Last-weekend barbs and poll results

Approaching Tuesday’s vote, a USC Price/L.A. Times poll found Eric Garcetti and Wendy Greuel close to a tie for the lead. However, a large number of voters who say they could still change their minds could yet swing who makes the May runoff to be the city’s next mayor.

Jan Perry and Kevin James are effectively tied for third place, according to the survey of likely voters, with James possibly losing support because of an ad created by an independent committee that is supporting his bid.

The Times scrutinized the education platforms of the mayoral candidates, who spent the weekend trading barbs as they skittered around Los Angeles courting voters in what is expected to be a low-turnout contest.

The most recent campaign financial disclosures showing that Greuel has been the beneficiary of a deluge of outside spending, much of it from unions representing city workers, prompting her rivals to question whether she’ll be forced to return to the favor if she is elected mayor. During their final debate before the primary, Perry and Garcetti hammered Greuel about the matter, and she countered that she was not beholden to any group.

In another issue on Tuesday’s ballot, the USC Sol Price School of Public Policy/L.A. Times Los Angeles City Primary Poll also found that a slim majority of Angelenos supports a sales-tax measure on the ballot.

Outside spending is playing a major role in school board races in Los Angeles, and the use of standardized testing has emerged as a flash point.

The USC Price/L.A. Times poll, which surveyed 500 likely voters from Feb. 24 to 27, also found City Atty. Carmen Trutanich struggling in his reelection bid. The incumbent has filed an ethics complaint against rival Mike Feuer.

With the sole woman on Los Angeles’ City Council leaving in June because of term limits, a handful of women are trying win a spot on the council but face uphill battles against better-funded men.

The race to replace termed-out Councilman Ed Reyes features two men with similar goals for revitalizing the 1st council district, but different political histories.

In other coverage, columnist Steve Lopez visits the Korean Resource Center in Koreatown, which has pushed up voting rates among Korean Americans. Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne looks at the city’s most embarrassing civic-architecture and urban-planning failures, and advises the next mayor how to fix them.

Comments, questions or tips on city elections? Tweet me at @LATSeema