Brian
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Post by Brian on Sept 17, 2009 0:11:29 GMT -8
No one who reads the board regularly lives in Los Angeles' 2nd Council District, except for Anni and me, but that won't stop me from blabbing about the special election in only five days.
Judging from the pile of mailers I've assembled in the last month, Assemblyman Paul Krekorian from Burbank and former Paramount executive Christine Essel from God-knows-where have the most money. They've already sent me two dozen between them. I was surprised to get two pamphlets this week from school board member Tamar Galatzan. This month they started going negative. One of Essel's mailers features Krekorian and Galatzan Photoshopped onto a game show set because they put our Valley in jeopardy with their votes and campaign practices. Krekorian answered with the Academy Awards' Oscar statute wearing a Royal Canadian Mounted Police uniform, representing all the productions Essel sent north when she was making money for Paramount.
First impressions can mean a lot. I heard Essel introduce herself at the Save the Golf Course meeting on July 7, looking exactly like someone who had never been in Sunland-Tujunga before. She even had to turn around to read the banner behind her to remember the reason the rest of us were there. A month later, I was sitting on our porch when a Krekorian volunteer walked up to canvas and pass out the initial brochure. I admire candidates who still do grassroots campaigning, and the kid was marvelous. He may be on my ballot someday.
So I've been organizing the bitstreams of information around my initial feelings. Krekorian has been endorsed by the L.A. County and more progressive San Fernando Valley Democratic Party organizations, Essel by former Mayor Dick Riordan. For instance.
There are no easy choices for the council member representing Sunland-Tujunga this time, as I've had throughout my life here. And no one objectionable among the ten candidates -- Anni and I liked Mary Benson, board member of the S-T Neighborhood Council, at lot at the golf course meeting. As much as I want someone seated in City Hall, I don't see anyone getting 50 percent of the votes plus one next Tuesday. I haven't even made up my mind yet.
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anni
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Post by anni on Sept 17, 2009 10:32:03 GMT -8
Last night I walked in on Brian perusing his voter pamphlet and confessed I had taken mine with me to LAX to read while I was waiting for my friend's plane. What a dud...nothing to read. Didn't realize there were no propositions or no nothing, just a list for new Council person. This Mary Benson is the only 'real' person I've seen and heard and liked...but not since the STGC meeting. Sigh.
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Post by Sharon W on Sept 18, 2009 11:42:34 GMT -8
Very lively discussions going on over at the Foothills Forum on this topic, just one thread: www.thefoothillsforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4678Folks report even more heated posts on mayor sam's blog but I haven't looked there, being merely an interested neighbor. I think it will get even more interesting when we see who gets into the run off. If it's Krekorian and/or Galatzan there'll be election(s) to fill their Assembly/LAUSD B of E posts - endless campaigns..................
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Brian
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Post by Brian on Sept 20, 2009 0:01:56 GMT -8
Very lively discussions going on over at the Foothills Forum on this topic, just one thread: www.thefoothillsforum.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=4678
Folks report even more heated posts on mayor sam's blog but I haven't looked there, being merely an interested neighbor.
I think it will get even more interesting when we see who gets into the run off. If it's Krekorian and/or Galatzan there'll be election(s) to fill their Assembly/LAUSD B of E posts - endless campaigns.................. Thank you, Sharon. I just read all 73 posts -- it was really cool how you stepped in. Unlike you, I'm a Green only in politics, not registration. I've clinged to the Democratic party since I registered 30 days before I turned 18 in 1976. Back then, Howard Finn was a Republican, but that meant something entirely different in those days. Mary Benson's affiliation could be a deal-breaker for me. Let's see how Anni processes that information. I still don't know who I'm voting for on Tuesday. Essel worked her way out of my consideration. Galatzan's star is rising. But if I take the narrow view -- who can deliver the Verdugo Hills Golf Course into the public's hands? -- the answer may be Krekorian. And given the reapportionment coming in two years, we have to weigh the ambitions of this peripatetic trio. Which argues a vote for a candidate like Benson. I've read more about this campaign in the past week than I did in the first two months after I signed a nominating petition for that Zuma Dogg guy at the golf course meeting. This is the best springboard to links about our wacky race, including Mayor Sam: cd2election.blogspot.com/Essentially born in Tujunga, I'm old enough to remember when we were part of the First Council District, which took in the entire north of the City of Los Angeles. When Howard died suddenly, the City Council drew a First District around downtown to resolve the U.S. Justice Department complaint about its lack of Latino representation and turned the Second District into a mushroom cloud extending from Joel Wachs' home into our own little valley. We've had relatively few City Councilmembers in my lifetime and they all were good for Sunland-Tujunga -- Greuel, Wachs, Finn, sad Bob Ronka and even Republican Louis Nowell -- because they got what we were about, living in this strange community where business persons, homeowners and environmentalists agreed, and could even be the same person.
