A New Life for the Eastside : Race to Replace Snyder Should Focus on Neighborhood Ills

Throughout his controversial political career, Los Angeles City Councilman Arthur K. Snyder made life difficult for members of the Latino political Establishment here, so it’s only appropriate that his decision this week to resign from office caught them unprepared.

Minutes after the Wednesday morning press conference at which Snyder announced his decision to step down July 1, telephones were ringing in the offices of Latino activists all over town and as far away as Sacramento and Washington. Everyone, it seemed, had questions about why Snyder was giving up after almost 18 years in office, and who would replace him as the representative of a district that includes the heavily Latino Eastside.

Those are legitimate questions, to be sure. And the answers will provide lots of political gossip and speculation over the next few months as the City Council decides when to hold a special election in Snyder’s 14th District, and whether or not to appoint a temporary replacement for him in the meantime. But are those really the most important questions raised by Snyder’s sudden departure? I think not, because the answers are readily apparent.

The most widely accepted explanation for Snyder’s resignation is that the latest controversy embroiling him--allegations by his former wife that Snyder molested their 9-year-old daughter several years ago--is too difficult for even an aggressive political counterpuncher such as Snyder. In the past his supporters have shrugged off other allegations of impropriety--from conflict of interest to driving city-owned cars while drunk--to reelect him. But this is another order of trouble entirely.

The explanation that Snyder gave for his decision is, in fairness, also equally plausible. He said that he is weary of the almost constant stress that he has faced while in office. Lately, most of that pressure has come from Mexican-American activists who believe that the most heavily Latino district in the city, 75%, should not be represented by an Anglo.

Over the years that conviction has prodded dozens of Latino challengers to fight Snyder in four regular elections and two recall elections. Whether the challengers were well-funded political pros or ambitious upstarts, Snyder defeated them all with a combination of tough campaigning and effective nuts-and-bolts work on the City Council. Even as he fought his many public battles, Snyder was known as a councilman who got potholes filled and broken street lights fixed, and who attended the appropriate community functions.

But Snyder may finally have come to the sad realization that the Latino challenges to his power would never stop, because the 14th District seat is too important symbolically for Latinos to leave alone. Whether he wanted it or not, Snyder had come to symbolize Latinos’ political weakness in Los Angeles. As such, he was a prime target for many more ambitious Latino politicians than he could count.

There is a long list of candidates who want to replace him. First in line are the two men who challenged him in last year’s unsuccessful recall attempt, city planner Steve Rodriguez and former city commissioner Louis Moret. Los Angeles Board of Education member Larry Gonzalez and California Assemblywoman Gloria Molina (D-East Los Angeles) are interested, too, and would not have to give up their posts in order to run in a special city election. Activist attorney Antonio Rodriguez, who helped the Rev. Jesse Jackson wage an effective Democratic presidential campaign on the Eastside, also is gearing up to run for Snyder’s seat. Even the Republicans, a distinct but growing minority among Latino activists, want Gilbert Avila, the top Latino on Gov. George Deukmejian’s staff, to run for the non-partisan council seat. And the list is likely to grow.

So many Latinos want Snyder’s job because whoever runs the 14th District will be a leading Latino spokesman not just in Los Angeles but also throughout the nation. If San Antonio Mayor Henry Cisneros can parlay his part-time and relatively powerless post into a position of national prominence, imagine what the only Latino on the Los Angeles City Council could do. That is why the search for Snyder’s replacement will be of interest far beyond the Eastside. And the reason why who replaces Snyder is less important than how that person is elected.

A wide-open City Council race is a rarity in Los Angeles. It represents a real chance to talk about issues rather than personalities, which often became the focus of campaigns when Snyder was involved. But if the search for a new Eastside council member becomes a political circus--complete with back-room deals and power-brokering by established Latino politicians, conflicting egos, heavy campaign spending and name-calling--it will be a disaster for the local Latino community.

For years Latino leaders have complained about the many obvious problems on the Eastside: unemployment, crime, drugs and the violence that they breed, as well as the area’s overcrowded and run-down housing. Those problems have festered until old 14th District neighborhoods like Boyle Heights and Lincoln Heights are in danger of becoming little more than slums.

As the families and property owners that helped give those communities stability in the past flee their deterioration, Eastside barrios have become ripe targets for exploitation by absentee landlords and real-estate speculators. Eventually they will fall before the bulldozers of urban renewal, as other Latino neighborhoods in Chavez Ravine and Bunker Hill did in the 1950s.

Can the Eastside’s deterioration be turned around? That is really the issue of overriding importance in the 14th District now. And an open, honest and thoughtful campaign to pick Snyder’s replacement offers the chance to start talking about it.