Zine Becomes 5th City Council Member to Endorse Villaraigosa

Mayoral candidate Antonio Villaraigosa picked up another endorsement from a City Council colleague Thursday: former LAPD Officer Dennis Zine, who jilted Mayor James K. Hahn.

Zine, who represents the west San Fernando Valley, had endorsed the incumbent before the March 8 election and appeared with the mayor at rallies as recently as last month.

“What changed my mind is reviewing the accomplishments and reviewing the opportunities,” Zine said. “And seeing what the San Fernando Valley deserves and the San Fernando Valley needs.”

Zine, joining Villaraigosa at the recently remodeled West Valley Police Station in Reseda, noted that he had endorsed Hahn before Villaraigosa was even a candidate. “I endorsed Mayor Hahn probably two years ago,” he said. “It was a long time ago.”

The city councilman joins council President Alex Padilla, a onetime Hahn ally, in defecting to Villaraigosa, who was far ahead of Hahn in the last Times poll.

Seven council members have endorsed Hahn. Five, including Zine, have sided with Villaraigosa. Council members Tony Cardenas and Wendy Greuel have remained neutral.

Hahn brushed off the reversal at a campaign appearance. “I don’t know what to make of Dennis Zine,” he said, speculating that he might have switched sides because he sits next to Villaraigosa in the council chamber. “Maybe his charm was too much to resist.”

Surrounded by supporters at the California Academy for Liberal Studies Charter Middle School, Hahn blasted Villaraigosa for failing to show up at meetings of the council’s education committee.

The Times reported Thursday that Villaraigosa had skipped 46% of the meetings since he was appointed to the panel in 2003.

“My opponent is going around town saying he’s going to be the education mayor. But he’s been missing in action -- literally,” Hahn said. “He hasn’t bothered to show up to even one education committee meeting of the City Council this year, even though he’s on that committee. He’s zero for 2005 for our schools.”

Across town, Villaraigosa defended his education record, calling it “second to none” and touting his efforts in 1998 in the Assembly to put a successful $9.2-billion bond measure on the ballot.

The Times story also showed that Hahn has missed 36% of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority’s Executive Management and Audit Committee meetings since Jan. 1, 2003.

The mayor said those absences were different, because he had promised to focus mostly on fixing the Los Angeles Police Department and fighting secession.

“I’m not the one going around saying I’m going to be the education mayor who hasn’t attended one meeting of the education committee,” Hahn said.

Zine said he left the Hahn fold in part because of the way the mayor pressured him to vote in favor of a citywide sales tax increase that would have funded approximately 1,200 additional police officers. Zine and Villaraigosa opposed it, and the council voted it down.

“I felt used,” Zine said. “I was being bombarded by representatives from the mayor’s office, from law enforcement, from the fire service.”

Then, after the proposal failed, Zine said, he was surprised when the mayor claimed to have found the money to hire some new officers.

“Your word needs to mean something.... We need to be candid with people.”

Hahn said there “certainly wasn’t any bullying by me” on the failed police proposal.

“I don’t know where he gets that.”