LaBonge for City Council

Voters in Los Angeles’ 4th City Council District will choose a new council member Tuesday to fill the seat left vacant by the death of longtime council President John Ferraro. District 4 runs from North Hollywood to Hancock Park, mid-Wilshire to Silver Lake--and former Ferraro field deputy Tom LaBonge knows every street and tree in it. LaBonge has the right combination of enthusiasm and experience for a job remade by term limits.

His opponent in the runoff, labor attorney and community college trustee Beth Garfield, has tried to make LaBonge’s public service a liability by labeling him a bureaucrat. It makes for a catchy jingle, but it doesn’t describe a tireless volunteer known for his dedication to Griffith Park and his work to make the Los Angeles River a greenway.

Actually, “bureaucrat” is one of the kinder accusations in a disappointingly negative runoff. Responding to a complaint from LaBonge, the League of Women Voters’ Campaign Watch Commission said Friday that a Garfield TV ad “borders on unwarranted character attack.” While declining to formally censure Garfield, the commission wrote, “The impression inevitably conveyed is one of covert receipt of improper contributions, for which there is no factual support.”

A complaint from Garfield about a LaBonge mailer is pending before the commission. But Garfield’s ads bear particular scrutiny because she claimed the high ground, accusing LaBonge of being “beholden to special interests” while she ran a self-described “grass-roots campaign.” Sorry, but borrowing $700,000 from one’s personal fortune, as Garfield did to finance her primary and runoff campaigns, doesn’t fit anybody’s definition of grass roots.

Moreover, candidates are allowed to raise funds after an election to repay personal loans, which means voters go to the polls without knowing who will make those postelection contributions--and without judging for themselves whether any come from special interests. LaBonge accepted the city’s voluntary spending caps. Garfield declined; they would have limited how much she could loan herself.

LaBonge earns The Times’ endorsement for what he has done and what he can do for the 4th District and the city.