April Election to Replace Braude Called ‘Historic’

ENCINO —  The parking lot outside the community center on Balboa Boulevard is clogged, but the cars keep coming.

Inside, chairs are hastily set up and just as quickly taken, as a crowd approaching 200 streams into the auditorium.

The draw this particular evening is a candidates forum, an event that on a good night might attract 50 people.

But for the 11th District City Council race contenders, it’s standing room only.

“This is a historic election,” said panel moderator Rob Glushon. And, indeed it is.

That’s because for the first time in 34 years the 11th District council seat is open, because Councilman Marvin Braude is retiring.

The presumptive front-runners are Georgia Mercer of Tarzana and Cindy Miscikowski of Brentwood, who have the money and endorsements to press their case to voters. Also contending are Mark Isler of Van Nuys and Doug Friedman of Brentwood, who are running grass-roots campaigns.

The 73-square-mile district includes Brentwood, Pacific Palisades, Woodland Hills and Tarzana, plus parts of Van Nuys and West Los Angeles.

Issues involving quality of life and feelings of alienation and disenfranchisement dominate the debates.

Miscikowski and Mercer hold strikingly similar views on many of the core issues. In addition to vowing to be responsive and accessible, they support charter reform, back secession bills as long as they call for a citywide vote and say they will work to curb traffic on the ground and in the air at Van Nuys Airport.

The central question, then, for many deciding between the two is whether to go with Miscikowski, an experienced, nuts-and-bolts City Hall staffer, or Mercer, a community activist with many ties to the district.

At the outset, conventional wisdom held that the race was Miscikowski’s to lose.

A former chief of staff for Braude, she had money, the support of the councilman plus a handful of other council members and three county supervisors, and no household name running against her.

But the Miscikowski campaign has had a few missteps--or bad breaks--and Mercer, who most recently served as Mayor Richard Riordan’s liaison to the West Valley, women’s groups and the Jewish community, has capitalized on them.

So, with two weeks to go, the primary is looking more competitive than some had predicted.

The first critical juncture of the campaign was the spending limit challenge. Although city law did not require the candidates to adhere to new spending limits, the Mercer campaign issued a challenge that both candidates abide by them.

Perhaps in hopes of avoiding criticism that she was a captive of big-time contributors or her wealthy husband, Miscikowski accepted.

That means both of them are limited to $300,000, an amount both are expected to have thanks in part to city matching funds.

In the rush for endorsements, Mercer surprised some by grabbing key support from the county Democratic Central Committee, the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, the Firefighters Union and United Teachers Los Angeles.

Miscikowski tried hard for the Democratic Central Committee support, bringing in County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky to help her. But when the vote went the other way, her handlers were dismissive about the endorsement they worked so hard to get.

The unions’ endorsements--helpful in that they bring in campaign money and volunteers--were earned when Mercer brandished a Miscikowski campaign mailer that did not carry a union logo, meaning nonunion printers were used.

Miscikowski consultant Rick Taylor insists the mailer did not cost his client union endorsements.

Instead, Taylor said Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, a Mercer backer, was instrumental in delivering union support.

Mercer consultant Larry Levine is most happy with the union backing, especially that of the UTLA. He said there are 6,000 members residing in the 11th District, and the union is focusing attention there to elect favored candidate Valerie Fields to the Los Angeles Board of Education. Such political involvement can only help Mercer, Levine says.

From the outset, the Miscikowski campaign has been most worried about what her opponents would make of her husband, influential land-use attorney and former lobbyist Doug Ring.

Taylor says often and loudly that it is sexist to portray Miscikowski as a captive of her husband, whose family’s name is synonymous with development in the ‘50s and ‘60s.

While Levine insists he won’t suggest Ring is a puppeteer controlling his wife, he views one instance of pro bono lobbying by Ring as fair game. It involves a council ruling that helps the value of the couple’s Brentwood home.

As a mailer that landed last weekend proclaimed, the couple now live in a gated community north of Sunset due to Ring’s influence while his wife was chief of staff for Braude, who spearheaded the effort.

It is the only time in history that the council agreed to close an already-developed area to the public.

To gain neighbors’ acquiescence, the developers of the proposed Getty Museum promised to pay for the gates in the early ‘80s. Ring and Miscikowski did not own a home in the area then.

As the Getty neared final approval some years later, the promise appeared to have been forgotten until Ring, who now lived in the area with Miscikowski, volunteered to act as attorney-lobbyist for the Brentwood Circle Homeowners Assn.

The gates were approved and went in last year, which the Mercer mailer suggests is symptomatic of a classic insider deal.

Counters Taylor, “It is not an issue.”

Taylor bristles at the suggestion that Mercer should be viewed as having momentum just because she is doing better than many expected.

“Georgia is a very formidable candidate,” Taylor said.

In a council race, the winning candidate must receive more than 50% of the vote.

But Taylor believes “there is a runoff no matter what we do.”

That is by no means a foregone conclusion. Levine, for one, thinks the race could be won April 8. He’s just not sure by whom.