Middle-Class Voters Key in 10th District

Dissatisfaction lurks in the well-tended homes of northern Leimert Park, a community of middle-class African Americans where most people vote--even in municipal elections.

The city ought to resurface the streets, not just patch the potholes, some voters say. Others want better care of the stately old palms and other trees that line the residential avenues of their southwest Los Angeles neighborhood. And some are annoyed that anti-cruising measures on nearby Crenshaw Boulevard have pushed more traffic into their once-peaceful neighborhood.

Some voters blame Councilman Nate Holden, who has represented the 10th District since 1987 and who, confronted by term limits, is making his final reelection bid in the April 13 city primary.

“I’m just kind of fed up with the way the community is being handled. I want a change here,” said Marian Williams, a self-employed real estate appraiser and artist. Her tidy front lawn sported a campaign sign for Madison Shockley, one of three challengers on the ballot.

Others think Holden has performed well.

“He has worked for the district in very positive ways, and he and his office have always been very responsive,” said Steve Pinkney, a retired county environmental health services worker.

“A lot of people are not very happy with some of the things he has done personally,” Pinkney said, alluding to sexual harassment lawsuits brought by former staffers, which the city paid to defend.

“But that is such a small issue compared with what he has done for the district,” he said. “I see no reason to make a switch and [deny Holden] his last term.”

Robert Washington, a 30-year-old school playground supervisor who grew up in the community, said he has yet to decide who will get his vote. But he cited the same kinds of quality of life issues as his neighbors: “the parking problems, the neglect of the roadways--and we ought to have more police bicycle patrols” in the area.

This slice of Leimert Park is just a small part of what probably is the city’s most ethnically and economically diverse council district, but it is voters in Leimert and other middle-class and affluent communities sprinkled throughout the 10th District who hold the key to the election.

The district is historic, home to some of the city’s oldest residential areas, many of them tucked into quiet neighborhoods just off bustling thoroughfares--La Brea and Arlington avenues and Olympic, Pico, Venice, Washington and Wilshire boulevards. New commercial developments and low-cost housing projects have replaced some of the old businesses burned down in the 1992 riots.

The district holds the broad-lawned mansions of Country Club Park. Economically vibrant Koreatown in its northeast corner provides relatively few voters but plenty of campaign contributions. Along Wilshire sits the empty shell of the once glamorous Ambassador Hotel, site of the famed Cocoanut Grove nightclub and the place where Robert F. Kennedy was assassinated right after winning the 1968 California presidential primary. Latino immigrants have moved into the old apartment buildings to the south.

City demographers estimate that the district’s approximately 230,000 residents are 42% Latino, 35% black, 14% Asian and 9% white. Most of the nearly 76,000 voters, however, are either African American or white, including Jews in the northwest parts of the district. About 10,000 voters are Latinos, while Asian Americans account for fewer than 3,000 voters.

Women voters outnumber their male counterparts in this district by about 60% to 40%, a factor that could work to the advantage of Marsha Brown, who is not only African American but is the only woman on the ballot.

Blacks have dominated 10th District elections since Tom Bradley first demonstrated his famous coalition-building skills and made history in 1963 by becoming the first African American to win election to the Los Angeles City Council.

Bradley later expanded on his district-winning coalition of blacks and whites, particularly Jews, to become the city’s first black mayor--and its longest-serving chief executive.

“The 10th District was the heart of the Bradley coalition; it was the true melting pot district,” said political scientist Raphael Sonenshein, who has written extensively about race and politics in Los Angeles. “Historically, it has been pivotal.”

The district voted overwhelmingly against Proposition 209, the anti-affirmative action measure approved by 54% of California voters in 1996. Four years ago, when Holden found himself in a runoff with attorney Stan Sanders, 24% of the voters turned out. Voters seemed to care more about a massive school bond measure two years later: Proposition BB in 1997 drew nearly 30% of the district’s electorate.

As is true elsewhere, the voters most likely to exercise their franchise tend to be older and own their homes or have other roots in the community that bring them faithfully to the polls. Information provided by the Statewide Data Base at UC Berkeley and analyzed by Richard O’Reilly, director of computer analysis for The Times, helped pinpoint where the voters with the longest registration history are located. In interviews, many of these dedicated voters said they want the basics--clean, safe neighborhoods, sound business and retail districts, programs for youths, good schools and a responsive City Hall.

“I’m definitely interested in city elections; that’s what runs our community,” said Celia Brooks, 40, a hairstylist who lives in a neighborhood near Venice and La Cienega boulevards in the west end of the district.

“I think we need more programs for kids, and we have to get rid of the eyesores, some of the apartment buildings that aren’t kept up and some of the shopping centers too,” Brooks said.

Brooks said Holden is “not one of my favorites,” adding that the $1.3 million that taxpayers spent for his sexual harassment defense “should have come out of his own pocket. That should have been going to other programs, to schools and senior citizens.”

Rosalind Pina-Brown, who lives in a restored Craftsman home in the Victoria Park neighborhood in the heart of the district, wants to see officials help “keep up the historical parts of the city.”

Asked about the Marsha Brown sign in her yard, Pina-Brown said she agreed to its placement there after meeting Brown (who is no relation) at a neighborhood association meeting.

“I like what she stood for, and I like the fact she is a woman,” said Pina-Brown, who nonetheless declined to say who will get her vote.

Faheemah Muhammad of Leimert Park said she supports Scott Suh, the only Korean American in the race.

“For a lot of years we have been fooled into continuing to vote for politicians because of ethnicity, but that no longer exists as far as I am concerned. We want the best man, the one who will do more for the young people, the elderly and the community at large,” said Muhammad, adding that she has lived in the district for almost 40 years--and never misses an election.

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City Council District 10

The 10th City Council district, where former Mayor Tom Bradley’s historic multiracial coalition was born, is the city’s most ethnically and economically diverse. The key to electoral success can be found in a handful of middle-class and affluent communities, most of them heavily African American. City demographers estimate the district to have about 230,000 residents. In this heavily immigrant community, 42% are Latino, 35% black, 14% Asian and 9% white. Most of the nearly 76,000 voters, however, are either African American or white.

Source: Statewide Data Base, Institute of Governmental Studies, UC Berkeley’