Yaroslavsky Offers Support to the Guy Who Trounced His Wife

BARBARA WHO? A $250-a-plate fund-raiser last week for Los Angeles City Councilman Mike Feuer demonstrated, once again, the old saying that politics makes strange bedfellows.

Feuer won the contest to represent parts of the southeast San Fernando Valley and West L.A. in June, beating out Barbara Yaroslavsky, a Westside activist and the wife of county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who formerly held the council post.

During the hard-fought and often bitter race, Yaroslavsky campaigned hard for his wife, walking precincts and calling her the best-qualified candidate for the seat.

But ironically, it was Zev Yaroslavsky who not only showed up for Feuer’s fund-raiser at a West L.A. hotel but was a keynote speaker.

During his speech, Yaroslavsky called Feuer his second-favorite candidate of the year.

He also noted that after Feuer took office, the city installed a stop sign near Yaroslavsky’s home that Yaroslavsky himself, a 19-year City Council veteran, had been unable to get.

The money raised at the event was deposited in Feuer’s officeholder account, a fund used by elected officials to pay for community meetings, newsletters and other city-related expenses.

Barbara Yaroslavsky did not attend.

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PARTY TIME: Ross Perot is not the only one attempting to organize a rival to the Republicans and Democrats. A variety of bizarre political entities up and down the state are conducting similar campaigns.

California Secretary of State Bill Jones reports that 13 groups are attempting to qualify for the 1996 ballot--joining the standard Democratic Party, Republican Party, American Independent Party, Green Party, Libertarian Party and Peace and Freedom Party.

Ever heard of the Rock and Roll Party?

“When we have rock-and-roll police chiefs, rock-and-roll mayors, rock-and-roll supervisors,” said founder Christopher McGrath of Simi Valley, “we can make it known that the rock-and-roll community can focus on the peaceful issues and turn their attention away from gangs and turmoil.”

McGrath has never held public office, but he did gain some notoriety in 1992 when he was arrested for staging a series of solitary sit-ins at the courthouse in Simi Valley to protest the not-guilty verdicts in the Rodney G. King beating case.

Julius Mogyorossy of Santa Clara is one of two members of the Unlimitism Party, which has some lofty goals.

“Unlimitism calls for total control of the economy by the government,” said Mogyorossy, a self-described genius. “But it’s not communism. We would create an economy in which everyone would have a job and the minimum wage would be $100,000 a year.”

Robots would be key, along with technology to transfer matter from one form to another--such as “lead to gold” or “dirt to hamburgers.”

Instead of standing outside supermarkets signing up members, Mogyorossy is using the Internet to spread his message and seek donations. He has also appeared on talk radio in Northern California.

No donations have yet to arrive, but Mogyorossy said he hadn’t checked his mailbox in a while.

Other parties to watch for: the Real American Party, the Natural Law Party, the Constitution Party, the Patriot Party and the Christian Heritage Party. Each will have to raise 89,007 voter registration cards by Oct. 24 to make it onto the ballot.

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DOWN HOME: The 350 people who attended the Los Angeles City Council meeting at Pierce College in Woodland Hills this week comprised the largest turnout at any of the four meetings the council has had outside City Hall in the past 12 years.

The previous one was held in North Hollywood in 1990 to discuss the impact of defense cutbacks. It only attracted a few dozen residents.

“I don’t think we’ve had one this large,” said Assistant City Clerk Pat Healy.

Anticipating the large turnout and the appearance of the city’s leading lawmakers, Pierce College President Mary E. Lee was seen last Saturday on her knees pulling out weeds around the campus.

During the meeting, Lee urged council members to visit the college’s arboretum and its working farm, including a new bevy of piglets.

“In a few months they will be on your plates,” she joked.

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. . . BUT NOT FORGOTTEN: The late, legendary tax fighter Howard Jarvis’ torch bearers have been working behind the scenes with former Los Angeles councilman Ernani Bernardi to checkmate the expansion of the Community Redevelopment Agency’s Central Business District project.

Although much has been made of how Bernardi, 83, sold videotapes of big-band-era performances to pay for his legal challenge of the CRA expansion plan, the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Assn. was also in the trenches.

In fact, the Jarvis group contributed $10,000 to the Bernardi crusade, and its general counsel, Trevor Grimm, helped Bernardi’s attorney, Barbara Blinderman, with the legal work.

A Superior Court judge ruled in favor of Bernardi’s bid to block the CRA from extending the life of its Downtown redevelopment project. The judge’s ruling has thrown the CRA’s leadership into a tizzy.

By the way, the Bernardi-Blinderman team-up has a kind of Butch Cassidy-Sundance Kid flavor to it. Bernardi has always been known as a kind of troublemaking political misanthrope, Blinderman less so. Yet it was Blinderman who, as an attorney for a community activist, cut her teeth at City Hall, fighting to block a pay increase that council members slyly voted to grant themselves, which a judge later ruled was illegal. Will this team have a sequel?

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LEGAL LIMITS: Few Washington politicians disagree that illegal immigration is a problem in this country, but legal immigration is another question.

Legislation to be considered by the House Judiciary Committee next week would seek to reduce the number of legal and illegal immigrants entering the United States. Along with more border guards and an employee identification system to make life tougher for the undocumented, the bill would reduce the number of legal immigrants by about 25% from the 800,000 who emigrated here last year to 595,000 by 2001.

It is the crackdown on the legal variety that is prompting the most debate.

Rep. Howard L. Berman (D-Panorama City) strenuously opposes the reductions in legal immigration, accusing Republicans of attempting to use public sentiment against illegal immigrants to make unneeded cutbacks in legal immigration.

“I see no reason in the world to try and cut back on legal immigration,” Berman said. “It’s good for the country.”

Berman introduced an amendment to the House immigration bill that would have split the bill in two, dividing the legal from the illegal. Berman sought to have the illegal immigration bill go to the House floor for a vote while committee debate on legal immigration continued.

But the congressman’s colleagues rejected the suggestion 20 to 14 after strong opposition from Rep. Lamar Smith (R-Tex.), the bill’s main sponsor.

The House is expected to vote on immigration reform early next year, and Berman intends to try again to support legal immigration.

Martin and Schwada reported from Los Angeles and Lacey from Washington, D.C.