Make Way for the New Guard : Two largely black City Council districts are suddenly up for grabs

With each new year comes hope of positive change. In Los Angeles city politics, there’s good reason for feeling upbeat. There will soon be new, and one hopes fresh, representation on the Los Angeles City Council, particularly for the city’s African-American population. In an increasingly crisis-driven city, such change is both welcome and needed.

Councilman Robert Farrell, after nearly 17 years on the council, has announced that he will not seek reelection in April. Farrell’s decision, coupled with the recent death of longtime Councilman Gilbert Lindsay, have already had a salutary effect among activists in South-Central Los Angeles. It’s as if several people, shoulders applied to a strongly jammed door, don’t have to push anymore. The door’s lock has slipped and it now stands wide open. Behind it is opportunity--not just for Farrell’s 8th District and the late Lindsay’s 9th, but for an entire city that needs vibrant leadership in all quarters.

A whole generation of young black people, who only vaguely remember any mayor before Tom Bradley, now will have an opportunity not just to support members of their own generation for public office, but perhaps even to lead themselves. In the race to replace Farrell, some key candidates who already have expressed interest are under age 40. While there no doubt will be candidates of all ages vying to become new council members, there’s a particular restlessness among under-40 blacks who want a more aggressive approach to solving problems than their political elders. That’s healthy.

Age alone should not make the candidate, of course. But the presence of younger candidates does hold forth the possibility that young voters may involve themselves in local electoral politics. In a community so besieged by negative images--gang-bangers get media attention, scholarship winners don’t--the exciting prospect of some smart new-guard contestants battling with words over the future of South-Central Los Angeles is a happy new year’s thought, indeed.