Flores Steps Up Pace of Proposals for Minority Areas

Battling to hold on to her Los Angeles City Council seat, 12-year incumbent Joan Milke Flores has been busy the past 1 1/2 months with a flurry of proposals aimed at the minority and blue-collar communities of her district.

Flores is targeting largely Democratic areas that include Harbor Gateway, Harbor City, Wilmington and Watts. She and her opponent in Tuesday’s runoff, Rudy Svorinich Jr., did poorly in Wilmington and Watts, both of which have large minority populations. Flores and Svorinich are white Republicans.

In the primary, Flores’ 28% of the vote and Svorinich’s 23% came mostly from San Pedro, which is an ethnically diverse and more affluent area of the district.

Flores said while she has been working to broaden her support outside San Pedro, the stream of measures she has presented to the council is not merely a short-term effort to counter criticism that she previously ignored some parts of her district.

“Some of those issues were being worked on long before the election,” Flores said. “Many probably would have been done anyway. In fact, I can’t think of any that were done because of the election.”

But, she added: “An election tends to bring things into focus.”

On the primary election day itself--April 20--the City Council voted 10-0 for Flores’ measure that directed city prosecutors to seek a court order that would bar Harbor City gang members from congregating in public. The measure is similar to the one taken earlier this year against Blythe Street gang members in Panorama City. The city has secured a court order to take the anti-gang steps in Panorama City, but not in Harbor City.

In the weeks since the primary election, some of the Flores measures include:

* A motion to block the reopening of a mini-market and liquor store on Central Avenue in Watts that was destroyed during last year’s riot.

* A motion to prevent an Athens liquor store that was destroyed during last year’s riots from reopening.

* A motion to give $250 from her district’s public service funds to the Harbor Area GAP (Gang Alternatives Programs) to help with an annual fund-raising event.

* A motion requesting that Los Angeles-area congressional members use their influence to persuade the U.S. Postal Service to rebuild the Greenmead Station Post Office in Watts, which was burned down in last year’s riots.

* A motion to spend $1,000 of her public service funds to assist the Los Angeles Police Department’s Harbor Division in buying computer equipment.

* A motion to install gates to prevent automobiles from driving through an alley behind the San Miguel School at 2270 E. 108th St. in Watts. The alley separates school buildings from the playground used by students.

* A motion offering $25,000 for information leading to an arrest and conviction in the killings of three black men in the last four months by a white male in the Harbor City area. A fourth man who was shot in the separate drive-by shootings survived.