Farrell: Oust or Not to Oust? : Voters in Drug, Gang-Plagued 8th District Agonize Over Recall Aimed at Councilman

To Los Angeles City Councilman Robert Farrell’s practiced eye, the heap of beat-up furniture, appliances and trash blocking the alley off Haas Avenue was obviously new because scavengers had yet to pick it clean of any small treasures it might yield.

Farrell carefully poked through the pile of junk, laughing at one point when he unearthed former Councilwoman Peggy Stevenson’s smiling photo on a tattered guide to city services that had once been sent to a Hollywood-area resident.

That a load of junk could have been trucked 10 miles from Hollywood and emptied in a South-Central alley symbolizes how many in Farrell’s community feel: dumped on.

And now, all across neighborhoods of the 8th City Council District, residents are wrestling with the question of whether Farrell, after 13 years in office, should himself be dumped.

Sore Points

Farrell’s record in cleaning up alleys, as well as crime and graffiti-covered homes, is among the sore-point issues in a high-profile recall effort that has been waged against him in recent months. Anger over roaming dogs, abandoned cars, burned-out houses and businesses taking flight were also sources of frustration translating into signatures on recall petitions.

But the strongest rap against Farrell stems from his highly unpopular response to the worst scourge ravaging his district--an epidemic of gang-connected violence and drug trafficking. Last year, Farrell proposed that property owners in his South-Central district be taxed separately to pay for extra police protection. The community outcry was so intense that Farrell eventually retreated.

Recall proponents also point accusingly to City Council votes in which Farrell participated that steered tens of thousands of dollars in grant funds to an 8th District agency run by his former wife. Farrell has denied any wrongdoing, but the district attorney’s office is reviewing the allegations.

The Farrell recall effort is a high-stakes numbers game that will be steeped in uncertainty until the more than 16,000 signatures turned in last Thursday are counted and validated.

Recall Leaders

Recall leaders led by Kerman Maddox, 33, a former aide to Mayor Tom Bradley, need at least 12,579 validated signatures to force Farrell into a special election. In their quest for signatures, they targeted middle-class areas where Farrell’s popularity plummeted in last year’s primary only weeks after he proposed the police tax measure.

Maddox has confidently predicteds his followers have gathered enough signatures. But Farrell’s backers, including many ministers, were able to collect more than 12,400 cards in which signers said they were revoking their support for the recall. The process of validating signatures and checking cards could take as long as a month, election officials said.

Offering financial support to the recall effort are many black professionals who have left the district but maintain close family ties to it. Attorneys such as Dwight Bolden, a resident of the adjacent 6th District, said: “It’s difficult to expect your street to be swept on a regular basis or graffiti to be cleared. . . . But once you know you’re entitled to that, once you get it, then you have some type of perspective, where you can say, it’s this person’s fault.”

Farrell, for one, says the dirty alleys and other chronic ills of the district are not his fault.

“When people are critical of me, they say this is the kind of stuff that Bob Farrell should be on top of and that it’s my fault that it’s in the alley,” complained Farrell as he picked through the Haas Avenue debris. “This is brand new droppings, man. And people . . . won’t believe that we (recently) cleaned this (alley) up.”

Farrell’s contention notwithstanding, scores of residents interviewed by The Times say the area always comes last when money for city services is allocated--and that nobody in City Hall really cares.

‘Short End of Stick’

“I feel we’re going to get the short end of the stick no matter where you turn it,” said Harriett Seay, an 18-year resident of south La Salle Avenue.

Whether people like Harriett Seay are willing to take one of the most drastic steps in politics--recalling an official--poses an agonizing dilemma for many in the district’s predominantly black community.

For her part, Seay is unsure whether Farrell’s recall would make much of a difference.

“I’m trying to find out whether the people (who) are backing the petition may be splitting whatever solidarity (the black community) may have,” she said.

Seay and others are torn between a sense of loyalty to Farrell--a former Freedom Rider in the civil rights movement--and frustration over a lack of economic progress in the district’s most depressed areas.

Black clergy members, meanwhile, say that despite a professed admiration for recall leader Maddox, a recall is anathema to black community goals.

“There is an entrenched movement to discredit black elected officials all over America,” said the Rev. Cecil Murray of the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, where Bradley and Maddox are parishioners. “I would not wish to see blacks adding to this movement of their own volition.

“If you were to pick the lint off the clothing of any public figure, you might find reason for disenchantment, but if the condition is at all correctable, then we are obligated to bring the officeholder to full term,” Murray added. “I feel that Bob’s record of service to the community more than justifies the support and trust of his constituency.”

Farrell supporters also argue that recalling him could undermine the councilman at a time when he chairs the powerful Grants, Housing and Community Development Committee that funnels federal assistance funds to economically depressed neighborhoods.

‘Clearly Committed’

Recall leader Maddox does not buy the argument:

“It does not take a person who understands the process and who is clearly committed and clearly knows how to work government agencies . . . 15 years to get to a certain position to do what is in the best interests of the city.”

In the community at large, opinions by Farrell’s critics vary, sometimes, but not always, translating into a desire for his removal.

“I haven’t been satisfied with Farrell and he knows it,” said a 20-year resident of the 2600 block of South Budlong Avenue. “I’ve written letters to him over and over. It seems that regardless of what you do, it looks like things get worse.”

But even though this resident signed the recall petition, he said, “I don’t intend to vote against him. There’s no sense taking Farrell out just for the sake of taking him out.”

