L.A. CITY COUNCIL ELECTIONS / 10TH DISTRICT : Holden Stages Low-Key Race for Reelection

For Los Angeles City Councilman Nate Holden, the 1991 campaign has been a time of unaccustomed calm as he coasts toward Tuesday’s election in the 10th District.

The usually combative lawmaker has run a low-key campaign against his lone challenger, Esther Lofton, an unemployed former schoolteacher with no political base and no campaign funds.

Holden represents a largely middle- and working-class section of the city that stretches from the western edge of downtown to the Palms area on the Westside. Pockets of the district include expensive homes on quiet streets, but some areas have been hit hard by crime and drug problems that plague the central city.

A victory would give the 62-year-old Holden only his third win in 10 runs for public office, but he hints that he may run for mayor again in 1993. Holden came unexpectedly close to unseating Mayor Tom Bradley two years ago when the mayor was mired in questions about his financial affairs.

“It’s a decision that I still have to make,” Holden said this week. “Two years is some time away. I’d like that challenge, if I’m in good health.”

Lofton, 60, said she is running because “Mr. Holden is out there for himself.” She said she has not worked since she was “forced out” of teaching 30 years ago by bureaucrats in the Los Angeles public school system, whom she later sued.

“I know how the system works. I know how government works,” she said, adding that she had lived on welfare for a time.

Holden said no strong opponent has emerged to challenge him in the 10th District because “I work very hard.” His office, he said, tends to constituents’ problems and complaints, usually about crime, graffiti, drugs and tree trimming.

His campaign fund also is a deterrent to potential opponents. Having gathered about $200,000, Holden said he stopped collecting campaign donations when it became apparent that he had no substantial opposition. Holden has spent much of the money on charitable donations and recently paid $4,567 for a television set and video recorder for his campaign office, according to reports filed with the city clerk.

Holden also may be the beneficiary of strongly contested campaigns for the seats of the two other black council members: Robert Farrell, who decided not to run again, and the late Gilbert Lindsay. Black political leaders have focused their attention this spring on those districts--the 8th and 9th--leaving the field clear for Holden in the 10th. One potential opponent, school board member Rita Walters, moved out of Holden’s district and into the 9th so that she could run for Lindsay’s seat.

A strong supporter of the Los Angeles Police Department and Chief Daryl F. Gates, Holden has distanced himself from a large number of black leaders who have called for Gates’ resignation in the aftermath of the videotaped beating of Rodney G. King.

Several days before the beating, Holden made an unsuccessful attempt to derail a management audit of the LAPD that had been proposed by the mayor and approved overwhelmingly by the City Council.

For days after the graphic videotape was released, Holden remained silent on the matter, ignoring the growing public outcry and the demands for Gates’ resignation. Holden said this week that he believes the residents of his district support the Police Department.

“It’s such an emotional issue, I’m not going to even comment on the Gates matter,” Holden said.

Some council members say Holden has misjudged the sentiments of his constituents, who may be far more upset with the LAPD than Holden apparently believes.

“He’s caught between a rock and a hard place,” said Councilman Michael Woo, who has called for Gates’ resignation and said Holden may be out of step with “the mainstream of the black community.”

“He (Holden) has traditionally been a strong, vocal supporter of Chief Gates,” Woo said. Holden, Woo added, “has been uncharacteristically subdued” in the debate over Gates’ future.

Woo is among a number of council members who complain privately and publicly about Holden’s confrontational style. Although Woo is a member of the council’s Transportation Committee, he said he has all but stopped attending its meetings because he frequently clashes with Holden, the committee’s chairman.

“It’s difficult to sit there while Nate issues a horrible denunciation of someone,” Woo said.

Others, including the mayor’s office, complain that Holden delays important transportation legislation by holding it up in his committee.

Holden denied the allegation and said many of Bradley’s transportation plans are “publicity stunts “ that are “not well thought out.”

Despite the lack of opposition to Holden on the ballot, some of his constituents say they are unhappy with his record of service to the community. Several activists involved in historic preservation projects refused to discuss Holden, saying he has a reputation for being “vindictive” about those who publicly cross him.

Maureen DeBose, a former president of the Western Heights Neighborhood Assn., said she finds Holden’s office unhelpful. “This community has been stripped of so many services,” she said, adding that Holden seems unresponsive to requests for help with alley cleanup, graffiti removal and building and safety code enforcement.

“It’s a constant, striving effort to get anything and everything done,” she said. “It’s like pulling teeth with Nate Holden sometimes.”

Councilman Marvin Braude, who frequently scolds Holden for “not doing his homework” and delaying council meetings with fundamental questions, said last week that Holden brings a mixture of positive and negative forces to the council.

“One gets the impression he’s still running for mayor,” Braude said. “He does a lot of bashing to impress the television audience and the people who are in the council chamber . . . but he’s a guy with a good sense of social conscience and of social balance.”