Hayden Announces He’s a Candidate for 5th District Post

While Tom Hayden held the limelight Thursday when he announced his run for the Los Angeles City Council, his rivals in the district that stretches from the San Fernando Valley to the Westside went on the attack against the instant front-runner.

There are nine other declared candidates for the 5th District seat being vacated by Mike Feuer, who is running for city attorney, and several couldn’t wait to denounce the liberal state senator as a carpetbagger who is out of touch with the council district. The district extends from Cheviot Hills through Westwood to the Valley communities of Studio City, Sherman Oaks, North Hollywood and Van Nuys.

“Obviously he brings a lot of name recognition to the race,” said candidate Nathan Bernstein, an attorney who lives in the Pico-Robertson area.

“But it’s kind of peculiar that he has to move into the district,” Bernstein said. “Carpetbaggers are never looked on favorably.”

Former federal prosecutor Jack Weiss, another candidate, noted this is not the first time Hayden has moved to an area to run for office, pointing out that Hayden moved from Santa Monica to Los Angeles four years ago to run unsuccessfully for mayor.

“I think it’s a shame that Tom Hayden has come to this, a serial office seeker,” Weiss said. “The race will provide voters with a very clear choice, between a new generation of leaders who are constructive and positive and the old, worn, stale politics of division and grandstanding.”

North Hollywood accountant Victor Viereck, also a candidate, said Hayden’s long career in the state Legislature does not help him as a candidate for the City Council.

“He is out of touch with city issues because he has been so involved in Sacramento for so long,” Viereck said.

At a news conference Thursday at Laurel Canyon Park, off Mulholland Drive, Hayden scoffed at criticism that he is out of touch with the district, saying his Brentwood home is just outside the district boundaries and he has represented the district as a state legislator.

“I’ll have to move a few blocks, but I’ve represented the 5th District in the Senate for a long time,” said Hayden, who is leaving the Senate due to term limits. “I think I know the issues here.”

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During his lengthy tenure in state politics, Hayden said he pushed for reducing noise at Van Nuys Airport and claimed a leading role in pursuing legislative remedies to the issues raised in the Los Angeles Police Department’s ongoing Rampart corruption scandal.

He also lobbied the city on behalf of Westside and Valley homeowners in securing more of a voice for neighborhood councils under the new City Charter.

“If Sen. Hayden were coming from Pasadena or some other area outside the city, the claim that he is a carpetbagger might have some ring to it,” said Rocky Rushing, Hayden’s chief of staff. “Tom has been working on Los Angeles issues and Valley issues for years and years.”

If elected, Hayden, who has served in the state Senate since 1992 after a decade in the Assembly, said he will concentrate on making Los Angeles “a good place to live instead of a good place to leave.”

Hayden promised to serve as a watchdog over the secession movements in the San Fernando Valley and the Hollywood and Harbor areas. He said he will work to make sure that “economic facts are not massaged to preserve the status quo.”

“I think I can play an independent watchdog role in guaranteeing the process,” he said. “If people eventually want to make that decision [to secede], that’s their democratic right.”

Hayden said he supports the current study of the economic impact of secession and the right of residents to decide the issue at the ballot box but is not an advocate either for or against breakup.

Last week, the Legislature passed a bill that secession advocates say would make it impossible for the Valley to create an autonomous transit district. Hayden supported that bill, which was vigorously opposed by Valley Industry and Commerce Assn.

Political consultant Harvey Englander, who is working for candidate Robyn Ritter Simon, a Beverlywood businesswoman, said Hayden’s high profile and fund-raising skills make him the new front-runner in the race.

But the district, Englander said, has a long history of not electing the presumptive front-runners.

“The voters of this district are smart, and I don’t think they will think well of somebody who is just trying to extend his political career,” Englander said.

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Another obstacle to overcome: Bernstein and others noted that the district has a high concentration of Jewish voters and the last two people elected to the 5th District seat, Zev Yaroslavsky and Mike Feuer, were active in the Jewish community. Hayden is Catholic.

“The district, being largely Jewish, wants someone who is an active leader in the Jewish community,” Bernstein said.

Laura Lake, a Westwood activist who is also running, said Hayden is a great campaigner, but she believes he will have trouble winning voters in the council district.

“It certainly makes it more interesting, but I don’t know that this is the right fit for him,” said Lake, former president of the National Council of Jewish Women in Los Angeles.

Ken Gerston, a Sherman Oaks businessman, welcomed Hayden into the race, predicting the senator will further split the vote among the West Los Angeles candidates.

“I believe it helps the Valley candidates,” Gerston said.

Other candidates in the race include businesswoman Jill Barad of Sherman Oaks, former carpet salesman Joseph Patrick Connolly from the Fairfax district, and businessman Stephen A. Saltzman of West Los Angeles.