Incumbent Council Members Leading; 1 Runoff Is Likely

After months of stumping for the sole open seat on the Los Angeles City Council, Bill Rosendahl and Flora Gil Krisiloff appear to be headed toward a May runoff election to decide who will represent the Westside.

Based on early results Tuesday night, neither Rosendahl nor Krisiloff had received the 50% of the vote needed to win the election outright. The third candidate, Angela Reddock, trailed far behind.

Incumbents seemed to be holding on to the seven other seats up for election on the 15-member City Council. Three had no opponents, and the other four seemed to be building large enough leads to avoid runoffs.

The only real race was in the 11th District, which includes Pacific Palisades, Brentwood, Venice, Mar Vista, West Los Angeles and Playa del Rey. Cindy Miscikowski, the incumbent, couldn’t run again because of term limits.

Seeking to replace her were Krisiloff, 53, a Brentwood community activist and member of the city’s West Los Angeles Area Planning Commission; Rosendahl, 59, a former Adelphia cable executive and host of public affairs programs; and Reddock, 35, a labor attorney in Century City.

“People are speaking, and they’re speaking louder for Bill, and I’m very glad to hear it,” Rosendahl said. “It’s too early for me to speculate what the numbers mean, but we’re certainly prepared for 10 more weeks of campaigning.”

Krisiloff said she too looked forward to the runoff. “I’m very excited, considering a year ago people were saying I couldn’t raise the money and no one knew me.” In other races, Rocky Delgadillo, running unopposed, won his second term as Los Angeles city attorney, and City Controller Laura Chick appeared headed toward a second term, leading management consultant Mervin Leon Evans.

The four council incumbents who faced challengers -- Ed Reyes, Jack Weiss, Jan Perry and Dennis Zine -- looked to have mustered enough votes to win without a runoff election. The three with no challengers were Alex Padilla, Eric Garcetti and Janice Hahn.

The 11th District race has often been marked by widespread agreement among the candidates.

All three candidates have pledged to ease the Westside’s gruesome traffic and to stop the so-called yellow-lighted modernization plans for Los Angeles International Airport, which includes a new remote check-in facility at Manchester Square.

The race has largely come down to personalities. Rosendahl and Reddock have portrayed themselves as consensus builders; Krisiloff has campaigned as a details-oriented person who understands the city’s mess of planning and zoning ordinances.

The candidates appeared together at more than a dozen community forums but in recent days have largely campaigned with a series of mailers.

Krisiloff attacked Rosendahl, calling him a lobbyist for the cable television industry. Rosendahl responded with a mailer that quipped that Krisiloff was blaming him for everything but kidnapping Elvis Presley.

Rosendahl’s homosexuality also became part of the race. Krisiloff alleged that Rosendahl had been falsely telling voters that she disliked gays. Rosendahl denied saying that.

On Tuesday night, Rosendahl reaffirmed his pledge to avoid negative campaigning. Krisiloff scoffed at that and charged that Rosendahl has “been negative campaigning” since the start.

It was a stress-free election day for incumbents Padilla, Hahn and Garcetti. Potential candidates had initially filed to run against Padilla and Hahn, but none was able to get enough signatures to make the ballot.

No one bothered to try to oust Garcetti, whose district includes Hollywood, Silver Lake, Atwater Village and Glassell Park -- neighborhoods that can usually produce a disgruntled soul.

Victory by the seven incumbents and the placement of Antonio Villaraigosa in a mayoral runoff would mean that 13 of the 15 council members would serve together until the next round of elections in 2007. At that time, seven incumbents -- six if Villaraigosa were serving in another part of City Hall -- could run for a second term.

If they do run, the current council may go largely unchanged until 2009. But is the status quo a good thing?

“It takes time to learn the system, and you don’t learn it overnight and you don’t learn it in school,” Zine said. “This council has a good relationship. We work together in a cooperative, bipartisan fashion. I wish more elected officials did.”

Padilla said he believed the return of so many incumbents would be productive.

“This council has two years under our belt, and the relationships have been established,” Padilla said. “Now is the prime opportunity to make something good happen.”

Another bit of politicking could take place in Villaraigosa’s 14th District. If he wins the mayoral race, Villaraigosa will be sworn in July 1.

The council would have the option of either appointing someone to serve the rest of Villaraigosa’s term or, more likely, calling a special election, which would probably occur in the fall. A member of the city’s chief legislative analyst’s staff would act as caretaker of the council seat until the election.

Voters appeared to have passed two city charter amendments Tuesday. The first would allow Port of Los Angeles police to join the same pension plan used by the city’s police and fire departments. The second would allow retired police officers and firefighters to return to active duty by terminating their pensions. Their pensions would resume if they again retired.

In another election with no competition, Marlene Canter, Jose Huizar and Julie Korenstein were all reelected to the seven-member Los Angeles Unified school board. All ran unopposed.