LOCAL ELECTIONS / CITY COUNCIL : Well-Financed, Aggressive Candidates Battle in Ethnically Diverse 13th District

Sure, there’s a race to elect Los Angeles’ first new mayor in 20 years. And there are spirited school board contests and a host of other political issues at stake in next Tuesday’s election.

But the liveliest and most contentious contest in town may well be the race for the 13th District City Council seat being vacated by Michael Woo, who is running for mayor. Here is a race with eight candidates, several of them well-known, most of them well-financed and all of them battling to represent what is arguably the city’s most ethnically diverse and politically challenging district.

“I think the 13th District is the most exciting race in the city and that includes the mayor’s race,” said political consultant Rick Taylor, who is managing the campaigns of one school board member and four council candidates, among them 13th District hopeful Tom LaBonge.

“You have a number of legitimate candidates who are out spending hundreds of thousands of dollars, out walking precincts daily and doing lots of direct mail,” Taylor said.

Indeed, campaign statements filed last week show that four candidates--former school board member Jackie Goldberg; veteran City Council aide LaBonge; Tom Riley, a former aide to U.S. Sen. Barbara Boxer’s campaign, and AIDS health care foundation President Michael Weinstein--each has raised $100,000 in contributions. (Weinstein’s total includes $25,000 he loaned to his campaign.)

Meantime, they and two other candidates with far less in political contributions--television executive Conrado Terrazas and businesswoman Virginia Stock Johannessen--have mounted spirited campaigns both door to door and in a series of public forums. Running lower profile campaigns are executive marketing consultant Gilbert Carrasco and health care consultant Sal Genovese.

All told, the candidates have bombarded district voters with political mail: By consultant Taylor’s estimate, households will have received up to 60 mailers by Election Day.

The reasons for the fierce competition are many.

First, with no incumbent in the race and no one likely to receive the majority vote needed for an outright victory, the candidates are vying for one of two spots in an expected June runoff election.

Second, the district’s diversity has encouraged a mix of candidates hoping to represent an area that runs from Hollywood east to Glassell Park and includes the communities of Los Feliz, Silver Lake and Eagle Rock.

Finally, though it ranks behind other issues among many voters, the race has generated considerable attention because it includes three candidates--Goldberg, Weinstein and Terrazas--who could become the first openly gay or lesbian member of the council.

Whoever makes the runoff will confront a fascinating but complicated district.

With a population of 232,000, the district’s mix is 57% Latino, 21% Anglo, 19% Asian-American and 3% black. But with a large number of recent immigrants--from Central and South America, Asian Pacific nations and the Middle East--the district has only 53,000 registered voters--the second lowest figure in the city. And its voter registration contrasts sharply with its population: 61% of registered voters are Anglo, 24% are Latino, 9% are black and 6% are Asian.

To hear the candidates tell it, the biggest issue in the district is crime. And all of them have outlined proposals to increase the number of police officers on the streets, primarily by reassigning officers from stations and giving more desk jobs to civilians.

So far, many political observers see the front-runners as two contenders with years of experience in local government: Goldberg, a school board member from 1983-91, and LaBonge, who for 17 years has been an aide to City Council President John Ferraro. Not surprisingly, LaBonge and Goldberg have fashioned campaigns that rely heavily on their time in government.

All the candidates have focused on reducing crime and increasing jobs. Goldberg, 48, for example, has tailored those issues to educating and employing young people. “I think the city is failing a generation of kids . . . and we really have to do something about it,” said Goldberg, whose proposals include a mentoring project for junior high school students and a private-sector jobs program for 18- to 25-year-olds patterned after a successful Boston project.

LaBonge, 39, bills himself as a “can-do” city servant to counter claims by competitors that he is too much of a political insider to bring real change to City Hall. To the contrary, LaBonge says, he is the only candidate who knows how to navigate the bureaucracy to make City Hall respond to constituents.

His campaign seeks to drive home that point through brochures and a 30-second television spot that advances a simple theme: “He Gets Things Done.”

Two other candidates, Riley and Weinstein, have attempted to shoulder their way into a runoff with aggressive--and well-financed--campaigns that often take on Goldberg and LaBonge.

Riley, for example, claims he has spent just enough time in politics to know its trappings, and he routinely criticizes the front-runners as political insiders who are part of government’s problems, not its solutions. And notwithstanding his own years as a political aide, the 27-year-old Riley contends he will bring fresh ideas to City Hall.

“Hell, I am too young to be an insider,” Riley says.

Like Riley, Weinstein, 40, is quick to portray himself as a political outsider, though he is president of a nonprofit AIDS health care agency that relies heavily on government grants. In addition to confronting other candidates, he also has challenged City Hall, successfully suing the Ethics Commission to force it to sponsor debates.

Less focused on attacks but no less aggressive with campaigns are Terrazas and Johannessen.

Terrazas, 37, has emphasized his background as an organizer for farm workers, Neighborhood Watch programs and rent control efforts. He says he would use that experience to give district voters more authority over local programs and projects.

Similarly, Johannessen, 37, has touted her years as an investment manager and community activist to push a wide-ranging political platform that addresses everything from budget reforms to slow-growth policies. If elected, she says, a priority will be to improve the city’s quality of life by controlling its population through everything from petitioning Congress for new immigration policies to public information campaigns on family planning.

Rounding out the race are two candidates running low-profile campaigns.

Genovese, 46, has fashioned his candidacy around plans to organize neighborhoods to increase their clout at City Hall.

Carrasco, 27, has focused his campaign on anti-crime measures, including one to create a multi-agency task force to combat gangs.