Padilla, Sanchez Conduct Battle Via Fax

Love letters they were not.

Five days before the election, Alex Padilla and Corinne Sanchez traded written barbs over who should succeed Richard Alarcon as the 7th District representative on the Los Angeles City Council.

Padilla and Sanchez are the front-runners among the six candidates vying for the northeast San Fernando Valley seat.

The sparring by fax began Thursday when Padilla, 26, wrote a letter to Sanchez taking her to task for suggesting in a television interview that Padilla is not yet prepared to be a councilman, and might do better to wait 10 years.

“I was shocked to hear you say that you believed that people under the age of 35 should not run for public office,” Padilla wrote.

Padilla stated county Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky, who is supporting Sanchez, first won election at age 26.

“I can only surmise that it is because you grew up in San Bernardino and only recently moved into the 7th District that you seem to be so out of touch,” Padilla wrote.

Sanchez fired back a letter, accusing Padilla of distorting what she said.

“Of course age does not matter. Experience does,” she wrote. “I’ll match my experience against yours any day, any time.”

She stated she has run the Valley-based El Proyecto Del Barrio, a social services agency, for more than two decades.

Sanchez said Yaroslavsky had run a human rights organization by the time he ran for office, and said she found it “more humorous” that Padilla has compared himself in mailers to a young John F. Kennedy.

“I didn’t know John F. Kennedy,” she wrote, “but I think it is fair to say you’re no Jack Kennedy.”