L.A. ELECTIONS / 5TH SCHOOL BOARD DISTRICT : Tokofsky Apparently Beats Rivera by 72 Votes

In one of the closest elections in Los Angeles history, a place on the school board evidently will go to high school teacher David Tokofsky, who has apparently won by just 72 votes in a Los Angeles Unified school board district crafted to favor Latino candidates.

Although the results are not yet official, Tokofsky’s Latina opponent, parent-school liaison Lucia Rivera, was notified of her loss by the Los Angeles City Election Division late Friday, her campaign consultant confirmed Sunday.

“She was sad . . . but she really takes the high road on these things,” consultant Victor Griego said. Then, in a reference to the powerful United Teachers-Los Angeles union that backed Tokofsky, he added, “There’s nothing we could’ve done considering what we were up against: a machine that’s mission is keeping their people in power.”

The hotly fought runoff for the Eastside/San Fernando Valley seat had gone into the equivalent of overtime after the June 6 election, while late absentee and other ballots were counted by hand to determine whether Tokofsky’s initial 26-vote lead would hold.

Griego said Rivera probably will demand a recount, which must be requested within five days of Tuesday’s anticipated certification of the election results. The major hurdle would be raising enough money for a recount--it would cost more than $12,000 if all 22,000 ballots were checked--although Griego said there has been “a lot of interest” among Rivera’s campaign supporters in doing so.

Although ethnicity was generally downplayed by both candidates, many outsiders saw it as a key issue in the race because the seat had been held by a Latino for more than a decade. Its most recent representative was Leticia Quezada, the board’s first Latina, who decided not to seek reelection to a third term.

However, the 5th District became less secure for Latino candidates in 1992, when the Eastside was split in a redistricting attempt to create two Latino school board seats.

Rivera, who has three children in district schools and has volunteered at Eagle Rock High School for five years, was endorsed by most local Latino politicians. Her race even produced a rare political pairing of adversaries: both Los Angeles City Councilman Richard Alatorre and Los Angeles County Supervisor Gloria Molina endorsed her.

She also was backed by unions representing school administrators, police and classified employees.

Tokofsky, who is white but bilingual in Spanish, was supported by UTLA, which printed his campaign literature and ran phone banks before the runoff. He teaches social studies at Marshall High School and coached the school’s academic decathlon team to the district’s first national victory in 1987.

He could not be reached for comment Sunday, but Inola Henry, who runs the UTLA’s political arm, confirmed that he had won.

“It was a tough battle,” she said. “We now hope that our support of a candidate will be given consideration when decisions are made . . . that we will have access to him.”

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Despite the UTLA’s endorsement of Tokofsky as far back as the primary, actual teacher involvement in the campaign lagged at first because of hard feelings over past endorsements of current board members--including teacher Jeff Horton--who subsequently voted to cut teacher pay.

Tokofsky promised during his campaign to fight to bring 95% of the district’s $4.3-billion budget down to the classroom level. And he said that improving student achievement--and supporting teachers as the key factor in that improvement--would be among his primary objectives.

As Latino leaders pondered Rivera’s loss, most said a race that was so close could hardly be viewed as a failure of the Latino political machine, particularly with such a formidable opponent as UTLA.

But many said it was a wake-up call that they should not take the power of redistricting for granted, even when a candidate is far ahead in the primary, as Rivera was.

“I think many of us assumed she would win this hands down,” said George Pla, president of Cordova Co., a consulting firm, who has long been involved in Latino politics. “It reminded me that we have to work harder.”

Pla, who also contributed to Rivera’s campaign, is among those who felt that Latino representation was essential in the 5th District, where more than two-thirds of the residents--and 87% of the public schoolchildren--are Latino.

“Not to put down Tokofsky or any other candidate who is not Hispanic, but it’s just not the same--the values, the culture, the language, everything,” Pla said. “And what’s the [Latino] population of the school district kids? I mean, give me a break.”

However, the 5th District is far from a sure win for a Latino because only about half the registered voters identify themselves as Latino, and Latino voter turnout is typically low, particularly in a local election that does not coincide with a statewide race.

Though no ethnic breakdowns are available, some in Rivera’s camp cite her loss in Alatorre’s council district as evidence of low Latino turnout. They say that older white voters in neighborhoods such as Eagle Rock--who were more likely to support Tokofsky--may have dominated the area’s results.

“If this had been a presidential election, Lucia would’ve won outright [in the primary],” agreed Alan Clayton, the architect of the school district’s 1992 remap. “There would’ve been more interest, more excitement. . . . More Latinos would’ve come out to vote.”

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Leo Estrada, an associate professor of urban planning at UCLA who was an adviser on the redistricting, believes another phenomenon might be at work: the changing demographics of the Eastside and the failure of Rivera’s campaign to adjust to those changes.

Longtime Mexican Americans, who form the traditional Latino voting bloc on the Eastside, have been gradually moving to the suburbs, Estrada said, only to be replaced by newer immigrants from Mexico, Central America and, increasingly, Asia. Politicians have to find ways to woo those new immigrants who are eligible to vote; for school board candidates, he said, that may mean emphasizing ways to improve student achievement.

“In some ways, Lucia got defined as business as usual, and David got defined as someone willing to take risks--bold and different,” Estrada said.

Estrada downplayed the value of the UTLA endorsement with the area’s newcomers, beyond the sheer volume of mailers--about 15 compared to Rivera’s six. Instead, he said, some of the newer voters probably responded more to Tokofsky’s stature as a teacher.