"I like Emanuel a lot," Garcetti tells L.A. Weekly. "He's a good guy."
But Pleitez, who calls Garcetti's dramatically different upbringing in Encino "charmed" — his father is former district attorney Gil Garcetti — says Garcetti "touts his Hollywood renaissance, which, quite frankly, has pushed thousands of families out of those areas. To me, it's not something to be proud of."
Both Greuel and Garcetti chose the middle-class San Fernando Valley for their campaign headquarters. Pleitez set up his HQ in 94 percent Latino Boyle Heights, in an old meat market. His 30-person, full-time staff is a tight family — former strangers who live in two houses (one for men, one for women) on a shabby South L.A. street. Pleitez pays them only room and board plus a tiny stipend. Yet after he placed online ads at college career centers and on Facebook, more than 200 applications flowed in from Boston, New York, Washington, D.C., Florida, Texas, Michigan, Tennessee, Mexico — even North Korea, El Salvador and Spain. To stretch campaign dollars, the candidate and his wife, Rebecca, a women's health advocate, moved from their downtown L.A. apartment to his mom's in El Sereno, where she graciously insisted on sleeping on her own couch.
Such unexpected wrinkles speak to Pleitez's impatience with how the over-40 crowd runs Los Angeles — and spends its money. His campaign is an object lesson taught by the young to a middle-aged political generation accustomed to big staffs, extensive perks and massive, ongoing municipal deficits.
City Hall overspends by $24,600 per hour, a $216 million deficit. Hill, Pleitez's communications director, sees "a complete lack of basic, financial understanding," citing Greuel's "unbelievable" vow to hire more cops as city infrastructure decays. A near-fixation on costly police hiring by Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and the City Council for the past 12 years has contributed to a 60-year backlog of unfixed streets.
Still, with Pleitez lacking name ID or money, says political analyst Jamie Regalado, "You could factor him into third or fourth place. But the top two is really stretching it."
Pleitez isn't ready to hear that. He saw boyhood friends slain by the gangs in his El Sereno neighborhood, yet members of the gangs themselves urged the studious boy to get out. And Pleitez did.
Now, with L.A. facing potential bankruptcy and Greuel and Garcetti repeatedly sidestepping pointed debate questions about how to cut City Hall costs or raise taxes, Pleitez says, "I feel the urgency to address these problems. ... This city has so much potential."
The morning after Pleitez and his staff celebrated his performance at a televised debate at UCLA's Royce Hall, Pleitez sits in his mom's cramped house near Sierra Park Elementary School in El Sereno, watching Despierta America on Univision. Little religious trinkets and statues sit on ledges above him. "I don't want to lose my Spanish," says Pleitez, who's in no danger of doing so.
He begins to retell a childhood memory, of his neighbors selling drugs from a nearby apartment — but hears a sudden rattling noise outside his mom's metal screen door. He stops midsentence, jumps up and takes a hard look outside.
No one is there. "Sorry," he says with a smile. "You gotta be ready. You never know if someone is taking something. You always gotta be ready."
Pleitez settles back into the couch.
He resembles character actor John Turturro, who co-starred in such Coen brothers movies as The Big Lebowski. Pleitez's build is thicker, but the Coen brothers probably could make a satisfying drama out of Pleitez's life. And the candidate has quirks, which the Coen brothers' characters are known for — for one thing, he's a horrible backseat driver ("You need to get in the right lane. Hold on, hold on. Actually, just stay"), although his "body man," Michael Serna, 22, calmly handles it with no fuss.
In the early 1980s, Isabel Bravo crossed the Mexican border, pregnant, to join her brother in South L.A. Pleitez's absentee, El Salvadoran father arrived roughly a year after Pleitez was born, and Isabel became pregnant with their daughter, Saray. Then he moved to Canada and out of their lives.
At 18, Pleitez found his dad in Montreal. "It was very unemotional," Pleitez recalls. "I felt like people make decisions for whatever reasons." His dad was afraid of deportation in L.A. and had rejected war-torn El Salvador. He told Pleitez that Montreal was safe for Salvadorans but he'd always meant to return to L.A. He never did.
