Candidates Focus Attention on Histories of Activism

One candidate was thrown out of Berkeley in the 1960s for being too politically active. Two others marched with Cesar Chavez. One championed women’s issues in Africa while another fought for gay rights in Los Angeles.

In this, the city’s most ethnically diverse and ardently progressive council district, it should come as no surprise that an eclectically liberal group of individuals--all with strong pro-labor leanings--has joined the race to succeed former Councilwoman Jackie Goldberg, who was considered the most liberal politician ever elected to the City Council. She won a seat in the state Assembly last year.

Eight candidates in all are vying to represent the 13th District, which stretches from Hollywood, Silver Lake, Atwater Village and Glassel Park to the tip of Mount Washington.

Five of the candidates on the April 10 ballot are serious contenders, among them a former council member, a former assemblyman, the son of a former district attorney, and the brother and a staff assistant of the former councilwoman. With most of the candidates collecting nearly $200,000 so far for their campaigns, a runoff election in June appears likely.

“The district truly is the melting pot of the city,” said political consultant Rick Taylor. “But even though there is a lot of social activism in the district, people are also concerned with the basics--like making sure their streets are clean and the potholes are filled.”

For all the candidates’ talk about human rights and the global environment, the numerous community debates have focused largely on the mundane: how to improve the neighborhood parks, how to restore the Los Angeles River and how to ease the traffic on Silver Lake Boulevard.

Although Belmont High School is in the neighboring council district, the fate of the new campus--and whether it can be made environmentally safe--is a hot topic in this contest because many teenagers in the 13th District attend the crowded, aging Belmont.

All but one of the major candidates support completing construction of Belmont Learning Center--located on an old oil field--because they believe the environmental hazards can be mitigated at the site. Former Assemblyman Scott Wildman is opposed to opening the school because he does not believe it can be made safe.

Also dominating discussions is the issue of affordable housing. While the district includes some of Los Angeles’ glittery icons (the Hollywood Walk of Fame, Mann’s Chinese Theatre and the Hollywood Roosevelt Hotel) it also includes some of the city’s worst pockets of poverty, like the Echo Park apartment building that collapsed last year, killing one resident.

Affordable Housing Remains Key Issue

It was the issue of affordable housing that prompted former Councilman Mike Woo to seek a political comeback.

He was first elected to the City Council in 1985 and again four years later. His second term was highlighted by his early call for the ouster of then-Police Chief Daryl Gates after the Rodney King beating.

Woo, the city’s first Asian American councilman, ran for mayor in 1993, finishing a close second to Richard Riordan. Upon his return to the private sector, he went to work as the director of a nonprofit agency that provides low-interest loans for affordable housing projects.

“It is obvious that City Hall is failing the test of leadership in addressing the housing crisis in Los Angeles,” said Woo, 49. “When Jackie announced that she was running for the Assembly, I decided that if I ever wanted to come back into public life, this was the best opportunity. . . . I already know how to do this job. There won’t be any learning curve in learning how to be a good councilman.”

Another recognizable name on the ballot is that of Eric Garcetti, son of former Dist. Atty, Gil Garcetti. With black hair, he looks like a younger, thinner version of his father. At age 30, the younger Garcetti traveled around the globe as a human rights advocate for Amnesty International. He spent some time in Myanmar and Ethiopia, where he helped lead efforts to address female genital mutilation.

A former Rhodes scholar, Garcetti--who lives in Echo Park--teaches political science at Occidental College. He has a master’s degree in urban planning and politics from Columbia University. He received his doctorate at Oxford University and the London School of Economics.

“I’m the young punk in the race,” said Garcetti, who drives an electric car and plays jazz on the piano. “I’m someone who is looking to do a job--not for a job. I’m someone with a lot of energy and ideas who knows the system enough to work within it.”

He sees himself as a “consensus builder” who counts Mayor Richard Riordan and Gloria Steinem among his supporters. Even so, he said he’s not afraid to rock the boat.

If elected, he says he would oust Police Chief Bernard C. Parks, who is no friend of his father’s.

If Garcetti is among the new guard of liberalism in Los Angeles, Art Goldberg is the godfather.

The older brother of Jackie Goldberg, he was one of the founding members of the Free Speech Movement in Berkeley in 1964. He was eventually thrown out of graduate school at the university after being arrested numerous times for misdemeanors, all involving acts of civil disobedience.

He then began his law studies at Howard University, where he was one of the few white students to became involved in the civil rights movement there. (Called an outside agitator, he was eventually thrown out of Howard, as well.)

Goldberg, 58, finished his law degree at Rutgers in 1968 and returned to Los Angeles, where he set up the Working Peoples Law Center in Echo Park.

