The Emperor Survives at City Hall

If he were your father or grandfather, you’d speak of him with pride and compassion.

Pride in the accomplishments of his 88 years, his rise from janitor to city leader. Compassion because he is now weak and forgetful, suffering through the inevitable collapse of a man’s mental and physical powers.

Gilbert Lindsay, however, is not just another aging man unwilling to accept retirement. He is a Los Angeles city councilman, one of only 15. He has great responsibilities. His 9th District includes downtown, the garment district, Skid Row and the slums around Watts.

But since a stroke last year, his health has deteriorated so badly that some of his colleagues say he can no longer do his job.

It’s a story nobody wants to talk about on the record. While privately expressing dismay at Lindsay’s condition, his colleagues are members of the same legislative club. They will not speak publicly about their weakened colleague. And with nobody to quote, the press has been reluctant to write about it.

But the signs of Lindsay’s deterioration are obvious to those who watch him at council meetings.

Once he was a prolific orator, a tiny man with a big voice whose speeches were circuitous, often uninformed, but politically shrewd. His clout was immense, built up over the years as he became the downtown business community’s man in City Hall.

While corporate leaders and land developers loved Mayor Tom Bradley for his vision of a high-rise downtown, they adored Lindsay. The councilman took care of the details--the zoning, the street closings, the variances and all the other twists and turns through the regulatory maze needed to erect a new office building in an already crowded downtown.

He was the honored guest at ground breakings. He loved being taken to lunch or dinner by land developers and lobbyists at The Towers or some other expensive restaurant. The Community Redevelopment Agency, in charge of downtown redevelopment, was Lindsay’s domain. CRA board members listened silently and respectfully when he spoke.

Politicians and reporters jokingly called him “The Emperor of the 9th.” He acted as if he believed he was.

Now, an assistant guides Lindsay to his seat in the council chambers. Many days, he seems disoriented as he shuffles in. Two aides assist him through the agenda. Votes have to be changed when he makes mistakes. His speeches, rambling in the past, now often don’t make sense.

Early this year, Council President John Ferraro took away most of the work from Lindsay’s committee, and gave it to another committee. It was a move made reluctantly, by a friend. But Ferraro, dismayed at the committee’s inaction, believed he had no choice.

Lindsay heads the Public Works Committee. Before the shake-up, it was in charge of environmental legislation. Landfills, recycling, air quality, the sewer system were all on the committee agenda.

Ferraro relieved Lindsay’s committee of these important duties and turned them over to a new Environment and Waste Management Committee, headed by Councilman Marvin Braude.

Bob Gay, Lindsay’s chief deputy, tends to district business. But the fact is that only a council member--and an energetic one--can get results when constituents complain that the garbage isn’t being picked up on time or the streets are not being swept. Especially in a poor area like Lindsay’s portion of South L.A.

How does Lindsay survive?

Black political and religious leaders will not move against him. They are loyal and will not oppose an incumbent from their area, no matter how ineffective that officeholder has become. In addition, much of the population in the 9th District is made up of Latino immigrants who cannot vote because they are not citizens. Those residents who can vote and might be expected to organize against Lindsay are largely poor and understandably preoccupied with earning a living. Politics, after all, is an activity for those with leisure.

Only once in recent years have the 9th’s homeowners rebelled against Lindsay, killing a proposal to build a huge trash-burning plant near a residential area. The fight seemed to have exhausted the area.

Compare that to a more affluent part of the city, the northwest San Fernando Valley’s 12th District, where Councilman Hal Bernson has crossed constituents by favoring a big development on Porter Ranch. PC-equipped homeowners there have mounted a professional-looking recall effort. A volunteer demographer supplies them with data showing how the development will lead to overcrowded schools. A press secretary, also a volunteer, battles reporters with the persistence of a pro.

If Lindsay represented Bernson’s district, he probably would be out. But in the poverty of the 9th District’s residential neighborhoods, survival is more important than political action. Thus the Emperor survives.