Isabel — called "Mama Bravo" by Pleitez's team — moved to El Sereno, where friends she met through All Saints Catholic Church offered back rooms or garages in which the small family lived. By 9, Pleitez had moved at least 10 times around South L.A. and El Sereno. "I learned that other people are really caring," he remembers. "I learned from my mom to never complain."
Bravo, a cafeteria worker at Woodrow Wilson High School, who supplements her income by selling candy and soda outside her home after school, gets emotional about those years of deep poverty. She says they were so poor she couldn't qualify for Section 8 housing, which requires a modest rent be paid. Tears well up as the handsome, gray-haired woman recalls, "The most important thing for me was to get together and have something to eat." Speaking English and Spanish as daughter-in-law Rebecca interprets, she says of her son, "I never had money to buy [toys], and he never asked me. ... He was always happy."
Isn't anyone bothered that the he has not spent very long in one place? He's the outsider who really wants to be an insider-that's why he's running. Less than 2 months with Obama's transition team does not make you an expert on the economy. His longest stint was as an aid to Villaraigosa and just because you worked at Goldman Sachs does not mean you were a power player... And as for Spokeo, do we really want someone who makes his living selling people's personal information for $3.99? Not me...
I really buy into EP's assertion that our political class doesn't have enough young people. He's absolutely right.
Giving retirement money to the guys who broke the economy via 401(k)s? Not so much.
Really? Or has it only been shithole Mexican neighborhoods that he's visited? Typical Mexican foolish pride! He is an anchor baby who will only accept for McDonald be routed for by ignorant others like himself. I question everything he's done. He has probably been the less than radiant Mexican or Latino (even Mexicans don't want to identify themselves anymore) token especially at Stanford. Where's his platform to the Whites and Blacks? I haven't heard it! Where are his television and radio commercials? Or does he think that he is so "good" that he doesn't need the millions in order to run?
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He was chairman of the economic recovery advisory board, thats impressive, thats impressive if the economy was on the upturn, nope him and that usurper obama ruined our federal fiscal state. He didnt do anything impressive, how is that recovery going? nothing, he does not know how to recover the economy, he uses the principals of big government spending, and practicing corporatism. The real recover is to propose a budget that does not spend more than we take in. To make an economy robust is to embrace free market CAPITALISM, recognize that its the private sector that stimulates the economy , in capitalism there is no such things as bailouts, no such thing as a deficit budget, no such thing as high taxes on businesses, both large and small. Now Play-tez wants to bring that unfair capitalism he learned at the obama administration here to LA, play-tez hides behind his experience in the private sector to promote his true big government agenda. We need someone that embraces limited government, someone who wants to propose business friendly policies, someone that proposes fiscal austerity, we need Kevin James. Pension reform that is fair( cut excessive benefits), streamline the permit process so it is easier for businesses to begin and expand, business tax reform so more business owners have more money to reinvest in their business. Now that is impressive. If anyone is interested in making LA residents hopeful about the future of their city again, then please visit volunteerforkevin.wordpress.com
The 'Perfect Storm', a kiddie campaign that has no chance. Feel-good story that makes you root for the underdog. Wistful thinking of my own wasted opportunities makes me want to see Pleitez have a good showing in the primary.
finally somebody who has been not involved in too many wrong desitions..like The others (old same politicians ), all those has been pushing our greatest city of Los Angeles to the limit of bankruptcy. Smart people will decide more of the same!! or refreshing LA .
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Because this article is a human interest piece that introduces Pleitez and his staff to LA Weekly readers, it cannot analyze his positions. Before one considers voting for Pleitez, they should realize that he supports 1%er solutions to our problems, for example, his support to privatize city pensions.
The candidates refuse to discuss the Union Pension problem and why privatizing it would be a disaster for all Angelenos. Garcetti claims to be a "leader in pension reform," but we know that cannot be true since there is no Pension Reform. There is only a pension mess which he and Tony V created.
