Hayden Heads Off Conflict, Returns Check

When Tom Hayden received a campaign contribution recently from Playboy Enterprises Inc., it surprised some 5th District activists, but not because of any prudishness.

The surprise is that Hayden accepted the contribution even though Sandy Brown, Hayden’s campaign coordinator for the Los Angeles City Council seat, is also president of the Holmby-Westwood Property Owners Assn., which has been waging a single-minded battle to impose restrictions on the use of the Playboy Mansion in the district.

Brown has led the charge, claiming that the neighborhood has been disrupted by the increased number of private parties at the Holmby Hills estate. She has asked the city to investigate whether the parties are part of a business enterprise subject to more regulation or are indeed the private gatherings of homeowner Hugh Hefner.

So no one is happier than Brown that Hayden has decided to return the contribution.

“It’s the right thing to do,” Brown said. “It’s uncomfortable to talk to residents about problems when you have received a check from the person causing the problem. It’s cleaner this way.”

The contribution had already been noted by other candidates in the 11-person race for a council district that extends from Van Nuys to Westwood.

Hefner said he is taking the complaints seriously with measures to reduce the effect of traffic and parking in the neighborhood.

“These are dramatic changes that have taken place in the last couple of months in response to the complaints,” Hefner said in an interview.

He said many of the parties are events for charity or to promote Playboy, but he denied renting the mansion to outside groups.

“I have tried to be a responsive and conscientious neighbor from the beginning,” Hefner said, noting that the mansion has been a hub of activity for 30 years.

A spokesman for Playboy, which sent the $250 check, said Hefner is trying to reduce traffic in the area by shuttling in guests from a lot at UCLA.

SELF-DEFENSE: Ken Gerston, who is the leading fund-raiser among San Fernando Valley candidates for the 5th District seat, describes himself at public events as a businessman who until last year was chief executive officer of Continental Coin Corp. in Van Nuys.

But other candidates criticized Gerston this week, pointing out that a month after he left Continental Coin last May, the firm filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy protection.

“If he’s going to say he is a businessman, that that’s his claim to fortune, the voters have a right to know what kind of businessman he was,” said rival candidate Jill Barad, a Sherman Oaks political consultant.

Added candidate Victor Viereck of Valley Village, “How is he going to manage the city’s business when he can’t manage the business of his own company?”

Gerston denied he played a role in the company’s financial problems, saying he had gradually yielded management of the firm to others as he prepared to quit and run for office.

“The last year I was there, I let them run it,” he said. “They were stable when I left. I was pretty shocked [by the bankruptcy].”

He said the firm ran into problems when someone accepted a bad check for a large purchase of precious metals that were delivered before the firm realized it did not have compensation.

“That’s something I wouldn’t have done,” Gerston said, adding that he thinks the company is getting back on its feet financially.

Gordon O’Rourke, the president of Continental Coin, said that Gerston was a good manager before he resigned to run for office and acknowledged that Gerston was not directly responsible for the transaction that sent the firm into bankruptcy.

“One client of ours interrupted our cash flow,” O’Rourke said. “But we are operating now at a profit.”

Meanwhile, some contenders in the race, including Laura Lake, have also criticized candidate Jack Weiss for mailers and public statements indicating he is a federal prosecutor even though he quit that job last April to run for office.

At a forum Monday night before the Benedict Canyon Homeowners Assn., Weiss led off his introductory comments by saying, “I’m an assistant U.S. attorney.”

His main mailer so far is headlined “Assistant United States Attorney Jack Weiss for City Council.

“That is not accurate,” Lake complained. “I refer to myself as a former UCLA professor. When you quit, you quit.”

Susan Shaw, a spokeswoman for Weiss, said city election law allows candidates to use as ballot designations the job they had before they quit to run for office and that is why Weiss continues to say he is a federal prosecutor.

STAR POWER: Speaking of Hayden, his next campaign rally in the San Fernando Valley may look more like a Hollywood premiere.

The fund-raiser Tuesday at the Sportsmen’s Lodge in Studio City will feature an all-star cast of Hayden supporters, including actors Warren Beatty, Annette Bening, Dustin Hoffman, Barbra Streisand, Sean Penn, Robin Wright, Shelly Fabares, Ed Asner and Alfre Woodard.

Hayden has a definite interest in the box office for the event, which is billed as the “Rally in the Valley.”

He has advanced his campaign $171,000 in personal loans, so he is counting on successful fund-raising to pay himself back.

TIMBER!: Andy Lipkis, president of the Sherman Oaks-based TreePeople, has quit the Los Angeles Community Forest Advisory Committee after nearly 10 years of pressing to get the city to step up tree planting.

Lipkis said he stepped aside in hopes that his successor will have more time to devote to a more comprehensive approach to the greening of Los Angeles.

Lipkis said he has always been concerned about the potential conflict of serving on a city advisory panel whose recommendations to increase tree planting could benefit TreePeople with city contracts.

Asked how much room the city has to improve in forestation, Lipkis said, “Huge, huge. Miles.”