campaign kickoff on Feb. 11 and has been used extensively on signs the campaign posted on the Eastside and in South-Central Los Angeles.

“Anyone can lift anything from a Web site or from publicly distributed materials,” Neuman said, adding that Feuer’s accusations were “the type of mudslinging tactic that comes from being desperate to gain voters’ attention.”

In pushing for strong restrictions on outdoor advertising during the six years he has been on the City Council, Feuer has angered the billboard industry. Eller Media Co. officials said earlier this week, however, that their differences with Feuer have nothing to with their strong financial backing of Delgadillo, who heads Mayor Richard Riordan’s economic development efforts.

Eller officials could not be reached for comment Friday.