1st Council District Race Comes Down to Hernandez and Lowe : Runoff: Molina-backed candidate will face an underdog attorney who finished a surprising second.

Cypress Park bail bondsman Mike Hernandez and Chinatown attorney Sharon Mee Yung Lowe will face each other in August in a runoff election for the City Council seat left vacant by Gloria Molina, a contest that will pit a well-financed front-runner against a scrappy underdog.

Hernandez, 38, who raised nearly $100,000 and had the endorsement of the popular Molina, led the six-candidate field in Tuesday’s balloting with 42% of the votes cast in the mostly inner-city 1st Council District.

Lowe, 36, whose largely grass-roots campaign focused on overdevelopment, came in a surprising second with 20.4%.

Some in the district expected 36-year-old Sandra Figueroa to be the candidate forcing Hernandez into a runoff. Figueroa, on leave from her post as the director of an Echo Park social services agency, garnered support from Democratic Assemblyman Richard Polanco of Los Angeles, retired Assemblyman Mike Roos (D-Los Angeles) and departing Los Angeles school board member Jackie Goldberg. But she came in third with 17.8%.

Although the returns showed that he hovered near the 50% figure at one point Tuesday night--the simple majority of the votes cast needed to avoid a runoff--Hernandez was nevertheless jubilant at the outcome.

“I’m very proud of the campaign we put on and we will win in the runoff,” he said Wednesday at his headquarters in Highland Park.

Molina, who created the council vacancy when she was elected this year to the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors, also predicted victory for Hernandez in August. Mingling with Hernandez supporters at his campaign headquarters, she also noted a little disappointment, saying she thought Hernandez’s vote total would be closer to 50%.

Lowe credited her showing to her opposition to plans for the Central City West project west of downtown, and her support for the creation of elected neighborhood advisory councils and more affordable housing.

Acknowledging that she faces an uphill battle, Lowe said she “is a fighting underdog with a bite . . . Mike Hernandez is going to feel that bite.”

Some Latino political activists said that in the runoff Hernandez will not automatically attract voters who supported Figueroa, Frank Juarez Foster and Maria Elizabeth Munoz in the primary. Latinos make up nearly 74% of the 223,000 residents but only a small part of the 33,000 registered voters.

“Mike Hernandez supported us in opposing the East L.A. prison, but Sharon Lowe has shown that she can work with women and the Latino community,” said Eastside activist Juana Gutierrez.

Figueroa and Foster said Wednesday they do not intend to endorse Hernandez or Lowe in the runoff. Munoz and Caesar Aguirre, the sixth candidate, said they are considering an endorsement, but declined further comment.

During the campaign, the candidates concentrated on problems that included crime, overdevelopment and the lack of affordable housing.

Lowe criticized the Central City West project, a multimillion-dollar office-housing complex that Molina helped negotiate, because it did not have enough low-income housing and lacked specifics on how to deal with traffic the project would generate.

Hernandez, on the other hand, pointed out that the 1st District, stretching from the Pico-Union area west of downtown to the hills of Mt. Washington, is patrolled by six different police stations. He favored consolidating the district under two Los Angeles Police Department stations.

Hernandez was the target of several last-minute mailings by Figueroa. In one, Hernandez was attacked for reportedly hiding the fact that he is a bail bondsman. On Tuesday’s ballot, he was identified as a “businessman/community activist.”

In another mailer, Figueroa tried to link herself with Molina. “Gloria Molina & Sandra Figueroa,” the piece read, “cut from the same cloth.” It stressed Figueroa’s independence from so-called political bosses and special interests that she said wanted to get Hernandez elected. The mailer also chided Molina for practicing machine politics by endorsing Hernandez.