Democrats Find Common Ground

In probably their last joint appearance before next week’s primary election, all five Democratic candidates for the state Assembly seat representing the northeast San Fernando Valley expressed their support Monday for affirmative action, gang-prevention programs and a hike in the minimum wage.

At a crowded voter forum, leaders of Valley Organized in Community Efforts, a grass-roots coalition of churches and synagogues, quizzed the candidates on their stands on issues that are important to 39th District voters.

The candidates--four men and one woman--are vying for the chance to succeed outgoing Assemblyman Richard Katz (D-Sylmar) in a district considered likely to vote Democratic.

On a large “report card” posted before an audience of 250, candidates Tony Cardenas, Jim Dantona, Michael del Rio, Jose Galvan and Valerie Salkin indicated their support for programs and measures that would especially benefit the northeast Valley, which has struggled with crime, a depressed economy and the needs of a mostly low-income population.

Cardenas, a Mission Hills real estate agent, pledged to collect “hundreds if not thousands of signatures” for an initiative to raise the minimum wage. “Minimum wage is not enough,” said Cardenas, who added that he has never hired employees for base rates.

Dantona trumpeted his anticrime stance, calling himself the strongest Democrat for public safety. As the head of an anticrime and antidrug youth organization, he stressed the need for more money for prevention programs.

“One of the things we have to do is to make sure our kids are going in the right direction,” he said. “We don’t need just to build more prisons.”

All five candidates denounced the statewide ballot proposal to scrap affirmative action.

“Somebody said that the only thing right about the ‘California Civil Rights Initiative’ is California,” Salkin said.

“We all know discrimination exists on a whole lot of levels: all the ‘isms’--racism, sexism, ageism. To deny opportunities through [dismantling] the one program that has created opportunities . . . is wrong,” Salkin said.

The forum provided voters with what will likely be the final event featuring all five Democratic candidates in a highly competitive nomination race.

Cardenas, Dantona and Salkin have run aggressive electoral efforts that have attracted thousands of dollars in donations, catered to specific constituencies and sparked accusations of dirty campaigning.

Cardenas has been chosen as the standard-bearer for Latino groups hoping to elect the Valley’s first Latino state legislator. Salkin has been endorsed by women’s groups. And Dantona has traded on the contacts developed during years as a close aide to former state Senate leader David A. Roberti.