City attorney, controller races
Mike Feuer takes early lead for city attorney. Dennis Zine leads pack in early returns in controller’s contest.
Mike Feuer, above, leads Carmen Trutanich in city attorney’s race. Battle for controller appears headed for runoff.
Los Angeles City Atty. Carmen Trutanich trailed lawyer and former lawmaker Mike Feuer in early returns Tuesday as he battled to hang on to his seat against two well-financed challengers.
Wounded by his poor showing in a race for county district attorney last year, Trutanich was narrowly leading private attorney Greg Smith in the race, which seemed headed for a May runoff. Another private attorney, Noel Weiss, lagged far behind the others.
In another citywide contest, three-term Councilman Dennis Zine and lawyer Ron Galperin appeared to be headed for a runoff in the race for controller. Four other candidates, including marketing executive Cary Brazeman, were well behind.
The mood was upbeat at the Hancock Park home where Feuer watched election returns with supporters. At his election night party in Studio City, Trutanich too was optimistic.
Although the races for city attorney and controller drew much less attention than the marquee mayoral contest, they offered voters choices among candidates that differed widely in background and style.
Feuer, 54, won election to the City Council in 1995, then, after losing a race for city attorney in 2001 moved to the state Assembly. Facing term limits last year, the Westside Democrat began laying the foundation for another race for the city’s top legal job.
While in office, Feuer concentrated on combating gun violence and improving neighborhoods. He racked up endorsements for the current race from a long list of officeholders, including U.S. Sens. Dianne Feinstein and Barbara Boxer and L.A. Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa.
During the campaign, Feuer played down his lack of courtroom experience — something Trutanich turned into a line of attack — and said his broad resume at state and local levels and years leading Bet Tzedek, which provides legal serv- ices to the poor, made him best suited for the job.
Feuer also cited Trutanich’s feuds with the mayor and several council members as evidence that he would be more effective than the incumbent.
Trutanich, 61, burst onto the political scene four years ago when, as a first-time candidate, he upset thenCouncilman Jack Weiss, Villaraigosa’s close ally, to become the city’s top lawyer. He had been a deputy district attorney before heading a private law firm.
Once elected, the bluntspoken Trutanich cracked down on illegal billboards and cut the amounts the city spent on outside lawyers. But, as Feuer reminded voters, other elected officials complained that Trutanich was trying to usurp their policy-making roles. His biggest political blunder may have been breaking a pledge he made during the 2009 campaign not to seek another office until he had served two terms as city attorney.
The registered independent acknowledged he made “a mistake” running for district attorney last year, but argued he had been effective, saving taxpayers money by winning lawsuits and favorable settlements even as his office’s budget was cut sharply during the city’s seemingly intractable financial problems.
The wild card in the race was Smith, 59, a Democrat making his first bid for elected office. He has won millions representing police officers and firefighters in discrimination and whistleblower lawsuits and spent about $800,000 of his own money on the campaign.
In the controller’s race, Zine, 65, vastly outraised Galperin, 49, and Brazeman, 46, and had the backing of Villaraigosa and several council colleagues. But his Democratic opponents attacked the independent for receiving a pension from his years at the L.A. Police Department as well as his council salary.
Galperin headed a panel that looked at improving the city’s revenue-collection systems. Brazeman got active in city politics because of a development project near his home and said some initiatives he pushed for will save taxpayer dollars.