Hall, Alarcon Seek Support of Also-Rans

Barely pausing after surviving a crowded primary election battle, Los Angeles City Council contenders Lyle Hall and Richard Alarcon girded themselves Wednesday for a June runoff clash, sounding out vanquished candidates for endorsements and taking their first tentative swipes at one another.

Hall, a Los Angeles Fire Department captain, was the top vote-getter in Tuesday’s balloting with 23% of the vote, besting six other candidates vying to succeed retiring 7th District Councilman Ernani Bernardi in the northeastern San Fernando Valley.

Alarcon, a onetime deputy to Mayor Tom Bradley, was second with 18.9%.

It is the second time in four years that Hall, 53, has gone into a runoff campaign for the seat. In 1989, he forced Bernardi into a runoff but lost.

The Hall-Alarcon confrontation could have historic results. If elected June 8, Alarcon, 39, would be the Valley’s first Latino councilman. And he immediately sought to position himself Wednesday as a Young Turk battling the old guard.

Seventy percent of the district’s residents are Latino, and its boundaries were redrawn last year by the City Council to increase the chances of a Latino winning. However, less than a third of its registered voters are Latino, while nearly half are Anglo.

“We’re going to change this district,” Alarcon declared in an interview. “This is the new northeast Valley. Win, lose or draw, this momentum is not going to stop.”

Both candidates said they made phone calls Wednesday to all or some of the five candidates eliminated in the primary, seeking their endorsements in the runoff. But neither Hall nor Alarcon could claim any immediate success.

Combined, the losing candidates drew more than 58% of the vote, and Hall and Alarcon hope to make as many inroads as possible into that rich pool.

The turnout in Tuesday’s election was a relatively high 27% of the district’s 50,000 registered voters. Observers said that was due to heavy campaigning by several candidates as well as a spillover effect from the mayor’s race.

Alarcon’s strong finish surprised many observers, who expected another Latino, onetime Bernardi deputy Raymond J. Magana, to win one of the runoff berths. Magana placed a lackluster fourth.

Throughout the race, Magana led the candidate pack in fund raising. He also secured endorsements from labor unions and such big-name political figures as county Supervisor Mike Antonovich.

But his campaign was damaged by the disclosure that he falsely stated on a 1978 voter registration form that he was born in California. Magana, who actually was born in Mexico, said he believed at the time that he had been born in the United States. He crossed the border at age 10, he said, but was told by older sisters that he was a California native to protect him from harassment.

Alarcon seized on the registration issue to attack Magana, sending Latino voters campaign brochures that questioned Magana’s honesty.

Hall attributed his success in the primary to repeated contact with voters, saying he knocked on more than 2,600 doors.

A former president of the city firefighters union who commands the Mission Hills fire station, Hall was aided on Election Day by about a dozen fellow firefighters, who helped get pro-Hall voters to the polls.

He also received numerous campaign donations from firefighters and their unions, including some as far away as San Francisco and Hawaii. He was endorsed by the 700,000-member Los Angeles County Federation of Labor.

In pitches to voters, Hall stressed his 31 years with the Fire Department and 11 years as a Burbank police reservist. In a campaign brochure, he described himself as “a man who has repeatedly put his life on the line for the people of . . . the San Fernando Valley.”

Alarcon said his campaign targeted both frequent and infrequent voters, especially Latinos and youths. More than a fifth of the district’s residents are between the ages of 14 and 24.

Many of his campaign workers, he said, were Latino youths fed up with street crime and gang activity. At a party at his headquarters Tuesday night, he watched happily as a flock of youthful supporters danced to techno-pop music.

“We went to the kids,” Alarcon said Wednesday, “because if we’re going to change this district, we’ve got to get the kids pointed in the right direction.”

Asked if he, as a Latino, would be more in tune with the district than Hall, an Anglo, Alarcon replied: “I think there are resources that I bring to problem-solving that Lyle Hall does not have, including the fact that the district is 70% Latino and I’m a Latino.”

Hall scoffed at that, saying he cares about the district and is capable of understanding the needs of Latino constituents.

“That’s like saying you actually have to have cancer to empathize with people who have cancer,” he said.

Hall’s campaign manager, Bob Stiens, took an early potshot at Alarcon, saying that Alarcon did little as Bradley’s chief Valley deputy to deliver better city services to the 7th District, where crime and business erosion are major concerns.

Alarcon said he, as Bradley’s aide, was not responsible for such matters, saying they are the province of the elected council members.

Hall, Alarcon and the defeated candidates constituted a racial rainbow--three Latinos, three Anglos and one African-American. During the primary they repeatedly insisted that voters would choose among them based on ability and experience, rather than ethnicity.

But a review of precinct-by-precinct voting data indicates that voters cast ballots along racial lines in a number of areas.

In one Pacoima precinct, near Whiteman Airport, where more than 90% of the adults are Latino, Magana led the pack with 52 votes, Alarcon had 39 and other contenders lagged far behind. In another heavily Latino precinct next door, Alarcon led with 43 votes and Magana was second with 36. Hall was a distant third, with 24.

LeRoy Chase, the black candidate, led in two Pacoima precincts near the intersection of the Simi Valley and the Foothill freeways that have some of the heaviest concentrations of blacks in the district.

In one of those precincts, Chase had 96 votes while his closest competitor, Alarcon, drew just 12.