L.A. CITY COUNCIL ELECTIONS / 8TH DISTRICT : Focus Shifts From Economy to Police

For years, City Councilman Robert Farrell has been hit by critics for being inaccessible to his South-Central Los Angeles constituents.

But as Farrell, 54, prepares to step down from office this spring, aloof politicians are the last thing on the minds of 8th District voters. For months, residents have been inundated with placards and mailers, greeted from church pulpits and visited at their front doors by nine candidates vying to replace the 17-year council member.

Among the contenders in the April 9 election are four community activists, all in their mid-30s, who have name recognition and lead the pack in fund raising and endorsements.

Kerman Maddox, 36, who helped organize an unsuccessful recall effort to drive Farrell from office in 1987, has won widespread media attention this spring for launching a recall drive to oust Police Chief Daryl F. Gates.

Mark Ridley-Thomas, 36, is a well-known civil rights advocate, having served for a decade as executive director of the Los Angeles chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference.

Billy Mills, 33, a business attorney who graduated from Harvard College and UCLA Law School, is the son of Farrell’s well-liked predecessor, retired Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Billy Mills.

Roderick Wright, 38, a longtime political consultant, is relying heavily on endorsements from his former boss, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, and from Assemblywoman Marguerite Archie-Hudson.

The other five candidates are meter reader and mini-mart owner Cornelius Pettus, 32; business consultant Norma Mena, 58; social services consultant Carolyn Moore, 49; print shop owner and former firefighter Jonathan Leonard, 60, and county Department of Children’s Services ombudsman Maybelline Griffin, 55.

Unless one candidate wins a majority of the votes cast, a June showdown will be held between the two top finishers--with the victor sure to emerge as a powerful new voice of black leadership in Los Angeles city government.

The L-shaped district is full of contrasts: immaculate churches cater-corner from seedy liquor stores; neatly appointed blue-collar bungalows facing graffiti-ridden crack houses.

Yet through much of the district, which stretches from Koreatown south toward Watts, there are two constants: a dearth of vibrant commercial enterprises and an epidemic of gang violence.

As a consequence, the issues of economic revitalization and crime in the streets initially dominated the campaign to replace Farrell, who says he is leaving office in order to spend more time with his family.

Things changed, however, the moment that TV news programs began airing the videotaped beating by Los Angeles police of black construction worker Rodney G. King in the San Fernando Valley. The nationally publicized furor has focused 8th District campaign rhetoric on what the candidates say is a festering issue of police brutality.

Maddox, a community college instructor who once served as police liaison for Mayor Tom Bradley, seized the issue by launching the recall campaign to oust Gates.

Followed by a stream of reporters and supporters, he recently marched on police headquarters to officially serve notice on the chief. Maddox, who two years ago filed harassment charges against Los Angeles police officers for allegedly beating him after a groundless traffic stop, is now stopped in the streets by well-wishers who recognize his face from television.

The community activist takes pains, however, to make clear that “we’re not anti-law enforcement.”

“I’m the Neighborhood Watch president where I live so I’m the eyes and ears of the LAPD in our neighborhood,” Maddox says. “We need the police and they need us.”

As one of the city’s top civil rights leaders, Ridley-Thomas has also taken a strong stand in the King case, urging that Gates be removed from office immediately and that the City Charter be amended to require a fixed five-year term for the post of police chief.

A day before Gates was put on administrative leave by the Police Commission, Ridley-Thomas announced that he was giving commission members information about Gates’ failure to discipline officers involved in another police abuse case.

“(Brutality) is business as usual to some extent in our community and we’ve got to call a halt to it,” says Ridley-Thomas, who co-chaired a campaign to establish a civilian police review board in the aftermath of the controversial Los Angeles police shooting of Eulia Love in 1979.

Ridley-Thomas, who holds a Ph.D. in social ethics from USC, says he is the best choice for the council job because of his track record and his access to civic leaders. Appearing last Sunday at Mt. Zion Missionary Baptist Church, he was endorsed by high-profile pastor E. V. Hill, who said, “Mark knows everybody, everybody knows Mark. Mark can get in any door.”

In recent days, Ridley-Thomas, declaring that Maddox has “a recall fetish,” has sparred with his competitor over their approaches to the King case. Recalls generally have had “dismal” results in Los Angeles, Ridley-Thomas says, so Maddox’s effort is “a false start at best and voter manipulation at worst.”

Maddox counters: “If anyone else would have discovered the provision in the Charter, they’d be getting the publicity and tooting their own horn.”

Maddox, moreover, questions whether Ridley-Thomas will actually lose votes because he has been endorsed by Councilman Farrell, who has said that charges he is inaccessible are untrue but “come with the turf.”

Ridley-Thomas has raised $119,930 this year. Maddox, who began filling his campaign war chest six months earlier, has raised a total of $90,603.

Wright, who has collected $37,195, has also taken a strong stand on the King issue. Until Bradley called for Gates’ resignation this week, Wright said Bradley should be recalled if Gates did not go.

After Bradley’s statement, Wright said, “That’s leadership on his part, and I’m supportive.”

Wright , a Pepperdine graduate, has focused much of his campaign on the need to improve the district’s business climate. Speaking to a forum sponsored by two African-American lawyers associations, he said: “I came here to say, ‘Don’t sell your mama’s home (and) get a BMW and move to Marina del Rey.’

“If I can make this community stable, encourage young professional black folk to come back home, I can go to business people and say, ‘You can make money on Vermont Avenue.’ ”

Mills, who has been endorsed by Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, says the Police Department must undergo fundamental changes that would not be solved by Gates’ resignation alone.

“We’ve got to change the police force from the bottom up,” he says. “(Otherwise) we will have the same kind of leadership because those that will inherit it from him have been trained by him and worked with him for the last 25 years.”

In public appearances, Mills repeatedly invokes his father’s name, promising he will remain accessible, like his father, to district residents.

“The most pressing problem is a lack of leadership--we need someone to face the problems of crime and drugs,” says Mills, who has raised $62,615 for his campaign. “Our community is at a crossroads. Without major changes, we’re not going anywhere.”