14th District’s Election Lacks Fire but Still Stirs Concerns

In Ramona Gardens, a community of 488 households where there were 453 drug-related arrests last year, a place where small children ask strangers if they are policemen, there are no yard signs, no pictures of smiling candidates or no other indications of Tuesday’s Los Angeles City Council election.

Yet people there are quick to say the election to fill the 14th District council seat does matter to them, and they do depend on City Hall. They point to the speed bumps that put an end to drag racing through the neighborhood. They mention a recreation program that has helped shield some young people from an epidemic of PCP addiction, and they talk about their proposal, before the City Council, to establish a drug counseling service in Ramona Gardens.

Throughout the 14th, an Eastside council district with a history of raucous politics, there is little passion in the air on the eve of an election. But like the residents of Ramona Gardens, many people elsewhere in the district caution that the calm should not be taken as a sign of indifference in an election that is unusual in several ways: It is the only one being held in the city. It will likely choose the first Latino member of the Los Angeles City Council in 23 years. And it will select the first new council member from the 14th district in 18 years.

Whoever is elected, the winner will encounter a host of expectations from a district of widely varying interests: a Latino majority, an expanding Asian population and an Anglo minority trying to uphold small-town values.

Around the District

In Lincoln Heights, Fred Kasten, the owner of a real estate firm, said his community wants a council member who is ready to champion its interests on a number of fronts, from shutting down an auto salvage yard next to Lincoln Park, to completing a $10-million housing rehabilitation program, to getting the tax incentives necessary to revive an industrial corridor along the Los Angeles River where, over the last 12 years, 6,000 jobs have been lost as businesses failed or moved away.

In Eagle Rock, at the upper end of this district that curls like a sea horse around the city’s eastern corner, some people say they are worried about the prospect of a Latino council member serving their largely Anglo community.

“A lot of people tell me they are not going to the polls because they are worried they won’t get a fair deal from an Hispanic councilman,� said David Baird, who himself is working for one Latino candidate, Ross Valencia.

Katie Smith, another owner of a real estate firm, who has long been a civic activist, said she did not see evidence of strong voter interest in the election. But she said she had no qualms about voting for a Latino candidate.

“I just want someone who will help us keep what we have, a unique, small, country-style community, the kind of town that doesn’t have a Pussycat theater or gas stations selling beer and wine.�

Mild Enthusiasm

The prospect of electing a Latino to the City Council is cause for only mild enthusiasm by Al Lugo, a civic leader and longtime resident of Boyle Heights, and some fellow Latinos.

“A lot of people are looking beyond the issue of who is going to be elected to what is going to happen afterwards,� he said. “You know that you are getting someone new. But you don’t know if he’s going to be there when you need him to carry on all the programs that have been started.�

For Lugo and others, carrying on means following the example of the retiring incumbent, Arthur K. Snyder, an Anglo politician who established a secure base by building a score of recreation centers and senior citizen halls and by running one of the most responsive field office networks in the city. Snyder’s style fostered a dependence on local government that lives on. And as people watched the former councilman phase out his operations over the last two months, they increasingly grew anxious about the future.

“Who is going to look after us now?� asked Rudy Garcia, an El Sereno senior citizens club member. “We older people are wondering who is the best qualified to look after our benefits. Who is going to see to it we get better police protection and more neighborhood watches. . . . It’s hard to decide who to vote for. . . . Some of the candidates look too inexperienced and, at the same time, some of the more experienced ones may be too involved in politics.�

7 Candidates in Race

There are seven candidates running for Snyder’s seat. They are Richard Alatorre, a 41-year-old assemblyman; Dorothy Andromidas, a 36-year-old housewife and member of Lyndon LaRouche’s National Democratic Policy Committee; Gilbert Avila, a 49-year-old business consultant and former aide to Gov. George Deukmejian; Antonio Rodriguez, a 43-year-old lawyer and executive director of the Center for Law and Justice in Boyle Heights; Steve Rodriguez, a 37-year-old city planner who ran twice against Snyder; John Silva, a 53-year-old Lincoln Heights barber, and Ross Valencia, a 58-year-old consultant and former Snyder aide.

If the election has failed to light many fires in the district, there is at least one slow burn, for example, that the winner might help extinguish.

For three years, 71-year-old Frank Guzman and 82-year-old Ruth Swiggett have been feuding over where an El Sereno senior citizens group will eat lunch every day. In recent weeks, they have asked council candidates to take sides.

What They Want

Guzman and about 80 retired people have been lunching, against their will, at the El Sereno Recreation Center, a gloomy, graffiti scarred, barracks-like building on Klamath Place. Guzman, who said two women have been mugged outside the building, would like to move the meal service, which is city-subsidized, across the street to the cheery, three-year-old El Sereno Senior Citizen Center on Eastern Avenue.

Opposing him is Swiggett, who says the new center cannot accommodate both meal service and the many activities, such as the sewing, dancing and aerobics classes that she organizes for the 500 senior citizens who patronize the center.

Although both groups are predominantly Latino, members of Guzman’s contingent speak of their antagonists as English-speaking snobs. Swiggett doesn’t entirely disagree with that characterization.

“I hate to say we are better than they are. But I would say we are a little more Americanized,� she said.

Guzman said he is backing Steve Rodriguez for councilman.

“Rodriguez told us that if he is elected we will be eating in the new center the next day,� Guzman said.

Swiggett is for Alatorre, but then so are some of Guzman’s people. Frances Mergil, who said her angina is aggravated by the uphill walk to the the lunch room, said she is voting for Alatorre.

“I like Richard, and, anyway, I don’t think any politician is going to be tough enough to get us into that center.