State Senate District 21

California Assembly members Jack Scott (D-Altadena) and Scott Wildman (D-Los Angeles) are vying in the March 7 primary for the 21st state Senate District seat being vacated by Sen. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank).

The two candidates’ voting records are similar, and the issues they have emphasized, such as education, often overlap. Scott is a former college president, Wildman a former fourth-grade teacher. Each has taken the spotlight in the past year, Scott for passage of gun-control legislation and Wildman for his role in killing the problem-ridden Belmont Learning Center.

The district stretches from the east San Fernando Valley communities of Burbank and Sunland-Tujunga through the San Gabriel Valley communities of Glendale and Pasadena, and includes Los Feliz, Eagle Rock, Silver Lake and Griffith Park. The Times Valley Edition editorial board recently interviewed the candidates. What follows are excerpts.

Scott Wildman

Question: Tell us why voters should vote for you as opposed to your opponent. What distinguishes you from him?

Answer: There’s quite a number of distinguishing features, primarily the level of activity. My belief is that government has to be made effective. I sit on 13 committees and boards in Sacramento. I chair a select committee on airports and I have positioned myself as a leading advocate for school reform. I sit on the state Allocation Board that funnels the money for school construction. When I got elected in 1996, I became the chair of the Joint Legislative Audit Committee, which directs the Bureau [of] State Audits and the state auditor. They have 140 performance auditors, whose job is to assure that the intent of legislation is actually reflected in the implementation of programs. Since I’ve taken over, we just passed 110 audits at different state, local and other agencies. I’ve turned a committee that really didn’t do much into a committee that’s really taken leadership in areas of water quality and in areas of school construction.

On a local level, I set into place an extremely aggressive community outreach operation, where we went to traditionally underrepresented segments of the community and got people involved in politics. I have five languages spoken on my staff. We’ve done everything we can to make government accessible to people on a district level. You’ll see that reflected in my legislation. Much of it actually comes out of the district.

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Q: You’ve made education a centerpiece of your campaign. What do we need to do in California to improve education?

A: The absolute No. 1 priority is teacher quality. What occurred over the last 25 or 30 years is that we’ve not valued the profession of education. We don’t pay teachers enough, we don’t recruit teachers and train teachers enough. Consequently we have a massive crisis. When I was elected, one of the first things I did was to conduct a survey of every school district in the state. I asked questions in three areas: What are your needs in terms of qualified teachers, what are your needs in terms of facilities, particularly in light of class-size reduction, and third, what is your need [for] support staff. We identified $46 billion in need and found that there were about 25,000 emergency-credentialed teachers in the state, concentrated mostly in urban areas, that class-size reduction had resulted in the displacement of many normal school services--things like special education. That’s when I embarked on this very aggressive kind of tack relating to school construction and a number of other areas. I started the Belmont Learning Complex investigation in May of ‘97, in hopes of really defining some long-term policies in relation to teacher quality, facilities and support services in schools.

Quality teachers; that’s the No. 1 issue. Facilities is the No. 2 issue. I think I’m recognized as providing leadership statewide in the facilities issues. My Assembly Bill 387 will preclude the possibility of ever having another Belmont. That was a hard-fought battle, three years of investigation and really comprehensive legislation.

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Q: Did you support class-size reduction?

A: Class-size reduction happened the year before I came. . . . I was a classroom teacher with 33 kids in a class and would have loved to have 20. I could have given more individual attention. So I support it, but I think we need to look more long term, and when we embark on these rather radical initiatives, we have to have everything in place. Right now, 20% of the teachers in L.A. Unified [School District] are emergency-credentialed teachers, no training whatsoever. That’s not good for the kids. Even if you have a smaller class, it’s teacher quality that’s the No. 1 determinant of student achievement and success.

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Q: One of the ongoing issues in your district has been the new terminal at Burbank Airport. Is there a role for the state to play in that dispute?

