Council Candidates Share Their Visions for L.A.

In 1974, with his 30th birthday approaching, Bill Rosendahl embarked on a tour of the world.

Over the next 18 months, he visited 39 counties on four continents, sometimes traveling on foot. He says he was kicked out of Zimbabwe after he was accused of being a spy.

His trip around the world, Rosendahl said, was a formative experience and taught him to be fearless. It also provided him with the inspiration that he would apply to helping run Los Angeles, if he wins the race for the 11th Council District.

“We’re a balkanized city, and Los Angeles is a microcosm of the world,” said Rosendahl, who is making his first bid for public office. “We need to come together as a family.”

In Los Angeles, Rosendahl, 59, a former cable executive, is best known as the gregarious host of public affairs cable television programs that was on air from 1987 until 2003.

“I’ve always admired Bill from his many, many years as one of the great public voices -- he had absolutely anyone who was anyone on the show,” said Los Angeles City Councilman Tom LaBonge, who added that he had urged Rosendahl to run.

The show earned Rosendahl a reputation as a host who would give his guests a fair shake. It also introduced him to the city’s movers and shakers, many of whom have endorsed him.

Rosendahl said he decided to run after he was fired in 2003 from Adelphia, where he had difficulty getting along with the owners. He thought they treated their workers unfairly.

“I got up one day and looked out my bedroom window and said it’s a new day. Instead of asking the questions, maybe I could come up with some of the answers to the problems I’ve been dealing with all these years,” he said.

Rosendahl has raised about $250,000 for his run, with money coming from across the region. Former Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan is spending nearly $25,000 on mailers.

Rosendahl was born in New Jersey, one of eight siblings. His father was a janitor and his mother a maid. As a teen, in the early 1960s, he became involved in the civil rights movement. Rosendahl says he was on the Washington Mall in 1963 to hear the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his “I Have A Dream” speech.

Five years later, while serving as a campaign staffer, Rosendahl says, he was in the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles when Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated.

His early jobs were in government or politics. He served in the Army from 1969 to 1971, helping Vietnam veterans adjust to life back home. He later worked on George McGovern’s presidential campaign and took a job in the State Department under President Carter, working on trade issues.

He settled in Los Angeles in 1986, in an apartment next to Venice Beach. His early civic battles involved fighting noise from Santa Monica Airport -- he lost that one -- and helping the homeless who camped in the area.

“I will not walk over that homeless person if I’m in office,” said Rosendahl, who added that he sometimes invites the homeless into his apartment.

In 1995, Rosendahl, who is gay, lost his partner of 14 years, Christopher Lee Blauman, from complications of AIDS.

They were open as a couple, although Rosendahl had never acknowledged on his TV shows that he was gay. That changed in January 1995, when a guest on one of his public affairs programs offered his condolences over Blauman’s death.

“I looked into the camera and outed myself,” Rosendahl said.

He does not think that his sexual orientation should be an issue, and is quick to say that gay and straight alike suffer in traffic gridlock -- which Rosendahl has made his signature issue.

He is a proponent of light rail and has vowed that, if elected, he would have light rail running from downtown to the beach within a decade.

On another front, he has proposed forming a group of wealthy and influential people from the Westside to help him lobby Sacramento and Washington for more funding for the council district and the city.

Phyllis Masard-Lindner, who once lived next door to Rosendahl in Venice and worked on his shows, says that such thinking is typical of him.

“He would walk out onto Venice Beach and see something wrong and try to fix it,” she recalled. “He opened his door to the homeless. He’s the genuine article.”