Campaign to recall Weiss won’t go on

A six-month effort to recall Los Angeles City Councilman Jack Weiss collapsed Monday, as organizers told the city clerk they could not muster enough signatures to force an election within the time required by law.

With traffic having grown steadily worse over the years on the city’s Westside, the recall campaign had been viewed as a referendum of sorts on the hot-button issues of growth and development.

Homeowner activists had argued that the councilman had been too eager to approve large projects in his mostly Westside district, which stretches from Westwood and Century City to Hollywood and Sherman Oaks. But with little money or political clout, the group failed to gather the nearly 23,000 valid signatures needed to force the recall election.

“Despite a tremendous push over the last several weeks, our count as of Sunday evening was several thousand short of the minimum required number,” recall organizer Kevin Singer wrote in a letter today to City Clerk Frank Martinez.

The signatures were due by Thursday, when Martinez would have begun the effort to verify how many were valid.

The recall effort put Weiss, Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa’s most trusted ally on the council, in the uncomfortable position of seeking campaign donations to fight a recall even as he raised money for a 2009 election bid for city attorney in which he currently has no opposition.

Weiss has frequently said he favors “smart growth” that combines transit and housing.

Although in public he said he never expected the recall effort to succeed, Weiss raised at least $68,355 to fight it and produced a blistering flier that portrayed recall organizers as extortionists who tried to secure money from a Century City developer in exchange for dropping their opposition.

“We said at the beginning that this was just a group of people who were upset at the fact that they were not able to shake down a developer for $5 million,” said Larry Levine, a political consultant for Weiss. “The only thing that has changed now is that they have gone from shakedown artists to discredited shakedown artists.”

Recall organizer Mike Eveloff, president of the Tract 7260 Homeowners Assn., responded that “the last person who should be giving ethics lessons is Larry Levine.”

“Throughout this entire process Jack has refused to speak to his constituents and instead speaks through Larry Levine,” he added. “That’s been the problem all along. He doesn’t listen to his constituents.”

Weiss was elected to a second council term in 2005 with more than 70% of the vote. Though he could have sought a third term, the former federal prosecutor announced last year that he would run for city attorney when Rocky Delgadillo’s tenure comes to a close due to term limits.

The origins of the recall campaign were partially rooted in a dispute last year over the development of two 47-story luxury residential high-rises in Century City. The homeowners group tried to secure $5 million from a developer for a mitigation fund that the homeowners would largely control.

Weiss did get the money but broadened the number of people who would determine how it was spent.

Neighborhood groups also voiced frustration about Weiss’ handling of multistory development projects in Hollywood, Mid-City and other parts of Century City. And they accused the councilman of having an imperious style.

The recall group started its campaign by launching a website that featured the song “Hit the Road, Jack,” with an image of Weiss in a construction hat standing in front of a series of growing skyscrapers. Even as their movement stalled, organizers said Weiss’ constituents were fed up with congested streets and freeways.

“The recall was the beginning, not the end, of constituents’ efforts to shed light on irresponsible development that increases traffic problems and works against the preservation of neighborhoods,” said recall organizer Marcia Selz in a written statement

Levine, in turn, described the recall supporters as hypocrites on the issue of traffic, because some of the same people involved are trying to stop the Expo Line from following an old railroad right-of-way through their neighborhood.

“They yell about traffic while they fight traffic solutions or even exploration of traffic solutions,” Levine said.

Recall organizers said they had trouble persuading voters in the San Fernando Valley portion of Weiss’ district to sign their petition. One influential neighborhood leader, Richard Close, president of the Sherman Oaks Homeowners Assn., declined to support it even as he predicted it would make Weiss a better elected official.

“I think that, even though this effort failed, Jack Weiss and other council members learned a valuable lesson that all politics is local,” Close said. “And with a city councilperson it’s neighborhood issues that are most important, not citywide issues.”

Villaraigosa offered a different analysis in a statement issued hours after the recall movement folded.

“The recall attempt fell flat because Jack’s constituents know that he has been fighting to put more cops on the street, improve traffic and protect the environment every day he has been in office,” the mayor said.

Onetime council candidate Laura Lake, who took no position on the recall, said the failure of the signature drive should not be used to measure the Westside’s feeling about traffic and growth.

“I think it’s a reflection on the logistical nightmare of qualifying anything for the ballot, unless you’re a special interest with a lot of money,” said Lake, a Westwood-based land-use consultant. “Because it really comes down to money, whatever the measure is.”

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