Privatization benefits Goldman Sachs and other 1%ers on Wall Street -- end of story. The politicos running for office would be worthy of consideration if they would admit that City pensions are actually a form of Social Security. The essential element of Social Security is that while it is supposed to be funded by contributions during the working years, public pensions are not. Instead the money is diverted to special interests; in LA, that means real estate speculators who support the Garcetti's and Villababosa's and similar bunch of goniffs and mamzers preying on the public. When retirement age arrives, the pensions funds are woefully short and the public has to pick up the tab for the pension out of current tax dollars. Don't blame the workers; they were duped into working for empty promises of a secure future.
Many people only see the downside of the public's picking up the tab for public pensions after the crooks have looted the pension funds, but there is a vital upside which keeps the nation out of bankruptcy. When the crooks on Wall Street (like Pleitez's beloved Goldman Sachs) crash the economy, private pensions often crash, but public pensions keep paying. Public pensions like Social Security mean that Grandpa and Grandma don't move back home because they lost their house. Seniors continue to buy the necessities, and their steady spending, thanks to the steady pension payments from the government, prop up the economy. The same with Unemployment. Without unemployment, recessions quickly become Depressions.
Anyone who even hints at privatizing public pension is either an economic neophyte or a devil who would see the next recession become the Grandest Recession. Meanwhile, all along the way Goldman Sachs will be charging you 30% to handle your pension investments (social Security charges nothing), while stealing you blind. Pleitez needs to explain how he could work for Goldman Sachs and be an economic neophyte or is he the latest incarnation of the devil? Inquiring minds want to know.
@abramsrl Is there no benefit from working for a company like Goldman Sachs? Did he have nothing significant to gain from working there? The fact is, those companies are influential and significant. They impact politics and the economy overall in a huge way. This I'm sure you would not deny. That being said, I think that Pleitez's insight into such a powerful organization is extremely valuable and will serve him well should he win Mayor of LA. He knows how they operate, how to negotiate with them, but maintains his humble character. There is a disconnect between the communities where Eman grew up and the as you say "1%ers on Wall Street." Eman could be the bridge. LA is the 2nd largest city in the US. You need to learn how to play with the big dogs if you want to run it. Eman knows, yet he he also knows to keep his priorities straight. May the people of LA be so lucky to have him as their Mayor.
@amaraserena89 @abramsrl Wishing does not make it so. If Pleitez were talking about how much money LA has lost on its debt financing with Goldman Sachs, then I would be with you. However, he is silent about this huge aspect of L.A.'s financial woes.
Also, his idea to privatize public employee pensions shows that he does not care about the Average Joe or about the City. Just as it took years for Riordan's destruction of Bradley Civil Service System to show up in our perpetual financial woes, the harm of privatized pensions will take years to reveal itself. The better workers will not stay with a City that does not allow them to have Social Security or the similar safety of a public pension. The better employees will look around and see that in private business, they will get Social Security with its guarantees and its lack of broker fees eating up their pensions. If they should want a 401(k), they can take out one, but they will not be left with only a 401(k). A better bet is an insurance policy which accumulates cash value due to the ability to later borrow when the banks cut you off, but that is a very complicated subject.
The result will be that the quality of city employees will decrease more and more and what few services we have will degrade. While the Big Shots and appointed department heads are mostly goniffs and schmiels, LA currently has many fine workers at the lower level. The difference between a Garetti and the employees whom I encounter is the difference between Night and Day.
If Pleitez is so great, why has he remained silent about the atrocious response times for paramedics and firemen? This is a life and death matter The slow response times are not the faualt of the rank and file, but of Garcetti who used a 1-12-2011 false deployment report to further reduce the LAFD budget. In April 2005, USA Today had reported about how terrible the LAFD response times were and how people were needlessly dying. The next year Garcetti, downsized the new FS 82 by 75%, in 2011, there was the huge cut in the LAFD based on falsified data, and this year the LA Times wrote a story about how dangerous it is to live north of FS 82 in Hollywood because of the terrible response times to the Hills. The number one culprit was Garcetti -- who was council president during the steady decline in LAFD response times. If USA Today could quote the LAFD about needless deaths in 2005, how come Garcetti never knew? Because he did know, but didn't care as long as he had money for his developer buddies. Yet, Pleitez keeps this secret. Does Pleitez tell the people of East LA of the great danger to their lives and their children's lives? Why does Pleitez keep this "secret"? Ask him. I expect the real reason is that in order to make citizens safe with acceptable response times would require the Mayor to take some of the money away from the developers and their financiers like Goldman Sachs.
