Council Candidates Display Stark Contrasts

The first round was close--so close that Dennis Zine, the front-runner in the race to represent the southwest San Fernando Valley on the Los Angeles City Council, wasn’t sure who his runoff opponent would be until more than a week after the April 10 election.

Now, the second act is shaping up as another taut contest between two evenly matched candidates who both boast years of experience at City Hall.

On one side is Zine, 53, a police sergeant and union leader who helped rewrite the City Charter. On the other is Judith Hirshberg, a 68-year-old former deputy to Councilman Marvin Braude and longtime activist for Jewish and women’s causes.

The winner in the 3rd Council District race will inherit one of the fastest growing areas of the city, a diverse swath stretching from working-class Van Nuys and Reseda to the leafy enclaves of Woodland Hills and West Hills. The population here jumped 11.4% in the last decade to more than 258,000 people, according to a city analysis of census data.

The swelling number of residents has thickened traffic on the Ventura Freeway and pushed the overflow onto surface streets. Traffic has become a major concern, fueling opposition to the Ahmanson Ranch plan to build more than 3,000 homes just across the Ventura County line.

“Transportation is a mess,” said Shirley Blessing, a Woodland Hills homeowner who has lived in the area for 30 years. “Our streets are clogged constantly.”

Extremely Tight Race

In the neck-and-neck race to succeed Councilwoman Laura Chick, Hirshberg squeaked into the runoff by a mere 89 votes. She won almost 22% of the vote, compared to Zine’s 27% share. Chick has endorsed Hirshberg.

The race has tightened as Hirshberg, who began her political career in 1975 as a Tom Bradley volunteer, zoomed into the lead in fund-raising. But even that edge has been blunted because Zine’s union has poured more than $34,000 into the June 5 runoff for mailers.

As of May 19, Hirshberg had raked in $72,887 for the runoff (including $4,000 she loaned her campaign), while Zine raised $45,308, according to campaign finance statements. Hirshberg also reported much more cash on hand: $48,481, compared to Zine’s $9,243.

In a race that has been overshadowed by the mayoral contest, the 3rd District candidates often present a stark, even amusing, contrast as they sketch out solutions to traffic congestion and other matters.

Zine, a 33-year veteran of the Los Angeles Police Department who wears a tiny pair of golden handcuffs clipped to his tie, is a blunt cop given to passionate pronouncements. He has vowed to do “whatever it takes” to stop the Ahmanson project. His latest mailers feature color photographs of a traffic-swamped freeway and rows of suburban-clone houses, exhorting voters to help him block the development.

A divorced father of two who serves as a Police Protective League director, Zine casts himself as the “common-sense” candidate, unafraid to tell it like it is. (Years ago, Zine was so incensed by the city’s faltering leadership during the 1992 riots that he took to the evening news, in full uniform, to denounce the mayor.)

“I will be the loudest mouth in the San Fernando Valley,” Zine promised a group of landlords during a recent campaign stop.

Hirshberg, a mother of three who has been married for 47 years and often reminds audiences that she is a proud grandmother, has adopted a less confrontational approach toward Ahmanson. She downplays the chance of killing a project that several lawsuits have failed to extinguish, instead proposing that the city seek more money from the developer to fund shuttle buses and traffic devices to divert cars from West Valley streets.

Her campaign stresses the nuts-and-bolts issues familiar to all council deputies: “I want our sidewalks fixed, our trees trimmed, our streets paved and potholes filled,” she declares in one campaign mailer.

The candidates also promote divergent remedies for the bottlenecks on Valley roads. Hirshberg is a fan of mass transit, particularly a 14-mile bus lane that transit engineers hope to build from Warner Center in Woodland Hills to the new subway station in North Hollywood.

“The thing we really have to do, frankly, is get people out of their cars,” Hirshberg said. Forget about it, Zine retorted. “People are glued to their cars.” Instead, he suggested reversible traffic lanes along major thoroughfares like Victory Boulevard.

The rivals also part ways over Valley secession. Hirshberg opposes a breakaway, while Zine says he is “not opposing secession,” but adds that he wants voters to first give him a chance “to turn Los Angeles government around.”

Zine and Hirshberg also have found a few points of agreement: More after-school programs and affordable housing are needed. And the city must recruit more police officers--although Zine believes that a three-day workweek would help, while Hirshberg opposes that schedule.

Although the race is nonpartisan, Hirshberg, a Democrat, is playing up her party ties. She touts endorsements from prominent Democrats such as Sens. Barbara Boxer and Dianne Feinstein. The district’s voter registration is 49% Democratic to 31% Republican.

Not to be outdone, Republican Zine counters that several Democrats such as Assemblymen Dario Frommer (D-Los Feliz) and Paul Koretz (D-West Hollywood) support his campaign. Republican Mayor Richard Riordan also has endorsed Zine.

Intensity Increases

Until recently, the race had been relatively calm, although Hirshberg had accused Zine of violating campaign finance rules by soliciting contributions from city employees. She also charged that the police union’s spending on the race--which has topped $82,000 overall--is not independent because Zine serves on the league’s board. Hirshberg asked the city Ethics Commission to investigate.

Zine called Hirshberg’s complaints “groundless,” noting that he has taken a leave from his union job. Ethics Commission officials declined to say whether any inquiry had been launched.

The contest got uglier last week when a Hirshberg piece hit mailboxes across the West Valley, accusing Zine of being a cop who “hasn’t been doing much law enforcement lately.” It blasted him for taking time off to run for City Council and reminded voters that he was relieved of duty in 1998 after a female officer accused him of making inappropriate sexual advances. An LAPD disciplinary board later cleared Zine of the charges.

“Judith Hirshberg is stooping to a desperate level and it’s very disappointing,” Zine said. “She said she was this nice grandmother who was going to run a clean campaign.”

Political observers said the race could go down to the wire. Neither side has conducted a formal poll of voters, according to aides.

“It’s too close to call,” said Harvey Englander, the consultant behind Chick’s winning campaigns for the seat. “I really think it’s going to be a decision by the voters of ‘Who is most like us?’ Right now, [Hirshberg’s] got the momentum.”

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City Council District 3

THE CANDIDATES

Judith Hirshberg

Age: 68

Residence: Encino

Education: Goucher College, bachelor’s degree

Career highlights: Served as a deputy to Councilman Marvin Braude for nine years. Also worked for Mayor Tom Bradley and helped run job training programs for the city’s Community Development Department.

Family: Married to Arthur Hirshberg; mother of three children

Dennis Zine

Age: 53

Residence: West Hills

Education: West Los Angeles College, associate’s degree

Career highlights: Served in the Los Angeles Police Department for 33 years, most recently as a sergeant. For the past eight years, worked as a director of the police union, the Police Protective League. Also served as an elected charter reform commissioner.

Family: Divorced; father of two children