9 Sprinting in Race for Caldera’s Seat

According to some, the race to replace Louis Caldera in the 46th Assembly District has been a frenzied, sometimes muddy sprint leading up to next Tuesday’s special election.

“I was a long-distance runner when I was a kid, but I’ve been sprinting since October,” says Democratic candidate Gil Cedillo, acknowledging that the nine candidates had an unusually short time to campaign.

Adds Los Angeles school board member Vickie Castro, one of five Democrats on the ballot, “Because the race is short, the intensity of it has been much rougher than I expected. I just want it to be over.”

Since Caldera resigned from his seat in early September to join the Clinton administration, and the nine officially qualified for the ballot a month later, it’s been a blur for the candidates--five Democrats, three Republicans and one Libertarian.

In recent weeks, forums have been held almost nightly. The attention has largely focused on the Democrats, because they outnumber Republican voters 4 to 1 in the largely Latino district that includes parts of East Los Angeles, Boyle Heights, downtown, Chinatown, Little Tokyo, Pico-Union, West Adams and Koreatown.

If no candidate wins a majority Tuesday, winners from each party will be in a runoff Jan. 13.

Castro, 52, with endorsements from Latino political heavyweights such as county Supervisor Gloria Molina, is emphasizing her six years on the school board. Because of her name identification, some observers think she’s the one to beat. She talks up her support of a new campus for Belmont High School and her fight to continue bilingual education and prevent school violence.

Cedillo, 43, former head of the largest Los Angeles County employees union, has the support of several top labor officials as well as some Latino elected officials, including Democratic state Sen. Richard G. Polanco and Democratic Assemblyman Antonio Villaraigosa, both of Los Angeles. As the ex-general manager of Local 660 of the Service Employees International Union, he boasts of having saved 25,000 county jobs.

Two other Democrats, lawyer Ricardo Torres and attorney and teacher Manuel Diaz, have scrambled to portray themselves as outsiders who are not tied to the political machines. Torres, 33, for example, says he wants to be the “Ed Roybal of Sacramento,” promising to follow the footsteps of the popular former Los Angeles congressman. Torres is endorsed by Democratic Rep. Xavier Becerra of Los Angeles, who succeeded Roybal.

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Diaz, 33, who grew up in the Pico-Aliso housing project in Boyle Heights, has criticized the influence of Eastside political machines, arguing that they haven’t fought for enough textbooks for his alma mater, Roosevelt High School. He says he has the endorsement of only two officials--Roosevelt Principal Henry Ronquillo and the director of the Pecan Recreation Center, a park in the midst of gang territory at Pico-Aliso where Diaz now coaches youth sports.

A fifth Democrat, Los Angeles family health educator Marijane Jackson, did not respond to two calls seeking information about her candidacy.

In recent days, the race has gotten messy.

Castro last week sent out a mailer that questioned Cedillo’s qualifications and background. “He just can’t be trusted,” the mailer said.

Among the allegations were Castro’s contention that Cedillo doesn’t have a degree from UCLA as he claims and that he was fired from his job at Local 660 for misappropriating union funds and using a union credit card for personal expenses.

Castro doesn’t mention these charges against Cedillo on the stump, preferring to talk about her own record.

Some observers were taken aback by Castro’s aggressiveness since she’s the perceived front-runner. Also, some wonder about the attacks, noting the Latino Democrats in the race were cautioned by Assembly Speaker Cruz Bustamante of Fresno in a meeting that harsh campaign tactics might reflect badly on Latino politicians.

Castro makes no apologies. “I have taken the lead in publicly exposing things I thought were important to the voters,” she says.

Cedillo has ignored Castro’s allegations on the stump, saying only that there is no place for personal attacks. Asked by The Times for a response, Cedillo says he has a 1977 degree in sociology from UCLA, but that he owes the school for some overdue books, which he says he will pay back soon. When questioned about the charge by a reporter, UCLA registrar officials refused to either confirm or deny that Cedillo has a degree, saying only that he has “outstanding obligations” to the university.

As for his departure from Local 660, Cedillo denies that money played any role, noting that news accounts in The Times and elsewhere featured his public dispute with Local 660’s elected leaders as the reason for his ouster. And $5,000 in union money that was allocated--which Castro alleged was misspent--had been approved by the union’s board of directors, he says. Two credit card charges for treatment for a bad back were repaid to the union, Cedillo says.

In an apparent attempt to tweak Castro, Cedillo faxed to The Times a copy of a certificate of recognition given to him by the school board last year for his “leadership and strong persuasive VOICE” on public issues. The certificate is signed by Castro.

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Castro also has been on the defensive, explaining the passage in April of Proposition BB, the Los Angeles Unified School District’s $2.4-billion school bond to construct or repair schools. Controversy soon erupted after passage, particularly in the San Fernando Valley, when it was learned that Belmont High’s new campus, estimated at $160 million, would be among the first projects funded.

At one forum last weekend, the normally civil atmosphere that has dominated the sessions grew testy as Republican Roberto Galvan, accused Castro of fiscal mismanagement. “Cut out the corruption, the waste, the inefficiency,” he said.

“This man doesn’t know what he’s talking about,” Castro responded, explaining that the impoverished immigrant neighborhoods west of downtown deserve a new high school.

Later, Torres called the proposed Belmont campus a “mistake.”

Meanwhile, Torres’ role in a controversy involving a nonprofit legal center he established to help the working poor has surfaced. Some staffers and board members in 1995 quit the Legal Corps of Los Angeles, including lawyer Cynthia McClain-Hill, who as board president wrote a memo that said Torres failed to adequately carry out his duties as the nonprofit’s general counsel.

The memo said Torres was guilty of some “irresponsible” and “unprofessional” acts in failing to properly supervise interns, solve administrative problems and obtain a new lease for offices and general liability insurance for the agency.

Torres refutes McClain-Hill’s version of events described in the memo, but does agree with her assessment that the dispute is an old one. Asked whether Torres is fit to serve in Sacramento, she replied, “I think his previous record of public service speaks for itself.”

He says her assertions come from a “disgruntled individual who would continue to make unwarranted attacks” against him. Torres adds that the Legal Corps still operates and serves needy seniors and other clients.

Republican Galvan, a 27-year-old businessman born in Tijuana, says he speaks English, Spanish, Korean and Japanese and that the district’s poor neighborhoods have lacked effective leadership from elected officials.

The other two Republican candidates are building and safety engineer and perennial candidate Khalil Khalil, who has lost several bids for elective office, and attorney Andrew Kim, who lost to Caldera in 1996.

Patrick Westerberg, a computer repair technician, is the Libertarian candidate.