If it walks like a vendido, talks like a vendido, and smells like a vendidio, then it is probably a pinche vendido.
@missioncontrol666 @abramsrl @amaraserena89 It's a sad story going back several decades to how the "anglos" would select which "good mexican" to promote. It was always the total sell-out and crook who got the Anglo support.
In the late 19060's and early 1970's, the Anglos decided to "give" East District of the LAUSD to the "mexicans" so they would stay away from city and county elected offices. It was a disaster for the students. The goal to try to keep "mexicans" out of elected office was evil, in my opinion, and it failed.
The shame is that the early Anglo manipulation to place Vendidos in control of "mexicans" has left a shameful legacy of dishonest politicos -- who never would have been selected by the Average Jose and Maria. Once Los Vendidos got control, they only made room for men of similar disrepute giving us people like Villababosa.
When one has been familiar with Mexican politics since the mid 1960's, it is easy to spot Pleitez for what he is -- just another vendido.
@abramsrl @amaraserena89 I had to look up "pinche vendido" but we're on the same page. This guy really feels like a sell-out and a phony to me.
I'm disturbed by the fact that he worked for Goldman Sachs and Spokeo. He talks a good game, but I'm afraid he's more of the same. The kid was right - "It's all the same." Out of the mouths of babes and so forth.
So he understands finance on a very high level. Why is that a bad thing? We need fiscal competence.
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@efrainrojas True fiscal competence isn't that complicated. Goldman Sachs and their ilk are still happily looting the country. That kind of "fiscal competence" we don't need. Again, I am disturbed that EP was involved in these two sleazy industries.
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So - there's a big obvious factual error right at the start of this story, in the 3rd paragraph. Paul Volcker is not now, and never has been, Treasury Secretary. Did Pleitez lie about that or is the reporter just incredibly sloppy? Based on this article I want to like Pleitez, but the fact that the story starts off with a big obvious mistake or lie just makes me wonder about the credibility of the rest of the story.
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@petercharlesinla Keep your eye on this reporter, he doesn't so much as google his sources.
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Mr. Mcdonald: it is amazing to me that you missed one important fact: Pletiez ran in the special election to replace Congresswoman Solis for the sole purpose of pulling Latino votes from Gil Cedillo. He is the worst politics has to offer which is a guy who so badly wants to get to the top that he'll throw his name into the ring just to take votes from another candidate. His lack of character in this regard is now evidenced by his willingness to run for the sole purpose of pulling Latino votes from Garceitti. Dig deeper and you'll see that Mr. Pletiez is an imposter and not the person you'd like him to be.
@darrelmack What do you say to Latinos like myself that are mightily impressed by his resumé?
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@efrainrojas @darrelmack What do you say to Latinos like me who aren't? Your ethnicity should have nothing to do with supporting this guy. Would you vote for a sombrero? We can do better than Pleitez.
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I hope the article is wrong. By this I mean I hope he actually does make it to the final ballot. Emanuel Pleitez is on my short list of who to vote for. I will vote for one of the two outsiders, him or Kevin James. As someone with a land line phone I have already received a couple of calls from his volunteers, both from very polite earnest young folk.
The sad thing is, even if he wins I don't know if he will have the political power to overcome the enormous power of the city unions who basically own the council. As long as they can use the DWP as a kind of slush fund to spike employees pensions and occasionally provide a quick influx of cash, I don't think things are going to change much if at all. Still, someone that is already owned by the unions being involved in the process would be a good start.
I don't think his pension buy-out plan will work, but at least he is introducing something to the mix.
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