City Council Candidate Returns to Police Duty

At least one candidate for the Los Angeles City Council is on the move--but he has mixed feelings about it.

Only a week before the election in which he is a candidate, Dennis Zine is back riding his Los Angeles police motorcycle instead of campaigning. He felt obliged to return to duty, Zine said Monday, because the Los Angeles Police Department wanted all the officers possible to be on the streets and available when the verdict is announced in the Rodney G. King civil rights trial.

“I’d be a hypocrite if the city was in turmoil and I wasn’t out there fulfilling my responsibility to protect public safety,” the 25-year Police Department veteran said Monday as he hurried back to his job as a traffic division supervisor for the Valley Bureau.

Until the department’s King verdict preparations changed his plans, Zine had secured vacation time for the last four weeks leading up to the election so he could devote himself full-time to his campaign for the City Council seat representing the southwestern San Fernando Valley, now held by Councilwoman Joy Picus.

Zine, who has charged on the campaign trail that the San Fernando Valley does not get its fair share of police officers, is widely viewed as one of Picus’ top two challengers--although recent campaign financial reports show he is trailing Picus and candidate Laura Chick badly in fund raising.

Capt. John Mutz, commanding officer of Valley Traffic Division and Zine’s boss, confirmed that Zine had voluntarily returned to work after the department requested that officers on vacation come back to their jobs.

“We sent out the word that we were in a tough spot and that if people on vacation would defer it to some later date that we could sure use them,” Mutz said. “Dennis was one of those who said they would.” Others did not, Mutz said.

Zine said “I could have taken the position that ‘I’m on vacation, you can’t get me, I’m on king’s X,’ ” referring to police union rules that protect officers from being forced to work during scheduled vacations.

“But that’s not the Dennis Zine who’s missed only three days of work in 25 years,” he said.

And if getting out on the campaign trail is tough after an eight-hour day, it could get worse if the department goes on tactical alert and worse still if there’s widespread unrest. Then, 12-hour shifts will be the norm, according to police deployment plans.

“It’s hard to have a campaign without a candidate,” said Rick Taylor, Zine’s political consultant.

“I want to win,” Zine said. “But I also don’t want people to say, ‘Where was Zine when the rioting broke out and the city needed him?’ ”