7th District Candidates Say Secession Needs Study

At a collegial candidates forum marked mostly by smiles and harmony, six contenders for the seat representing the northeast San Fernando Valley in the Los Angeles City Council agreed Wednesday that the effects of Valley secession should be studied.

Most candidates at the Cal State Northridge event approached the issue cautiously, declining to take a firm stand on Valley independence, the subject of a petition drive aimed at forcing a wide-ranging study of the issue.

Only Ollie McCaulley, a housing administrator, said he supports the breakaway. “Seeing the services that we get today, which are none in the northeast San Fernando Valley, I would have to vote for it,” McCaulley said.

One of the front-runners for the 7th District seat, Alex Padilla, did not attend the debate. Campaign manager Rick Taylor said Padilla was meeting with residents in Pacoima at an event planned before he was invited to the CSUN forum. The invitation to the debate came only in the last few days, Taylor said.

The forum for candidates in the April 13 election was sponsored by the Mexican-American Bar Assn., and a CSUN student group, the Movimiento Estudiante Chicano de Aztlan.

Speaking to an audience of about 30 CSUN students, youth activities director Tony Lopez said “in Pacoima we have large numbers of kids learning to fail.”

“When I got out of high school, my choices were the military, McDonald’s, Wal-Mart or Kmart,” he said, as some students in the audience nodded in agreement. “It’s time we took our community back.”

Health agency director Corinne Sanchez promised to “be a fighter for those who cannot fight for themselves.”

She said her record of bringing drug counseling and AIDS programs to the district speaks for itself and added that her strongest motivation “is seeing people smile,” and knowing she helped them by offering “not a handout but a hand up.”

Sanchez also confirmed in an interview that she favors breaking up the Los Angeles Unified School District.

Barbara Perkins, a former Mission College consultant who sits on the board of CSUN, said safety would be her first priority. She said the graffiti-spattered, trash-filled streets lining some parts of the northeast Valley “signal to you that maybe it’s not a safe community.”

Picking up on a theme discussed at another candidates forum Tuesday night, Perkins also said she opposes building a high school on the Gemco site in Arleta because residents had not been consulted. Many residents favor building a supermarket on the site.

The rundown appearance of Van Nuys Boulevard was criticized by Connie Acebo Rodriguez, a teacher who is running as a write-in candidate, and former San Fernando Mayor Raul Godinez II, who said the street looks like it should be in “a Third World country.”

“Experience counts,” Godinez said, citing his two years as a mayor and promising to deliver economic development to the neighborhood.

Rodriguez said that even though Pacoima is part of a federal empowerment zone, many shop owners there have no idea how to tap into the economic benefits the designation provides.

In interviews before Wednesday’s debate, Perkins and McCaulley, both African Americans, said they have heard some suggest that because the majority of the 7th Council District population is Latino, a Latino should represent the area. Perkins said she found this sentiment among some residents and McCaulley said he thought the media had unfairly portrayed the district as willing to support only Latino candidates.

“Race is a major issue here right now,” Perkins said. “What I’m seeing is very disturbing. People are literally telling others that a non-Latino cannot represent this district. I’m appalled by that.”