The Hollywood 10-plus

His candidacy does, he surmises, ”attract the more off-the-wall people.“ And although he ”is the most left [candidate] ideologically,“ he says he‘s a people person, who expects that negotiation skills learned from years of poverty and family law will enable him to mediate in City Hall. He worked in the sanctuary movement in the 1980s and the co-op movement before that -- the ”Food Conspiracy“ of Echo Park--Silver Lake, which, he claims, provided the core constituency for his sister’s 1982 school-board election.

When Goldberg talks objectives, you hear nostalgia for the Bay Area of his youth. ”People in Los Angeles don‘t hang out together“ as they did in Berkeley, he says. He maintains that he wants to instill ”communications among the tons of good people in L.A.“ Oh, and one other unifying goal, as he sees it. To make it possible ”to swim in the L.A. River“ by bringing that clogged and desiccated waterway back to its pristine state. He’s got his sister‘s endorsement and is the number-five fund-raiser, with $108,000.

Conrado Terrazas has master’s degrees in both business administration and filmmaking. But after some years of union organizing, he found himself engrossed in local politics. He ran against Goldberg in 1993, and then worked for her for six years. Although she endorsed her brother, Terrazas sounds more like the direct council successor -- speaking of the accomplishments he participated in throughout the district. These include creating a new park on Las Palmas Avenue in the once drug-ridden Yucca corridor and a clinic for low-income residents in the district‘s impoverished eastern end.

”We’ve paved 35 miles of streets in just three years,“ he says. But he also states that keeping housing affordable is a priority: ”I want to make sure people can afford to stay here.“ As is better maintenance of apartment buildings in poor districts; he wants to improve inspection schedules and the number of building inspectors, ”given limits on the city budget.“

He says he‘s skeptical about the future of LAPD Chief Bernie Parks, whose second-term approval comes up late next year. He has participated in LAPD complaint resolution as a council staffer. He is strongly committed to the support of the LAPD federal consent decree. He also supports Goldberg’s living-wage commitment, and says he‘d continue her efforts on behalf of city labor.

Terrazas is not only openly gay, but Latino in a district that is 57 percent Hispanic, according to the 1990 census. He is the lead Latino candidate running in a district with relatively low Latino registration. He is the fourth biggest fund-raiser, too, according to the latest figures, with $120,000 raised and $56,000 in matching funds. His endorsements include state Senator Richard Polanco, school-board member Victoria Castro, Episcopal Bishop John Bruno and the Stonewall Democrats.

The above sketches omit seven candidates by representing the five top fund-raisers in the race, plus the only other contender to have held elective office. But the range is typically broad for this most varied of local political reservations: Terrazas and Woo bring the most experience in running the district. Garcetti and Goldberg (oddly, the oldest and youngest major candidates) are the most visionary. Even in the middle, you have opposites: Wildman, the rabble-rouser, and Kayser, the quiet neighborhood activist. Whoever is elected, the choice is going to affect not only the future of the district, but the political style of city government itself for at least the next four years.