Supervisor’s Aide Is 4th to Challenge Picus in ’89

An aide to Los Angeles County Supervisor Deane Dana said Tuesday that he will become the fourth challenger to West San Fernando Valley Councilwoman Joy Picus in the April, 1989, Los Angeles city election.

Peter Ireland, a Reseda homeowner activist and son of actor John Ireland, said that he has found widespread discontent with the three-term councilwoman because of unbridled growth that has occurred in the City Council’s 3rd District.

“What we have seen is an absolute deterioration in the quality of life in the Valley,” Ireland said.

In 1985, Picus defeated five challengers to win reelection. She garnered 56% of the vote. Her closest runner-up, Jeanne Nemo, received 21%.

Since then, Picus’ critics say, the 57-year-old councilwoman’s political stock has fallen because of her handling of the West Hills controversy and her support of an office development next to the Sepulveda Basin.

Ireland, 42, contended that Picus could be defeated by the same anti-growth sentiment that led to the ouster last year of Westside Councilwoman Pat Russell, a close Picus friend.

‘Slow-Growth Vote’

However, unlike Russell, Picus was an early supporter of Proposition U, the slow-growth initiative overwhelmingly approved by voters in 1986. She also has opposed Occidental Petroleum Corp.’s application to drill for oil in Pacific Palisades.

“We see Joy as one of the consistent slow-growth votes on the council,” said Cindy Miscikowski, chief deputy to Councilman Marvin Braude.

Picus, first elected in 1977, said Tuesday that a recent poll shows she is viewed favorably by a majority of her constituents. She declined to make public any figures from the poll.

Although Ireland attacked Picus for growth in the district, he works for a supervisor regarded as pro-development.

“The issue isn’t who I work for,” Ireland snapped. “The issue is what Joy Picus has allowed to take place in the district.”

Dana said he will probably stay out of the race but probably won’t make up his mind until the election nears.

Filing for the office does not begin until January. Besides Ireland, Nemo, a 58-year-old real estate agent, has announced that she will oppose Picus again. Also running are Morton S. Diamond, 56, a hotdog vendor, and Ronald Rich, 39, a car salesman.

Picus declined to comment Tuesday on Ireland’s challenge. “When the campaign gets going, we’ll talk about it,” she said. She defended her record, however, insisting that she almost always has been on the side of homeowners in development controversies.

Ireland is a former president of Concerned Citizens for Property Rights, made up of about 2,500 Santa Monica Mountains landowners opposed to the federal government’s efforts to acquire their land for a national park. He resigned in 1981 when he was hired, over the objections of environmentalists, to be Dana’s Malibu field deputy.

Ireland said his involvement in the property rights group, of which he is no longer a member, was “so many years ago” and should be a “non-issue” in the campaign. He said he is now a strong supporter of park acquisition in the Santa Monica Mountains.

Margot Feuer, a Malibu environmentalist, said of Ireland Tuesday: “His position out here has never been one of major environmental protection. Usually, the developer has gotten what he has asked for.”

Ireland, a director of the Reseda Community Assn., has never run for public office. He is a registered Republican. Picus is a moderate to liberal Democrat. The City Council office is nonpartisan.

The 3rd District takes in the Valley roughly west of the San Diego Freeway between Roscoe Boulevard and the Ventura Freeway, encompassing the communities of Canoga Park, Reseda, Tarzana, Warner Center, West Hills and west Van Nuys.