But in the late 1980s and early '90s, El Sereno spiraled into the gang wars that gripped L.A., the bloodiest time in city history. Scared, good kids joined the gangs for protection — and many were shot dead for walking through rival turf. Isabel never feared that Emanuel would join. Instead, she worried that he was too good a kid. "He didn't think what was going to happen to him," she says, remembering his bids to calm down the action on their street. "I tried to tell him, but he said, 'Mom, if I'm going to die doing good, that's OK.' "
One day, Pleitez was playing Nintendo with his friend Arthur when gunshots rang out. Outside, they saw his friend's brother lying on the sidewalk — alive but riddled with bullets. "It was one of the first things I experienced" in El Sereno, Pleitez says. "It's funny, all of my vivid memories are shootings."
Pleitez's neighbors, the Montenegros, lost two sons to gang violence. Many acquaintances and friends were murdered. His best friend in middle school, David Guerrero, was shot dead in 2004, even as he was trying to rebuild his life. Pleitez got the news while at Stanford.
Daniel Chaidez, 35, a neighbor who was involved with a gang for a few years, first met Pleitez while practicing basketball at the outdoor courts at Sierra Park Elementary. Chaidez didn't want the gang life — and he was dead sure it wasn't for Pleitez. As Chaidez, who got away from gang involvement long ago, tells it: "We told him to keep out of trouble — 'Rather than hit the streets, do your homework.' We considered ourselves his older brothers. Gangs didn't fit his persona."
That intervention by street-tough peers, coaches and teachers worked. "It happened to me on several occasions," Pleitez says. "That's why you need more people to stand up and look someone in the eyes and say something positive."
Pleitez became senior class president at Woodrow Wilson High School, where he was named All-League Team MVP for basketball and volleyball and Most Inspirational Player and All-League Football Player. He won academic scholarships to pay for college, and chose Stanford.
Fascinated by politics as a university student in 2002, Pleitez, then 19, approached 31-year-old Eric Garcetti, newly elected to L.A. City Council District 13. "I had high hopes for him" 11 years ago, says Pleitez, who wanted a mentor.
Instead, Pleitez struck up a relationship with Villaraigosa, a rising Latino star who represented L.A. City Council District 14, which covers El Sereno. In 2003, Pleitez took off the fall quarter of his sophomore year, moved home and worked full-time in Villaraigosa's field office. Pleitez sometimes got calls in the middle of night from his boss, telling him they had to drive to a murder site — to console a family.
"Now, looking at it from a public-service perspective, there was value in Antonio being there," Pleitez says. "It showed that these neighborhoods would not be forgotten and someone was paying attention. But it was always very sad."
Pleitez says that as a councilman, Villaraigosa was "better than all the other council members when it came to 'constituent service.' " But there were fundamental choices made by Villaraigosa that he didn't want to replicate: Villaraigosa "didn't have as much business acumen," Pleitez says, taking his policy cues mostly from labor-union bosses. "If you just come from the political world only," he says of Villaraigosa's union-organizer career before elective office, "you ask, 'Who supports a project, and who doesn't?' rather than 'What's the best solution?' "
Then in 2005, during Villaraigosa's bitterly fought and ultimately successful effort to wrest the mayor's seat from incumbent Mayor James Hahn, Pleitez, 22, was in the catbird seat — a special assistant who drove the hyperactive Villaraigosa around. "He'd sometimes emphatically pound his hand on the dash if I missed a turn or shortcut he knew about," he recalls. But he's coy about what he saw and heard, as he worked seven days a week — sometimes late into the night — driving Villaraigosa, who sat in the passenger seat and talked incessantly on his cellphone.
"Getting to hear all the conversations with top donors and top labor leaders and how he negotiated with them was invaluable," Pleitez says. "I saw him at his highest moments and his lowest."
One of Pleitez's campaign promises — which his young staffers support — is to wade into the political mess that is the L.A. city worker pension deal. Pleitez thinks Richard Riordan's idea — to make current city workers pay more toward their pensions and make new city hires enroll in a 401(k)-style savings system — is "moving in the right direction." The city government unions emphatically oppose it.
Pleitez also strongly backs the controversial California Parent Trigger law, which allows parents to take over persistently bad public schools through petition — and hire a new staff or turn the school into a charter. Parent Trigger is gaining traction in some of California's poorest communities.
With his urban studies degree from Stanford in 2006, Pleitez became an analyst at Goldman Sachs, which skims the cream from Ivy League schools, and soon was hired away as a special assistant in the U.S. Treasury, working on President Barack Obama's Economic Recovery Advisory Board under Volcker. "I was blessed to be coming from nothing and engaging with one of the most renowned economists in the world, and the president," Pleitez says. "It was mind-boggling. At the same time, I knew many of my friends back home would ... never get there. I also felt I had to shine, because I felt I represented a lot of people — people from poor backgrounds, and minorities."
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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