3 Gay Leaders to Seek Council Seat in 13th District : Politics: Ex-school board President Jackie Goldberg, health care executive Michael Weinstein and TV executive Conrado Terrazas will try to replace Woo.

Three gay and lesbian community leaders have formally declared their candidacies for the 13th District seat on the City Council--presenting Los Angeles voters with the first opportunity in the history of city government to elect an openly homosexual candidate.

Leaders in the gay rights movement hailed the development as a watershed event in their history--coming 15 years after the election of the first gay member of the San Francisco Board of Supervisors and more than eight years after a three-member gay-lesbian majority took power on the West Hollywood City Council.

“This is historic. It is a culmination. It is a dream fulfilled,” said Morris Kight, one of the founders of the city’s gay rights movement.

Filing their declarations of candidacy this week were former Los Angeles school board President Jackie Goldberg, AIDS health care executive Michael Weinstein and television executive Conrado Terrazas. The three, all strong advocates of gay rights, are considered among the most viable of more than a dozen candidates who have expressed interest in replacing Councilman Mike Woo, who is running for mayor.

Prominent among the other contenders is Tom LaBonge, a longtime aide to City Council President John Ferraro. Because of that, LaBonge is known in much of the 13th--which after last year’s redistricting stretches from Hollywood on the west, through Los Feliz and Silver Lake to Glassell Park on the east and Eagle Rock on the north.

Another experienced political activist in the race will be Tom Riley, a onetime Teamsters Union organizer who recently worked in Barbara Boxer’s victorious U.S. Senate campaign. He also served parts of the 13th District as a staff member for former Assemblyman Mike Roos.

LaBonge said he does not expect the gay vote alone to end up deciding the election, even with the unprecedented field of gay candidates. “It’s just a reflection of 1993 Los Angeles,” LaBonge said. “This part of Los Angeles has a view of being very open to everyone. . . . I think people will be voting for a person in this district who can do the job.”

The historic opportunity for the gay community has not come without friction, with all three candidates battling for support and endorsements and Goldberg coming under fire for not being as high-profile about her sexual orientation as the two other gay candidates.

The issue of openness has become the focus of intense debate and was the central issue of an emotionally charged session recently in which the three gay candidates met with gay and lesbian community leaders. Several in attendance insisted that Goldberg was not worthy of their support unless she became more upfront about being a lesbian.

Weinstein and Terrazas have openly acknowledged in their campaigns that they are gay, while Goldberg has said she will not deny she is a lesbian but will not “advertise” the fact either.

“As a minority group that has been disenfranchised, you have not really arrived until you have elected one of your own,” said Steve Martin, president of the Stonewall Democratic Club, an influential gay political organization.

Martin said he is backing Terrazas, rather than Goldberg, in large measure because of Terrazas’ more open stance.

“To be out and open and proud of what you are is really important in this community to the vast majority of activists,” Martin said.

Others, such as lesbian activist Rose Greene, said openness is important but should not become a litmus test of candidates for gay and lesbian voters. Greene, co-chairwoman of the Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center Board, said she is backing Goldberg because “she has such a demonstrated record of support for this community.”

Gay and lesbian political leaders said they are “thrilled” that Goldberg acknowledged her sexual orientation in an interview with The Times. “I think it shows a great deal of spiritual growth on her part and makes the race more morally satisfying,” said Kight, who is, nonetheless, backing Weinstein.

Goldberg called the issue of openness about sexual orientation important. “But more important is who we are and what we are and what we believe in and what we are going to fight for,” she said.

She said questions on whether she is “out” have been raised as “a diversionary tactic” on behalf of candidates “who are not going to win and don’t have anything to run on.”

While not declaring herself a “lesbian candidate,” Goldberg said she has for more than 13 years presented herself in public with her lover, writer and teacher Sharon Stricker.

“I have lived my life honestly. I have just not made a public pronouncement at a press conference,” Goldberg said.

She cites her three decades of social activism--from Los Angeles school desegregation battles and the Free Speech movement in Berkeley to advocacy of a counseling program for gay high school students--in saying she is the most prepared to represent the district.

Weinstein has played up his leadership position in creating AIDS hospices and supporting legislation to support those infected with HIV.

Weinstein, executive director of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, has shown early fund-raising punch by becoming the first candidate in the field to raise $50,000. He reported reaching that milestone, as required by the city’s campaign finance laws, on Dec. 9. About two weeks later, LaBonge also reached that plateau--which has not been achieved by any other candidate.

Terrazas, who develops programs for Fox Broadcasting Co., also has an extensive history in grass-roots politics--ranging from union organizing with the United Farm Workers to establishing neighborhood watch groups in Santa Monica.

Terrazas believes his appeal will be strong with the nearly one-quarter of voters in the district who are Latino--a significant minority in a district that is one of the most ethnically diverse in the city.

Significant enclaves of gays and lesbians from Hollywood to Silver Lake make that another important voting bloc in the district--although the exact percentage has not been measured.

Battling has been intense for endorsements in the gay and lesbian community, with Weinstein’s claiming support from Kight, Troy Perry, head of the largely gay Metropolitan Community Church, and Lenny Bloom, executive director of AIDS Project Los Angeles. Terrazas said he is backed by Martin of the Stonewall Democratic Club; David Smith, executive director of the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation and West Hollywood City Councilman John Heilman. Goldberg’s endorsement list includes Virginia Uribe, director of the Los Angeles schools program for gay and lesbian youths; Niles Merton, publisher of the Advocate, a national gay magazine, and Stephen Bennett, former director of AIDS Project Los Angeles.

This month, the Stonewall Democratic Club will give its endorsement. In recent weeks, membership in the club has been booming, with Weinstein and Terrazas backers trying to win the upper hand in anticipation of the vote, Martin said.

Despite the divisiveness, gays and lesbians say they feel the odds are in their favor for electing one of their own to the council.