Decision ’93 / Los Angeles County Elections : City Council : 15TH DISTRICT : Beaten in Other Races, Flores Fights for Her Turf

Thwarted twice in recent years in bids for higher office, Joan Milke Flores finds herself fighting to hold on to the Los Angeles City Council seat she first won in 1981.

Flores is locked in a surprisingly competitive race with challenger Rudy Svorinich in the runoff election for the 15th Council District, which stretches from Watts to San Pedro.

Flores, 56, won easily in all three of her previous council races. But Svorinich, a 33-year-old paint store owner, is taking the fight to Flores in her San Pedro power base. He plays up his own San Pedro family roots, which stretch back 70 years, and defiantly disputes the notion that the incumbent should be reelected because she is more experienced.

“Experience?” Svorinich asked. “Ask anyone who supported one of the other five candidates in the primary if they feel they are better off for the experience of having had 12 years of Joan Milke Flores.”

The primary results clearly threw a scare into the Flores camp; although she finished first, she did so with only 28% of the vote (Svorinich got 23%).

But as the runoff draws near, Flores remains confident.

She refrains from criticizing Svorinich, leaving that job to her campaign staff. Instead, she prefers to tout her maturity and her greater knowledge of the district and of City Hall. These qualities, she said, will benefit residents at a time when Los Angeles will have a new mayor and dozens of new appointees to key city posts.

“Change can be a good thing, but the question is a change from what to what?” Flores said. “I’m not sure this is a good time in the city to just change for the sake of it. . . . People know me, they trust me and they know that I’m in this because I care about them.”

The contest could hinge on this latter point. In the primary campaign and the runoff, Svorinich has seized on Flores’ unsuccessful attempts for higher office--secretary of state in 1990 and Congress last November--as proof that she is no longer genuinely interested in serving on the council.

Flores hotly denies the charge, arguing that seeking to represent her constituents on the state or federal level does not amount to abandoning them. She also says her council office continued to emphasize constituent service even as she was running for the other posts.

An indication of the closeness of the race is that both candidates are conducting serious campaigns for absentee-ballot voters. They accounted for 16% of the primary ballots.

Also, with their power bases divided in San Pedro, the two candidates have jockeyed for high-powered endorsements from elected officials who carry some clout in other parts of the council district. The result is that many of the area’s most prominent Democrats have lined up behind either Flores or Svorinich, both of whom are Republicans.

Flores has received the backing of Supervisors Yvonne Brathwaite Burke and Gloria Molina and former Assemblyman David Elder. Svorinich’s major endorsements have come from U.S. Reps. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles) and Jane Harman (D-Marina del Rey), and state Sen. Diane Watson (D-Los Angeles.)

Among the also-rans in the primary, third-place finisher Janice Hahn, the daughter of former County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn, is backing Flores, while San Pedro attorney Diane Middleton, who finished fourth, has endorsed Svorinich.

Hahn’s support of Flores has caused the most shock waves in the endorsement race. Hahn campaigned hard against Flores in the primary, telling voters that the incumbent’s campaigns for other offices proved that her heart was not in the district. Hahn also contended that Flores had provided slipshod service to the district’s various communities.

But in endorsing Flores recently before a small group in Watts, Hahn said she had decided that the district needs the incumbent’s expertise. Flores would have more clout at City Hall and thus would be better able to bring money and services to the district, said Hahn, whose support also was sought by Svorinich.

The Flores camp is counting on the endorsement to prove particularly valuable in Watts, a Hahn stronghold in the primary. But in Wilmington, where Hahn also did well, many of her supporters had already switched to the Svorinich camp after the primary.

Leading Issues

* CRIME: Flores takes pride in having made her district one of the first in the city in which community-based policing is practiced. She organized a highly popular weekly meeting between police and community activists in Wilmington, and she is pushing for gang abatement measures in Harbor City to crack down on drug dealing. Svorinich criticizes Flores’ approach to the crime problem as one-dimensional. Putting more police on the street is only a part of the answer, he says: “We need to look at the social part of what is causing the crime.”

* FISCAL POLICY: Svorinich refuses to commit himself to cutting any particular area of the city’s budget, saying only that police, fire, garbage and life-support services should be fully funded. Recreation programs also would be the among the last to go, he said. “Everything else is on the table.” Flores says she continues to promote the use of civilian workers in the Police Department to free officers for patrols, and looks for ways to cut administrative costs. The departments of Parks and Recreation and Cultural Arts would be the first areas she would cut.

* ECONOMIC POLICY: Flores and Svorinich describe themselves as being pro-business. As an example of her efforts to promote business development, Flores cites her success in having all of her district included in enterprise or revitalization zones. The designations offer business owners tax incentives meant to stimulate economic growth and job development. Svorinich says he would take a more aggressive approach to keeping and creating jobs in the district. As an example, he says he would seek private investments and lobby state and federal officials to funnel money and programs to the district.