The Defibrillator

Photo by Ted Soqui

“Me too!” blurts state Senator Richard Alarcón, and the audience at mayoral debate number two (or is it three? four?) is momentarily stunned. It’s closing-statement time, and this is, after all, a deadly serious affair — at least to judge from the stern looks on the faces of the leading mayoral challengers trying to grab City Hall away from incumbent James Hahn, and their consultants, staffers and hangers-on planted among the crowd. The contenders are laying out their platforms, their most deeply held beliefs, with all the joy of men facing exploratory surgery. Except Alarcón.

Hahn has had his say, as has former Assembly Speaker Bob Hertzberg, and Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, who promised gravely to work with the environmental group sponsoring this debate to “make Los Angeles the cleanest, greenest city in the United States.” And now it’s Alarcón’s turn.

“Me too!” he says, and look — he’s smiling. The audience catches on, and breaks the spell of studied earnestness to erupt into laughter and wild applause. This guy’s having a good time! Is that allowed?

Tonight, as in the dozen or so debate nights to come over the next several weeks, the 51-year-old Alarcón cheerfully unfolds a package of populist plans. Clean up City Hall by banning campaign contributions of more than $100 from contractors and developers. (He’s circulating a ballot measure for signatures.) Stand up for ratepayers by reversing that 11 percent water-rate hike. (He’s suing the city to force a rollback.) Patrol the streets and protect the taxpayers with 1,000 new police officers paid for by airlines and shippers. (He’s touting a plan to get the money from the city’s quasi-independent departments.) Scratch that costly and controversial airport renovation and set up a big new airport to the north of the city, where there’s room to grow. (He’s introducing a bill in Sacramento to empower a new, independent airport authority to do just that.) Turn the neighborhoods over to the neighbors, by giving their councils real power over land use.

More cops? No new taxes? Water-rate rollback? Neighborhood empowerment? Hey, some surprised debate observers note, this San Fernando Valley native understands the middle-class aspirations that undergird Los Angeles. And look, he’s a Latino, and has a real feel for the burgeoning Latino majority in L.A. He’s got the environmental angle down cold, and a track record of progressive bills in the Legislature to go with it. And he’s such a natural in the debates, so much more comfortable and at ease than the other candidates. And he’s got that cleft chin, that 1940s matinee-idol mustache! This guy’s a winner! This guy’s perfect!

This guy’s going nowhere.

Alarcón disputes the assessment, but even after a dozen or so debates it appears that the March 8 mayoral election will give us a runoff that includes any two of three guys: Hahn and former state Assembly speakers Bob Hertzberg and Antonio Villaraigosa. But not Councilman Bernard Parks. And not Alarcón.

How come? He got into this race first, weeks before Hertzberg, months before Villaraigosa. It was he, long before the other challengers, who took Hahn to task publicly for what he calls poor transit planning and messy oversight of the Department of Water and Power and other City Hall institutions. And he’s not without enthusiastic support. Last summer, a group of Eastside activists heard from each of the challengers and then rejected native son Villaraigosa in favor of Valley boy Alarcón. He was on a roll.

Then came the debates, and he was — he often still is — by far the most impressive. But the dollars have gone elsewhere.

Money? Don’t worry about it, he responds when asked about his poor financial showing. After all, he was fifth in fund-raising back in 1993, when the Northeast Valley elected him to the City Council. He was second to Richard Katz in campaign dollars during the contentious state Senate contest of 1998, but he bested Katz by just over two dozen votes.

“My campaign is a campaign against money,” Alarcón explained recently. “It’s against the moneyed influence in City Hall. My primary issue is the ballot measure to eliminate contractor and developer contributions in City Hall.”

Hahn, Villaraigosa, Hertzberg — they’re all tainted by big-bucks contributions from the entrenched business and development interests, Alarcón said. Which is exactly the sort of thing a candidate is supposed to say when he is dead last in fund-raising.

It’s a quiet Friday morning at Big Jim’s, a half-century-old restaurant that embodies the change, and the continuum, that is the Northeast Valley. Wagon wheels and horseshoes are outlined on the terrazzo floor where several decades’ worth of suburban cowboys and truck drivers have walked to their regular booths for their morning coffee. The menu has expanded over the years, adding chorizo and eggs to the breakfast ham steaks, although Latinos aren’t newcomers here (Alarcón’s father arrived in this neighborhood in the 1920s). On this morning, clusters of police officers, DWP workers and MTA bus operators chat, in Spanish and in English, over their coffee before reporting to work or going home after the night shift.

This is the other end of Laurel Canyon Boulevard — not the part that carries Volvos and BMWs as it snakes among $10 million homes in the Hollywood Hills, but the northernmost end, among the huge freeway offramps, tiny stucco houses and recycling centers of Sun Valley.