When a reporter shows up for a meeting wearing a bead necklace, he asks: “So are you a hippy?” He punctuates his speech with terms like “far out” and “freaked out.”

His list of interests and activities is equally colorful: He assisted in desegregating the Los Angeles schools in the 1970s, he worked as a lawyer on the Sanctuary Movement for Central American refugees in the 1980s and he’s representing some of the victims of the Rampart police scandal. He marched along with his son and daughter, both in their 20s, at last summer’s protests outside the Democratic National Convention. When the police hauled dozens of protesters to jail, Goldberg was there to bail them out.

With his sister facing term limits on the council, Goldberg decided that it was his turn to run.

“Jackie was really able to make a difference,” Goldberg said. “I started thinking that maybe you really can jump inside. Her example was really encouraging.”

Besides, he is a person who enjoys a good dust-up. At a recent forum, he heckled opponent Wildman--who is a newcomer to the district--for his outspoken opposition to Belmont. “You don’t even live here,” Goldberg yelled over and over. When Wildman started to form a fist, Garcetti told the two men to calm down.

Goldberg may be an agitator, but in this race it is Wildman who is considered the outsider.

Wildman, 49, was living in Los Feliz--a few blocks outside the 13th District--when he lost his bid to become a state senator in the primary last March. In May, Wildman announced that he was seeking Jackie Goldberg’s council seat. Six months later, he rented a house in Glassel Park and started knocking on doors.

As in previous campaigns, he has launched an extensive effort to meet voters in person.

“I know where the potholes are, where every broken speed bump is,” Wildman said. “I know where the soccer fields need to be built. . . . I plan to bring a high level of effective representation to the district.”

He also touts his experience in Sacramento as a reason why he would be an effective councilman.

In the Assembly, he wrote laws to increase school safety and expand teacher training. A teacher by training, Wildman has strong union ties. He met his wife while marching with Cesar Chavez, and one of his sons is married to a Chavez granddaughter.

But Wildman isn’t the only candidate with strong connections to the farm workers’ union.

Conrado Terrazas, 45, grew up in East Los Angeles in a Mexican American family that worked with Chavez. At age 10, he participated in his first march on behalf of farm workers’ rights--and he has been politically active ever since.

Candidates Have Their Niches

After years of union organizing, he ran against Jackie Goldberg for City Council in 1993. After losing the election, he went to work for the councilwoman.

Although Woo likes to depict himself as the political insider in the race, Terrazas can reasonably claim to be the candidate who best knows the district. As part of Goldberg’s staff, he helped set up a medical clinic in Echo Park and renovate the once crime-ridden Yucca Corridor.

He has two master’s degrees: one in business administration from Yale University and another in filmmaking from USC. He is openly gay and the only Latino in the race. Terrazas spent some time working for the movie studios, but then he decided to return to his political roots.

He has spent years fighting for gay rights in Los Angeles, and he helped lead an effort 10 years ago to ensure that the city was redistricted to give gays a stronger voice on the council.

“I have the experience, I know the district, and I know how to get things done,” Terrazas said.

The race also includes two other openly gay candidates. They include city building department liaison Sandra Farrington-Domingue and city librarian Wendy McPherson, who describes herself as a “socialist feminist, lesbian activist and labor movement veteran.”

Also on the ballot is Bennett Kayser, a neighborhood activist who served on the city’s elected charter reform committee. He is supported by USC professor Erwin Chemerinsky.

Campaign consultant Jorge Flores predicted that whoever launches the best door-to-door campaign will win the race.

“This race is fluid and wide open,” Flores said. “They all have their niches in the district. They all are qualified.

“It will really depend on who runs the best get-out-the-vote effort in the final days.”

To read stories about other Los Angeles City Council contests, go to https://latimes.com/districts.

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District 13

School breakup, LAPD reform and public safety, public transportation, secession.

Key Issues: crime, Belmont Learning Complex, affordable housing, police reform

Candidates:

* Mike Woo, 49, director of a Nonprofit housing coalition, lives in Silver Lake.

* Scott Wildman, 49, former teacher and state assemblyman, lives in Glassel Park.

* Art Goldberg, 58, community attorney, lives in Silver Lake.

* Eric Garcetti, 30, college professor, lives in Echo Park.

* Conrado Terrazas, 45, councilwoman’s representative, lives in Echo Park.

* Wendy McPherson, 40, city librarian, lives in Echo Park.

* Sandra Farrington-Domingue, 52, building department liaison, lives in Hollywood.

* Bennett Kayser, 54, teacher, lives in Silver Lake.