Hall, Alarcon Debate Credentials : Campaign: The council candidates argue over who has been most involved in the Valley. They differ on what to do with the closed GM plant.

In their first televised debate, Los Angeles City Council contenders Lyle Hall and Richard Alarcon argued Friday over who has better public-service credentials but agreed that the largely Latino district they are running in shouldn’t necessarily be represented by a Latino.

They also wrangled over how to revive the shuttered General Motors auto assembly plant in Panorama City in an hourlong encounter taped by the United Artists cable-TV system, which reaches 100,000 households in the northeastern San Fernando Valley.

Hall and Alarcon are battling in the June 8 runoff election to succeed incumbent Ernani Bernardi in the 7th Council District, a largely blue-collar area that stretches from Van Nuys to Sylmar. The octogenarian Bernardi is retiring after a failed bid for mayor this year.

Hall and Alarcon agreed, as they have in the past, that reducing crime and joblessness are the most important issues in the 7th District, one of the city’s poorest. But they wrangled--in distinctly low-keyed, almost polite fashion--over other points.

The first was over who has had more involvement in the community.

Alarcon, who is on leave from his job as Mayor Tom Bradley’s top Valley deputy, stressed his upbringing in the district and participation in civic activities. Hall, a longtime Los Angeles fire captain and former Burbank police reservist, emphasized his devotion to public safety.

But each man contended that the other hadn’t done enough for the district.

Alarcon, 39, said the race boiled down to a choice between “someone who has spent all of their hours working in the community”--himself--versus “somebody who has spent more of their time walking the halls of City Hall”--a reference to Hall’s former job as a lobbyist for the city firefighters union.

Hall, 53, cited his 31 years as a Los Angeles firefighter, including his current job as commander of the Mission Hills fire station.

“I’ve been there in the middle of the night. I’ve been there when they were sick and injured,” he said of 7th District residents.

Hall charged that Alarcon performed most of his community work while being paid by the city.

“That’s what his job was. . . . He had the city car, he had the city salary. He was the mayor’s representative and has been for over three years. Quite honestly, the district does not seem to be better off than it was three years ago,” Hall said.

Alarcon replied that he has been deeply involved in community projects both before and after he hired on with Bradley. He cited his work as a schoolteacher and anti-gang activist.

“I was very pleased to be able to get paid for 40 hours of work to serve my community. But . . . anybody that knows me knows that I work far beyond that--20, 30, 40 hours sometimes a week, on my own time,” said Alarcon.

Asked by cable-TV host Marty Israel if he thought a Latino can better represent the district, whose population is 70% Latino, Hall, an Anglo, responded:

“The key that we need in any district is an elected official that represents that entire district. To even suggest that the representative must come from the majority group is a racist kind of suggestion.”

He also said he is a member of the Black American Political Action Committee and, as a contract negotiator for the firefighters union, pushed for the Fire Department to hire more minorities and women.

“I’ve been in the black community and the brown throughout this district,” he said.

Alarcon said that as a Latino, he can apply “whatever wisdom and information comes from that experience” to the particular problems of Latino constituents.

But he agreed with Hall that whoever wins the election “must be able to represent all the people of the district.”

The two men clashed, however, over what products should be made if the GM plant were reopened.

Alarcon, reflecting a view held by many local officials, said it should be used to build electric cars. But Hall said Los Angeles already has missed an opportunity to do that.