‘Never Available’

But Patricia Boyden, a 21-year resident of 41st Place, said: “I feel they should remove (Farrell). To me he’s never where he should be. When Councilman (Billy) Mills was here, it was much better. You could at least talk to him.”

Farrell’s inner-city district has changed markedly over the years, both geographically and ethnically. Once about 80% black and including part of Watts, Farrell’s district through the redrawing of district lines is now about 52% black, 30% Latino and the balance Anglo and Asian.

Running generally from Koreatown south to about 110th Street and from Exposition Park and USC west to the deteriorating businesses along Western Avenue, the 8th District is one of the poorest and most crime-ridden in Los Angeles. The area has recently gained national notoriety for street gangs battling for prominence and terrorizing neighborhoods with drugs and guns.

Barred Homes

Residents in well-maintained as well as depressed neighborhoods told The Times that they remain cocooned in their barred homes at night, fearful of drive-by shootings, drug solicitations or street people defecating on their lawns. They spoke of once-thriving neighborhood block clubs that have all but disappeared because former members are afraid to attend meetings, of fortified rock houses and of murder victims dumped on their sidewalks.

Crime and how to deal with it is at the core of why Farrell is fighting for political survival. Stymied for years in trying to get more police for his district, Farrell last year proposed his tax measure, Proposition 7, that would have placed a special levy on homeowners in high-crime areas to pay for extra police.

Farrell had contended that area residents would support the measure; in the past, voters in his district had twice approved citywide police taxing measures, though they had lost overall.

But for the special tax intended only for South-Central Los Angeles, the outcry was immediate and widespread.

May Have Misread Residents

Constituents accused Farrell of badly misreading them. “Maybe he just didn’t estimate the power of the people at that particular point or their intensity as far as being singled out and having to pay for something (police protection) that we felt we were already paying for,” said Frances James, a leader of the South Central Organizing Committee, which opposed the measure.

Farrell has argued that his tax proposal was part of a long-range strategy to force a major debate on police deployment. He offered as proof that the strategy worked the fact that more police are assigned to his district than ever before.

“Sometimes when you take a stand to make a difference, it doesn’t come off nice and sweet and accurate and all the rest,” Farrell said.

Even early Proposition 7 supporters like Melanie Lomax, a civil rights lawyer and former NAACP vice president, conceded that “all of its ramifications were not well thought out.” She added that “maybe (Proposition 7) wasn’t politically astute, but his heart was in the right place.”

Unforgiving Voters

Voters were not so forgiving. The anger was first reflected last April when Farrell stood for reelection. Although he faced several under-financed and little-known opponents, Farrell barely escaped a runoff, winning just under 51% of the vote.

Farrell ran second in 10 voter-rich, middle-class precincts that he had formerly carried easily, including the neighborhood where he is registered to vote but no longer lives. Altogether, Farrell did not muster a majority vote in nearly half of his district’s 156 precincts. By comparison, in 1983 he breezed to reelection with 61% of the vote, losing only one precinct and winning outright in all but 18.

Shortly after the primary, Farrell switched his position on Proposition 7, ultimately urging voters to reject it after the City Council agreed to hire 250 more police officers for citywide deployment. But his eventual opposition came only after a series of about-faces that earned him a “flip-flop” label.

Recall organizers seized on the April primary results as well as the overwhelming defeat in June of the police tax ballot issue as clear signs of Farrell’s sudden vulnerability.

‘Really Upset People’

“The only time, really, that I gave any serious consideration (to running for City Council) was after Proposition 7 was defeated,” said recall leader Maddox. “It really upset people out here.” Maddox, who moved back into the district about a year ago, attended USC and has worked on a number of local and state political campaigns. In 1986, he performed campaign advance duties during Bradley’s second gubernatorial bid and last year worked for Homer Broome’s losing bid for the council seat won by Nate Holden.

The current recall attempt is the second Farrell has faced in a decade. In 1978, with recall leaders charging him with ineffectiveness and being unresponsive to district problems, voters viewed Farrell as a relative newcomer deserving of a chance and easily trounced the removal effort. But this year, even Farrell’s supporters concede that he may be in trouble.

Farrell said he doubts the recall will qualify but is taking nothing for granted.

Residents say that, win or lose, the recall effort has been somewhat beneficial. Streets once swept on a your-guess-is-as-good-as-mine timetable are now cleaned on schedule. Impassable, trashed alleys such as that on Haas Avenue are now either being cleaned out or closed off to public use.

In recent weeks, Farrell has also been especially visible, appearing with Bradley at news conferences and promising new alley and park cleaning funds.

And, borrowing a tactic that helped defeat the 1978 recall, Farrell has also blanketed the district with literature telling constituents that “He’s one of us!” and touting other achievements.

Sending Out Mailers

“You never heard a word from him until all of this talk about a recall,” said the Rev. Thomas Griffith, pastor of St. Paul’s United Methodist Church.

In his defense, Farrell said in an interview, “I understand there is a perception in South Los Angeles that City Hall has not done as much as it could do for South Los Angeles. And I think that would be an accurate perception.”

Farrell said part of the district’s problem can be traced to a City Council that until recently had not fully grasped the seriousness of the plight of South-Central Los Angeles.

“If someone is going to really ding me for not being effective . . . they can’t ding me without dinging the whole of City Hall, from the executive level all the way down to the managers who take care of the work on the street,” Farrell said.

Times researcher Cecilia Rasmussen contributed to this article.