CD 14 ROUNDUP-In an unsurprising move, the Northeast Democratic Club (photo) endorsed incumbent Jose Huizar for another term with 71% of the votes cast. What was surprising, at least to me, was how the leadership of the NE Dems has changed when I was not looking.
For a small club, the Northeast Dems have a rather large Executive Board, currently consisting of 8 people. Here is a brief summary of the current NEDC Officials, as listed on the email sent out prior to the Endorsement meeting.
The President, Stephan Early, is a past president of the Eagle Rock Neighborhood Council (aka Huizar Central), and 1st Vice-President Mark Gonzalez is a past President, who in his day job is a staff person for the LA Democrats (who recently endorsed Huizar)
2nd Vice-President Jose Gardea (late Chief of Staff for Ed Reyes & a key part of the Reyes- Huizar PLUM Committee love fest) I believe has endorsed Huizar. It would only make sense as Huizar endorsed Gardea in his unsuccessful run against Gil Cedillo for CD1.
3rd Vice-President Zenay Loera is on CD 14 staff. Wallis Locke, the Treasurer, shows up on LinkedIn as a community college student & volunteer. It doesn’t say whether or not he is a volunteer for in the CD14 race, and I do not personally know him.
The Corresponding Secretary is Lauren Ballard, also a CD 14 staff member. And Recording Secretary Nate Hayward is a CD14 staff member. Finally, Past-President Al Strange is, well, just Al. I don’t know who he supports, other than I can’t recall him ever going against an LA Democratic Party endorsement.
So there you have the governing board context for Wednesday’s meeting.
I don't know, and maybe it's just me, but the NorthEast Dems that I remember were a rowdy, contentious lot, freely stating their own opinions (and I do mean lots of opinions) no matter what the central party thought, and generally fussing with the power structure of the democratic party. Heck, that's where I met my wife, in one of their free-for-alls.
Now I will be the first to admit that I have not been active in the club for a while (job, elder care, and such), but I really don't remember that the officers of the club were ever paid political staffer types. I have been used to seeing folks like Ruby de Vera, Bill Rumble or Al Strange (with his camera) wherever I go as the personification of the Club.
The other odd thing about the event was that according to the schedule announced by the President, the first 1/2 hour was devoted to a debate between Councilman Huizar and termed-out County Supervisor Gloria Molina, with a series of opening statements and preset questions. The problem was, there was no Gloria Molina.
It turns out that she was evidently at another scheduled event -- someone said that it was a fundraiser hosted by Alvin Parra, although I cannot personally attest to the accuracy of that statement. Since Ms. Molina's campaign is not awash in cash as is Mr. Huizar's, I can see that she might have had to make fundraising a priority.
Anyhow, the 'debate' was really 1/2 hour of the incumbent forcefully making his points. And I must say, he's gotten a lot smoother and polished in the last four years. This is definitely not the Jose Huizar of Rudy Martinez’s challenge.
Molina was allowed a whole 2 minutes to make her pitch when she showed up after the conclusion of the CD14 portion of the program, a decision not met with universal acclaim by all of those present.
There were a couple of things which made this freezing out of Gloria Molina seem less than democratic. First, the ground rules in the email notice for the Endorsement meeting made no mention of the other candidates – it simply said “at the beginning of the meeting, the club president will announce the order in which the endorsements will be considered”.
Second, there were five other races on the agenda up for endorsements, so it seemed a kind of inflexible for the officers to insist on the order of presentation, when they could have juggled events to accommodate Ms Molina.
By the way, the other races up for endorsement were LAUSD Board District 5, where Bennett Kayser (a former teacher in the Glassell Park area) faces 2 other challengers including a Charter School founder, and four at-large LA Community College District seats (District's 1,3,5 and 7). Besides Huizar, the only other successful endorsees Wednesday were Mr. Kayser for LAUSD, and Mike Fong for LACCD Board District 7. This was because the Club requires a 60% or better showing to achieve an endorsement.
Finally, I should point out that the 71% in favor of Councilman Huizar was based on some 57 votes cast. When you take that number into consideration, and the fact that virtually all of the Councilman’s staff were in the room (though I don’t know how many of them were eligible to vote), and add to it the composition of the Executive Board, I am a little surprised that the vote was only 71% in favor of the incumbent.
Now I must admit that I haven't been active in the Club since the last City Council election cycle, so shame on me, but it still seems to me that having a democratic club essentially run by professional political types, and disadvantaging the challenger in the CD 14 race debate, could be construed as having the appearance of impropriety.
If this was a Neighborhood Council function, I suspect the City Attorney's office would be all over us like the thought police, and screaming foul. Of course it wasn't a Neighborhood Council function, and clearly political parties don’t seem to be subject to the same scrutiny as City entities.
On the other hand, we are told by the electronic media that in the land of politics, its only the winners who count, and as of Thursday morning the 22nd of January, the democratic party endorsements stand 2 to zip in favor of Councilman Huizar (the other endorsement coming from the LA Democratic Party).
Stay tuned as we look forward to a real debate between the two candidates.
(Tony Butka is an Eastside community activist, who has served on a neighborhood council, has a background in government and is an occasional contributor to CityWatch.)
-cw
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CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 8
Pub: Jan 27, 2015
