Councilman’s Widow Leading Fight in His Name

Despite appearances, Anne Finn is not running for office.

A slick political mailer sent around Los Angeles last week showed several scenes of the 73-year-old Finn in various poses--working at a table, thoughtfully reading, standing on the balcony of her rustic Shadow Hills home.

“Yeah, it’s pretty neat, isn’t it?” Finn joked. “I’m sorry Michael Dukakis didn’t do something like this.”

But the message of the mailer is no joke to Finn, who is a Democrat. She is at the forefront of the battle for Proposition P, the ballot measure that would allow Occidental Petroleum to drill exploratory wells in Pacific Palisades. The drilling was supported by Finn’s late husband, Howard Finn, a Los Angeles city councilman and the inseparable companion of Anne Finn during 46 years of marriage.

Finn’s support of the measure and her starring role in the mailer mark her most prominent entry in local politics since August, 1986, when her husband died at age 68 from a ruptured aorta after chairing a council committee hearing.

She believes that her work for the initiative carries on the work of her husband. The mailer called the Finns partners “in marriage, community service and civic action.” It quotes her as saying: “In Proposition P, Howard would have seen all that is right and honorable in public policy: sharing public benefits among all the people and exposing none to risk. . . .”

Finn, who is on the executive committee for the initiative effort, acknowledged that some may find the mailer distasteful or exploitative of her relationship with her husband. “But I don’t care,” she said. “People really need to look at this thing, and what it could mean.”

Finn has not been as vocal on a controversial local issue since 1986. Almost immediately after her husband’s death, she launched an attempt to persuade the Los Angeles City Council to appoint her to her husband’s seat. She also was one of the main figures in an intense bid to repeal city redistricting that cut Howard Finn’s district in half. Both efforts failed.

Finn then focused much of her energy into several civic organizations and community groups. She said the activity helped keep her husband’s legacy alive, and also helped her deal with the grief of losing him.

“In order to survive, I have to do things,” Finn said. “I want to honor the integrity of my husband. I want to push things that he thought were proper.”

She said she delights in organizing community events that her husband initiated years ago. Last week, Finn helped emcee a community breakfast in Sylmar sponsored by Mayor Tom Bradley. Pancakes were cooked on grills purchased by Howard Finn for use by service clubs. When she surveyed the 300 people at the breakfast, she said it was a “good Howard crowd, the kind of large group he liked.”

At the breakfast, Finn exchanged hugs and kisses with Bradley and Los Angeles City Councilman Ernani Bernardi.

“You can’t say enough good about Anne Finn,” Bradley said as he addressed the throng. “She means so much to all of us.”

Bradley appointed Finn to his commission for the Bicentennial of the U.S. Constitution and to his Sister City Commission. The Bicentennial Commission organizes city events to celebrate the signing of historical documents, and the Sister City Commission coordinates activities with international cities such as Beijing.

Finn said she has gotten the most satisfaction from serving on the City of Los Angeles Handicapped Access Appeals Commission. “I feel I can be effective there,” said Finn, who was appointed by the council. “I want to acquaint the general public with the problems of the handicapped. It’s a natural for me. I just admire those people so much.”

On the handicapped commission, Finn considers the appeals of builders whose projects are determined by the city’s Building and Safety Department to have inadequate access for handicapped people.

“Helping the disabled is a very real issue to me,” she said. “In the past, they were not allowed to apply for civil service jobs. That was so unfair.” She has worked to persuade builders to provide reasonable access for the handicapped.

In the past, Finn was almost as visible at City Hall as her husband. She would accompany him to almost every political function. She was known for being more outgoing than the councilman.

Finn said her husband cared about fairness. “He was a nonpolitical politician,” she said. “He loved solving people problems. He was there to do a job. The City Council is not the same place without Howard. They used to be like a family, and I suspect it isn’t that way anymore. Now there’s a lot more infighting.”

She said she does not feel uncomfortable about being back in the spotlight with Proposition P. “I want to speak everywhere I can,” she said. “It’s that important to me, and to Howard.”

However, opponents of Proposition P questioned the message of the mailer.

“I think any reference to what Howard Finn would have said or would have done with respect to this issue is speculative and misleading,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Marvin Braude, a sponsor of Proposition O, which would prohibit oil drilling in inland areas of Los Angeles that are within 1,000 yards of the shoreline.

“I doubt he would have been a part of such a scurrilous campaign,” he said. “But Anne Finn is a lovely lady, and she has the right to do whatever she wants.”

Another sponsor of Proposition O, Los Angeles City Councilman Zev Yaroslavsky, said he didn’t think the flyer was effective.

“Anne is trying to carry on Howard’s legacy, and she has taken up this issue, but the mailer didn’t connect with me,” he said.

Colleen Harmon, the campaign coordinator for Proposition P, said Finn was featured on the flyer partly to appeal to senior citizens. “This is an issue she’s been very involved in, and she’s made herself available for interviews and things like this,” Harmon said. “We wrote the mailer around the message that she wanted to put out.”

And even though it may look that way, Anne Finn has no immediate plans to follow her husband’s footsteps into Los Angeles politics. Finn said she is happy with the job her husband’s successor, Joel Wachs, is doing, and that he was an ally of Howard Finn.

However, she did leave the door open. “Well, if Joel left the area, and I were young enough . . . we’d see,” she said, smiling.