Molina for the Council

Given the circumstances under which it was created by the Los Angeles City Council, it is no surprise that the new 1st District has been described as “everybody’s spare parts”--in other words, neighborhoods that surrounding council members did not want in their districts.

For those who have forgotten, the City Council was forced to create the new district by a lawsuit alleging that the city had been deliberately gerrymandered to dilute potential Latino voting strength. As a result, the 1st District--covering parts of Highland Park, Mount Washington, Lincoln Heights, Chinatown, Echo Park and the Temple-Beaudry and Pico-Union areas--has a 69% Latino population. Because many of these Latinos are very young or recent immigrants, only 40% of the district’s voters are Latino, and there are significant blocs of Anglo and Asian voters, so any notion that the 1st District is a cinch for either of the two Latino candidates, state Assemblywoman Gloria Molina (D-Los Angeles) and city school board member Larry Gonzalez, is mistaken.

But, regardless of who wins the election, the 1st District race will increase the minority representation on the council, because the other two candidates, community planner Leland Wong and businessman Paul D. Y. Moore, are both Chinese-American. That is to be applauded, for it will give Los Angeles a council more reflective of the city’s changing ethnic makeup. And, fortunately for the residents of the 1st District, all four of these candidates are young, bright and capable, so no matter who wins a special election on Feb. 3, the residents are likely to be better represented in City Hall than they were in the recent past.

We have concluded that Molina is the best candidate. During two terms in Sacramento she has established an admirable record of public service and has been responsive to her constituents. She has also developed a down-to-earth sense of how government works--a fact reflected in her willingness to talk specifically about the need to find new revenue sources for the city so that residents of the 1st District can have more police protection, street cleaning and other city services that all the candidates agree they deserve. But she also has ideas for improving the existing housing stock in Los Angeles and for dealing with other city problems, ideas that persuade us that she will not be a parochial representative only for her district but is capable of articulating and helping meet the needs of the entire city.