A: Clearly. I’ve been very involved. I tend to believe that local jurisdictions should have control over their land use. To address this on a statewide level, I went to the speaker of the Assembly and asked him to form a select committee on airports, which I chair. I’ve worked very closely with the city of Burbank and with constituents and with the residents of Burbank on looking for a solution. In May, we conducted a hearing in Palmdale to look at the capacity in outlying areas that really wanted to have airports, to take the pressure off of these urban airports, which really have a limit to their growth. We identified what the infrastructure needs were for actually expanding the Palmdale Airport, the real viability of turning that into a commercial operation. After that the city of Los Angeles actually picked up the ball and has started discussing the idea of reinvigorating the Palmdale Airport.

The answer to every question is more comprehensive regional planning, rather than expanding the Burbank Airport. I believe we need a new terminal. It’s not safe there. But I think we need to limit the flights; we need to have that curfew in place.

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Q: Another issue that you’ve been involved with is “runaway” entertainment industry production. What needs to be done there?

A: I want to keep these jobs here. These are good, solid middle-class jobs that allow people to buy homes.

A little over a year ago, there was a hearing at the Hollywood Entertainment Museum. After we heard the testimony, I passed a note to one of the [union] leaders, one of grips, and said, “Let’s put in a tax incentive like Canada has.” And that precipitated AB 358, which I wrote shortly thereafter. We were able to [push] AB 358 through most of the committees of the Legislature, all the way to the Senate Appropriations Committee. . . . I’m hoping that we get [it] enacted in this next year. My bill provides a 10% tax rebate, not a tax credit. Production companies go in and out of business [so] a tax credit doesn’t normally impact [them] at all. If the film or production was done here in California, with California workers, there would be a 10% tax rebate. Essentially, like Canada, you’d get a check back for 10% of your payroll for workers working in the United States. It was a huge education campaign to try to convince people that we could do this. I think we’re on the brink of actually getting something enacted that’s going to make a difference.

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Q: We’ve seen some efforts in the area of health care reform, or health maintenance organization reform. Do we need to do more?

A: We need to do considerably more. The doctor / patient relationship has been lost, essentially, and health care has turned into an insurance industry profit-making venture, rather than one that’s focused on care of individuals. What’s been enacted in Sacramento has been mostly cosmetic measures. It was not massive health care reform. We need a long-range plan. We have to be much more aggressive.

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Q: Your opponent has been very active in getting gun legislation passed. Do you think more needs to be done in this area?

A: Clearly. I’m a supporter of registration and licensing and training. I always have been. Realistically, the governor has put his foot down and said there won’t be any new gun control legislation this year. The governor has sent an extremely clear message that this year we have to see what the effect of the gun control legislation that was passed last year [will be]. . . . So, I’m looking down the road for registration and licensing, but I don’t think it’s going to happen for a few years.

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Q: Where do you stand on campaign finance reform?

A: As a person who has five kids and seven grandkids and raised my family mostly running the printing press, I have a hard time competing. Well, actually I haven’t this year; I’ve done very well. But campaign finance reform has to happen. As long as individuals can invest their personal wealth, it’s never going to be equal. . . . I support the concept of campaign finance reform [but] I haven’t figured out a way it would work except with public financing, which isn’t a popular idea.

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Q: Would you support repealing or liberalizing term limits?

A: I think it was good to stir things up and break the grip that special interests had on these long, long-term legislators. I think that three two-year terms is much too short for people to really push long-term policies. And so I’ve been supportive of Assembly member [Lou] Papan’s [D-Millbrae] suggestion not that we eliminate term limits but that we extend the terms. There’s a proposal floating around that I think is fairly attractive, for the Assembly to have three four-year terms and the Senate to have two six-year terms.

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Q: Are there final comments you’d like to make?

A: This campaign is going remarkably well. Back in 1996, I didn’t have a chance to win in this solid Republican district, as a progressive Democrat. And we managed to pull that off [by] 192 votes. In ’98 I won with over 65% of the vote, and I think that’s a testament to the degree of outreach that we’ve done to the community and the degree of involvement. You can see in the work that I’ve done, how I have tried to work very closely with the people that I represent and also have a major impact on a statewide level in terms of long-term planning and policy. That’s the basis of my campaign. It’s making sure that people are involved in the political process. I’m looking forward to another eight years in the Senate to finish a lot of the work that I’ve started.