Area’s Needs Are Many; Race Looms One-Sided

As they campaign through some of Los Angeles’ meanest streets and oldest neighborhoods, candidates in the 1st Council District are rarely far from local landmarks that have become symbols of civic dysfunction and crisis.

Among them:

* The former headquarters of the Rampart Division’s anti-gang unit, center of the worst police corruption scandal in city history.

* The half-built Belmont Learning Complex, a monument to bureaucratic incompetence and failure to build schools for a burgeoning student population.

* The crowded apartment buildings of Pico-Union, which have become emblematic of the city’s severe shortage of affordable housing.

Not surprisingly, the five candidates actively vying to replace Councilman Mike Hernandez agree that police, education and housing are among the most pressing issues confronting this mostly Latino and Asian immigrant community.

They all would like a stronger Police Commission that would exercise greater civilian control of the Los Angeles Police Department, a new version of the department’s dismantled gang unit and greater community say in police reforms. Most want to complete the Belmont complex, if the polluted site can be made safe.

And each vows to foster more affordable housing and revive economic activity that runs slower in the district than the Los Angeles River trickling through its heart.

Who gets to tackle such problems after the April 10 election was a fairly open question until recently.

In a field that includes two community activists, a former Hernandez aide and a businessman, a political force akin to a 500-pound gorilla has appeared: state Sen. Richard Polanco (D-Los Angeles).

Although the Senate majority leader has yet to launch a full campaign, his entry last month has already changed the dynamics of the election, prompting several contenders to leave the race.

It has also brought a brighter spotlight to the area that stretches from Pico-Union and Westlake through Chinatown and up to Highland Park and Mt. Washington. The district’s roughly 250,000 residents--about a fifth of whom are registered to vote--could use the extra attention.

Candidates Have Much Work to Do

“There’s no vibrancy in the 1st District. You look at the businesses and houses and they’re all worn at the edges,” said Edward Rivera, a local newspaper publisher who was among six candidates to drop out shortly after Polanco entered.

Besides Polanco, the field includes former Hernandez chief of staff Eduardo Reyes, Lincoln Heights attorney Fumio Robert Nakahiro, community college professor David Sanchez, businessman Joseph Lucey, and two others who have done little or no campaigning.

They aim to energize an area of chipped Victorian-style homes and vandalized apartment buildings that wraps around the western and northern portions of downtown Los Angeles.

The 13.2-square-mile district is home to Dodger Stadium, the historic Los Angeles River Center (formerly Lawry’s California Center), the Southwest Museum, MacArthur Park and Echo Park.

It is also where Antonia Quezada, 73, tolerates the prostitutes nearby as she sweeps trash from her Westlake sidewalk daily; where Mary Martinez, 62, recently saw bullets fired from outside bore into the walls of her immaculate Lincoln Heights living room; and where struggling businesses in Highland Park and Chinatown watch customers flock to places like Glendale, Pasadena and the San Gabriel Valley.

Efforts to reduce crime, create jobs and improve the public schools have been overshadowed by scandal. Besides Rampart and Belmont, there was Hernandez’s widely publicized 1997 drug arrest. After years of consuming alcohol and cocaine on the job, Hernandez--who will retire this year--was charged with narcotics possession and assigned to a rehabilitation program.

“There’s been at least 15 years of social, economic and psychological damage here that will be hard to overcome,” Rivera said.

With historically poor election turnouts in the area, most political observers agree that it will take roughly 9,000 votes for a winner to avoid a June runoff.

The majority of voters live in the district’s northern suburban sections, such as Glassell Park, Mt. Washington and Highland Park.

Given the dynamics, William C. Velasquez Institute President Antonio Gonzalez handicapped the race this way:

“The front-runner? Polanco. The No. 2 candidate? Polanco. The dark horse? Polanco. Like it or not, it’s his race to lose,” he said.

His analysis is based on the view that the longtime legislator possesses strong name recognition and the ability to collect several hundred thousand dollars at a single fund-raiser. Plus, voters will likely be impressed with Polanco’s promise to use his Sacramento ties to win state money for district projects.

