New Faces, Hot Races

Tuesday’s City Council election yielded an unprecedented number of runoffs, which is no surprise in this new era of term limits. Voters in at least five of eight districts will have to endure another blitz of campaign mailers. The good news is that on June 5 most will get to choose between capable and in some cases laudable candidates.

Incumbents, who typically have a lock on reelection, were either termed out or chose not to run for six of the eight district seats up for election this year. Of these wide-open races, only District 1, where Councilman Mike Hernandez chose not to run again, came close to producing a victor. The densely populated district, home to the Rampart police division and the Belmont Learning Complex, faces some of the city’s toughest problems. With votes still being counted Wednesday, Ed Reyes, a city planner and chief of staff to Hernandez, was holding at a fraction of a point over 50%, the level needed to avoid a runoff. Termed-out District 3 City Councilwoman Laura Chick won the city controller race, becoming the first woman to hold citywide office. In the City Council race, her Valley district drew a field of six in a contest so tight that the candidate who will face police union director Dennis Zine was not certain Wednesday. Community activist Judith Hirshberg, an aide to former City Councilman Marvin Braude, held a small lead over Francine Oschin, deputy to 12th District City Councilman Hal Bernson.

Fifth District Councilman Mike Feuer chose to run for city attorney rather than for reelection and faces a runoff against Deputy Mayor Rocky Delgadillo. The Westside/Valley seat he vacated attracted 11 candidates. Former state Sen. Tom Hayden and newcomer Jack Weiss, a former federal prosecutor, were the standouts in this large field and deservedly face each other in the runoff.

Voters narrowed the six candidates vying to replace termed-out Councilwoman Rita Walters in the central-city 9th District to Assemblyman Carl Washington (D-Paramount) and Jan Perry, a census outreach manager and former Walters aide. In this race, Perry’s energy and fresh ideas for linking some of the city’s most neglected neighborhoods with the wealth of downtown make her a clearly better choice.

In the 13th District, which includes parts of Hollywood, Echo Park and Silver Lake, urban planner Mike Woo, who served an earlier stint on the City Council, and college instructor Eric Garcetti emerged from a field of six good major candidates to face off for the seat previously held by former Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, who was elected in November to the state Assembly.

And in the harbor area’s 15th District, where Councilman Rudy Svorinich is termed out, Hector Cepeda, a former Svorinich aide and part-time dock worker, faces businesswoman Janice K. Hahn, mayoral candidate James K. Hahn’s sister. Both have impressive records of civic involvement and deep roots in the community.

Supporters of term limits can point to Tuesday’s candidates and to those now heading to the June 5 runoff as confirmation of what they had hoped the new law would achieve. Leveling the field for novices did indeed draw young people, women, members of ethnic minorities and hopefuls from a range of professions. And if some of the faces aren’t entirely new, those candidates with experience in other branches of government serve to reassure voters who fear the loss of experience and depth that is the downside of term limits.

This election, the first to show the full impact of term limits, has already made city history. Now the remaining candidates go head to head in trying to sell themselves to voters as officeholders who could think big to shape the future of Los Angeles and small to fill the potholes. We expect them all to do it on the issues, not down in the mud.