Farrell Will Not Run for Reelection, Sources Say : City Hall: An announcement by the 17-year council veteran is expected today. The opening would be a rare opportunity for restive younger black candidates.

Veteran Los Angeles City Councilman Robert Farrell is expected to announce today that he will not seek reelection in April, creating the second vacancy in a predominantly black district in a week and providing an unexpected opportunity for an increasingly impatient younger generation of black political leaders.

While Farrell, 53, a 17-year council veteran, was unavailable for comment, numerous well-placed sources, including other council members, community leaders and friends and foes of the councilman, told The Times that Farrell has said he will leave the council.

The reasons for Farrell’s decision are unclear, although he recently has suffered political setbacks. Several of his strongest supporters expressed surprise at his decision.

The Rev. Cecil L. (Chip) Murray, the influential senior minister of First AME Church, said he believes that Farrell is stepping down, in part, because the councilman has suffered from the general “deficit of credence that dogs the footsteps of politicians on the American scene.” A longtime Farrell backer, Murray said there is a group of “young Turks waiting in the wings in South-Central who will be satisfied with nothing but complete turnover.”

Farrell has represented the 8th District in South-Central Los Angeles since 1974, when he won a special election to succeed Billy Mills, who had become a Superior Court judge. A graduate of Los Angeles High School and UCLA, Farrell has been reelected to the council every four years since 1975. But he was spurned by voters last June in a bid to succeed Assemblywoman Maxine Waters, losing badly in the Democratic primary.

The councilman forged a generally liberal voting record. He has been a strong supporter of traditional civil rights groups and organized labor. But he has had a stormy career, fending off recall efforts in 1978 and 1988 and facing a district attorney’s investigation into a potential conflict of interest.

With Farrell’s departure, two of the three council seats long held by blacks would be up for grabs. Councilman Gilbert Lindsay, stalwart of the 9th District, died Friday after a long illness. Nate Holden remains on the council.

The turnover signals a potential sea of change in local black politics, which in the past few years has known friction between Mayor Tom Bradley, Lindsay, Farrell and other allies of the mayor and an increasingly vocal vanguard of younger politicians.

“I think there is a changing of the guard,” said John Ferraro, who has represented the Wilshire District on the council since 1966. “A lot of people have been waiting for these changes.”

The Lindsay seat is expected to be filled in an April special election scheduled to coincide with the regular primary for the 8th District and other even-numbered council posts.

Farrell has scheduled a 10 a.m. press conference today at City Hall.

Sources said that Farrell today will endorse as his successor Mark Ridley-Thomas, 36, who has headed the West Coast office of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference in Los Angeles since 1981. Ridley-Thomas was defeated in his only bid for elective office, a 1987 attempt to oust Rita Walters from the Los Angeles school board.

Ridley-Thomas said in a telephone interview that he understands Farrell will endorse him.

“This is an unprecedented opportunity for African-American politics,” said Ridley-Thomas. “These opportunities come very, very seldom and we in the African-American community have an opportunity to build on the foundation that has been laid.”

Another candidate to succeed Farrell, Kerman Maddox, said, “The fact that you have two City Council seats in the African-American community available at the same time is an indication of the emergence of new leadership in our community.

“We now have competition for political offices, which is great for our community,” said Maddox. “Unlike other communities, we have not had many competitive races.”

Maddox, 35, a former Bradley aide who teaches political science at Southwest Community College, organized an unsuccessful campaign to recall Farrell in 1988.

A tough race with several candidates is expected for both the Lindsay and Farrell seats. Besides Ridley-Thomas and Maddox, there are at least two other declared candidates and the possibility of more in the 8th District.

Attorney Billy Mills Jr., 32, whose father represented the district from 1963 to 1974, has formed a campaign committee. And Rod Wright, a longtime aide to Assemblywoman Waters who has twice failed in bids for the state Assembly, has said he plans to run.

William R. Robertson, executive secretary-treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, a longtime Farrell supporter, said he received a call asking for support from one of the potential successors Tuesday as word of the councilman’s decision began to spread in political circles.

“We had expected to support Bob for reelection,” said Robertson. “We’ll take a good look at all the candidates who are running now,” he added.

A core of district residents have criticized Farrell for not paying sufficient attention to the needs of the area and being unresponsive to their pleas to rid the area of alleys strewn with trash. There also have been controversies about whether Farrell maintained regular residence in the district.

He has responded by saying that he has worked hard on behalf of the district. Farrell was frequently buoyed by support from other elected officials, such as Bradley, and substantial numbers of influential clergymen.

Still, he barely escaped a runoff election in 1987. He lost considerable support after first proposing and then opposing a city ballot initiative that would have imposed a special tax on 8th District residents for additional police officers.

During the 1988 recall campaign, his opponents contended that Farrell should be ousted because of several City Council votes in which he participated that steered tens of thousands of dollars in grants to an 8th District agency headed by his former wife. Farrell has consistently denied any wrongdoing and has not been charged.

The district has long been one of the city’s poorest. In the late 1970s it was 85% black. But by the time of the 1988 recall campaign the black population had dropped to 52%, the Latino population had grown to 30% and the remaining residents were Asian and Anglo.

The area has gained notoriety for street gangs that terrorize residents and for a bevy of young crack cocaine dealers.

Ridley-Thomas said, “There’s no denying the fact that there is a crying need for a very aggressive and innovative approach to the escalating levels of crime in this community--violent crimes.”

Maddox said the main issues are economic development, community revitalization and “most important, accountability and accessibility from the councilman to the people of the district.”

The Times was unable to reach Mills or Wright for comment.