“I don’t know of anyone on the current City Council that can call the governor and get a call back right away,” said George Mirabel, a Lincoln Heights mortuary owner who complained of steady deterioration in that community since 1980.

Making Polanco an Issue

As a voter, “it’s hard to ignore that type of influence,” Mirabel said.

Mindful of that factor, the other candidates have sought to make Polanco an issue. They contend that he is interested in the council seat only because he is about to lose his Senate seat because of term limits.

“We don’t need a drive-through politician who doesn’t even know where the restrooms in City Hall are,” Reyes told a crowd of voters.

Polanco, who has made only brief campaign appearances in the district, said he intends to stick around “as long as it takes to clean this place up,” should he win. His aides attribute the senator’s absence early in the campaign to the state energy crisis and other Sacramento matters.

Polanco’s record includes tightening state restrictions on guns and helping to stop the Los Angeles River Center from becoming a Home Depot in 1998. His local agenda calls for more local input on police reforms, improving the housing stock and expediting permits for new school sites. He does not favor completing the Belmont complex.

Polanco is opposed to proposals to turn two parcels of land into industrial parks. He says the land--50 acres near Chinatown known as the cornfield and 41 acres of Cypress Park railroad land called Taylor Yards--should be turned into public parks. Nakahiro and Sanchez share that view.

Reyes proposes a mix of recreation and commercial use there, an idea supported by Lucey and several local business groups.

A reserved City Hall insider, Reyes, 41, has helped launch several community cleanups and housing developments in the district. But he faces the problem of being associated with Hernandez for eight years.

The Lincoln Heights resident was Hernandez’s planning deputy until he was promoted to chief of staff shortly after his boss was arrested in 1997 for narcotics possession.

Reyes has been confronted by voters still hurt over what they call the ineffectiveness of Hernandez and his staff since his drug arrest.

“Look at me; I am not Mike Hernandez,” Reyes said, responding to one frustrated voter. “I am proud of him for sobering up. But do not make me Mike Hernandez.”

Yet Reyes touts his City Hall experience, saying he can foster commercial strips with “mom and pop” businesses, while supporting more personalized community policing and more funding for neighborhood gang counseling programs.

As for the Belmont Learning Complex, which the Los Angeles school board killed last year because of environmental problems, Reyes favors finishing the project if additional studies show the site can be made safe.

Nakahiro Wins Over Voters With His Zeal

Where Reyes is often subdued, Nakahiro, 39, a Lincoln Heights lawyer and community activist, bursts with zeal.

The son of Mexican and Japanese American parents, he casts himself as a grass-roots fighter willing to work closely with neighborhood councils to foster more schools in the district and to go after slumlords.

He favors cleaning up the Belmont site and finishing the school. On police and safety issues, Nakahiro advocates better police training, as well as graffiti removal and more job and gang counseling.

Relatively unknown in the district, the effusive Nakahiro has nonetheless won over some voters during events that have featured several candidates.

“I like the . . . guy,” said Julius Johnson, 33, after one candidate forum in Pico-Union. “I liked Reyes at first. But, and I don’t know how true it is, Nakahiro seemed sincere about creating more jobs out here. We could use that.”

Meanwhile, Lucey and Sanchez have come to define the extremes in the race.

A Glassell Park electric garage door entrepreneur, Lucey, 43, is more conservative than the others. He has called for more police and youth counseling, citing the crime increase that has occurred since the disgraced anti-gang unit was dismantled last year.

Sanchez, 50, is founder of the Brown Berets civil rights group and a Mexican American studies professor at Los Angeles Trade Tech College. A Lincoln Heights resident, he advocates new LAPD gun-use policies, going forward with the Belmont complex and fostering ethnic shopping districts in places like MacArthur Park and Echo Park.

Still, what unites the other candidates is their common foe, Polanco, whose presence shadows the long campaign days across the threadbare district.

Lucey, among others, likened the campaign to a flock of Davids going against one Goliath.

“It’s sad to see these guys drop,” Lucey said when another candidate dropped out rather than face Polanco. “We kind of have this camaraderie thing going on. We’re all going through the same thing, fighting for the same issues, trying to get our names out.”