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Post by Sharon W on Sept 20, 2009 13:33:21 GMT -8
[Thank you, Sharon. I just read all 73 posts -- it was really cool how you stepped in.... Oh dear, I wasn't fishing for compliments, I say a lot of stupid stuff over there too - but thanks. I so admire you and Anni for running this forum and King and Queen of the mountain for doing the foothills forum - these kinds of things are so good for getting information to people who are interested. Even though feelings are getting hurt and crazy accusations are flying around I think it's great there is so much interest in this off year election.
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anni
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Post by anni on Sept 20, 2009 14:20:42 GMT -8
Even though feelings are getting hurt and crazy accusations are flying around I think it's great there is so much interest in this off year election. I always keep in mind, "An opinion is like an asshole, everybody has one".
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Brian
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Post by Brian on Sept 22, 2009 0:02:19 GMT -8
If I'd known that it would come down to this, I would have made more of an effort to attend a candidates forum and ask them questions. Or, having learned that councilmembers get paid nearly $175,000, run myself. Undecided on the eve of the election, I went to the Internet. Setting aside Mary Benson's party affiliation, I read her website looking for reasons to vote for her. But her policy page was thin and unsatisfying while her resume consists almost exclusively of affiliations with horse-related organizations. Worse, she lives in Sun Valley -- I'd assumed Mary was from Shadow Hills, at least. So that means we have no candidate from the 91040 or 91042 ZIP codes for City Council. What the hell, I'm shallow. I'm Mr. Tujunga. Given her money and prior election experience, Galatzan's website seemed worse, probably because I clicked on a PDF flyer of "The Top Ten Reasons to Elect Tamar Galatzan to the City Council," arranged like David Letterman's Top Ten with lines like, "Knows that the Tujunga Wash never adds starch." There is a lot more energy than vision. She does, however, provide a nice map of our wacky district -- from the corner of Sepulveda and Ventura in Sherman Oaks on the southwest to the burnt reaches of Big Tujunga Canyon at the far north: www.tamarforcitycouncil.com/cd2-seatI could still vote for Benson or Galatzan in the runoff. But I've come full circle to Paul Krekorian. Reflexively, like the old Democrat I can be. Practically, because the candidate who runs the best campaign demonstrates the ability to govern. Perversely, believing he's the strongest vote against Christine Essel. But mostly because I feel he has the motivation and the connections to save the Verdugo Hills Golf Course. What a flyer that would make for his next campaign.
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anni
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Post by anni on Sept 22, 2009 7:40:40 GMT -8
After much waffling and for much the same reasons (I've read most the same stuff Brian has) Krekorian will be my choice, too.
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Post by Sharon W on Sept 22, 2009 8:29:29 GMT -8
I think you picked the winner.
I'd probably vote McCue if I were in CD2 - Green Party solidarity plus he was very articulate when I met him at a STNC meeting. Of course, he's dead last in the polls.
This race certainly cries out for instant runoff voting - so you could vote your first choice and Krekorian (or the 'big three' member of yur choice) second to save the money of another election.
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Post by Sharon W on Sept 22, 2009 23:06:32 GMT -8
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