A rare election mailer with a spring in its step

Los Angeles City Council and school board elections are Tuesday, meaning that many readers’ recycling bins are probably a little fuller than usual.

For the most part, the mail has been boring this election season. Only one candidate, Marguerite Poindexter LaMotte, managed to get a photo of herself with Sen. Barack Obama into the mail, even though, last we checked, Obama wasn’t getting involved in the District 1 school board smackdown between incumbent LaMotte and charter school founder Johnathan Williams.

Councilman Jose Huizar and District 14 challenger Alvin Parra, a former Huizar deputy, sent out mildly amusing fliers arguing over Huizar’s attendance record.

Parra’s flier included a photo of two feet resting comfortably at the beach with a turquoise sea in the background, while a Huizar mailer pointed out that two trips he made to New Jersey in his role as a Princeton University board member were “to help ensure that all kids have access to great college educations.”

Yawn. But wait -- here’s a good one....

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Is it possible to transplant a human’s head onto a frog’s body?

As far as this column can tell, it has not been done yet.

Luckily, in the world of political mailers, anything is possible -- including xenotransplantation.

In this case, Council District 7 candidate Monica Rodriguez took a photo of the head of her opponent -- Assemblyman Richard Alarcon -- and stuck it onto the body of a frog. And not just any frog, but one absolutely glistening with slime.

Rodriguez’s point is that Alarcon has played leapfrog by leaving the council in midterm in 1999 to run for state Senate, running for mayor in 2004 and ’05 while in the middle of his second state Senate term, and now running again for his old council seat only weeks after being elected to the state Assembly.

Naturally, Alarcon isn’t amused, pointing out that he served a full two terms in the Senate before running for the Assembly last year.

But he has taken a different tack in his mailers. In one, he gently scolded Rodriguez for trying to call herself an educator on the ballot when in fact she’s an executive with the California Assn. of Realtors.

“I’m disappointed in her,” Alarcon said in his flier, adapting a Yoda-like tone toward Rodriguez, who worked for him as a council deputy in the 1990s.

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So what kind of frog is on the flier?

It appears to be a leopard frog, said frog expert Brad Shaffer, a UC Davis professor in the department of evolution and ecology.

“They’re very adaptable,” he said. “They are a fascinating species for the breadth of their range and the breadth of the ecological conditions they live in.”

In other words, a frog that survives well in many habitats. No parallels to the political world there, eh?

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What else is notable about the council campaigns?

Lobbyists are still involved in raising money for candidates.

Attentive readers may recall that last year the council put a measure on the ballot that loosened term limits for them and, to make the idea more attractive to voters, prohibited lobbyists from donating to city campaigns.

“Prop. R will outlaw campaign contributions from lobbyists,” stated one of their campaign mailers.

And how well did that work?

Lobbyists have organized fundraisers for both Huizar and Councilman Herb Wesson this campaign season. Among the hosts for a Wesson fundraiser at the City Club downtown were lobbyists Steve Afriat, Arnie Berghoff, King Woods and the lobbying firms Ek & Ek and Cerrell Associates.

It’s all perfectly legal because the lobbyists are simply organizing the event, not giving money. It’s an apt demonstration of just how toothless the council’s ballot measure was.

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Switching from the campaigns, is civil war about to erupt on the Westside over a proposed Expo Line extension?

As planning meetings began last week for the second phase of the proposed light rail line -- from Culver City to Santa Monica -- the longtime president of the Westwood Gardens Civic Assn., Annette Mercer, resigned her post of seven years.

The reason: She thought the homeowners group was opposing the light rail line before it got details on what the line might actually look like. The line would follow an old rail right-of-way through that neighborhood and several others.

Mercer wouldn’t comment.

Meanwhile, two websites have emerged on the issue. Four homeowner groups -- including Westwood Gardens -- are behind www.smartrail.org, which advocates pushing the Expo Line onto Venice and Sepulveda boulevards, where the neighborhoods are denser.

Some Cheviot Hills homeowners also have a website, www.lightrailforcheviot.org, that pushes using the right-of-way, which travels for 0.4 miles through Cheviot Hills in a trench below about 20 homes.

And where does this dispute fall on the NIMBY Richter scale? Pretty high, considering what’s at stake -- the effectiveness of a transit project serving the Westside. Geographically inclined readers can check out a birds-eye view of the right-of-way by visiting Google Earth online and punching in the intersection of Overland and Northvale.

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Just how high is the combined local and state tax burden in Los Angeles?

It is the third highest among cities with a population of more than 1 million, according to a recent study by the New York City Independent Budget Office.

This is relevant because pols in Los Angeles -- like pretty much anywhere in the known universe -- love to campaign by railing against taxes and fee hikes. But that always raises the question: How bad do Angelenos really have it?

In fiscal 2003-04, New Yorkers paid $9.02 in state and local taxes per $100 of gross taxable resources. That compares with $7.16 in Philadelphia, $6.88 in Los Angeles and $6.73 in San Antonio to round out the top four. Dallas was lowest at $5.20. The big difference between Los Angeles and New York is that New York has a personal income tax.

On a somewhat-related note, this column recently got bored during a council meeting -- the pols were in the midst of taking a decisive stance against slavery -- and began looking up water rates for various cities. It’s OK -- this column is a trained professional!

And get this: During the summer high season, a Seattle homeowner’s rates begin at $2.88 per hundred cubic feet (728 gallons) while an Angeleno pays $2.19. Seattle averages about three times as much rain as L.A.

In other words, think twice before crabbing about water rates.

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Returning to the council campaigns, is there anything provocative in Wesson’s campaign finance reports?

“We will honor his accomplishments at an intimate reception aboard the yacht ‘Afternoon Delight,’ ” read one invitation to a recent Wesson fundraising event in Marina del Rey.

Ouch! This column loves boating and is deeply hurt it wasn’t invited. Wesson should note that this column also owns several coolers whose seaworthiness have been put to the test.

But we forgive Wesson. Any politician who openly admits to going for an afternoon delight is fine by us. Getting elected, after all, is very stressful -- especially when opposed only by two write-in candidates.

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Next week: The rules of political survival.

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steve.hymon@latimes.com