03/09/05

LC050309

Val Zavala>> Tonight on Life and Times --

The Los Angeles mayor's race gets all the attention, but what
does it really mean to other Southern California cities?

Herb Katz>> I think they have to start saying no, no, I'm a
mayor in Los Angeles, but I must work in the state of California
and certainly in the region of Southern California.

Val>> And then, it was a violent time in local history. Can a
novel set in the wake of the Watts riots help bring people
together?

It's all straight ahead on tonight's Life and Times.

Life and Times is made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Okay, so Los Angeles is electing a mayor, but millions of
Southern Californians who don't live in Los Angeles are saying
so what? How does that affect me? Well, in fact, the behemoth
Los Angeles affects the entire region whether it be traffic,
smog or the housing shortage. Toni Guinyard went to some
surrounding cities to see just what kind of an impact Los
Angeles makes on their quality of life.

Toni Guinyard>> The ballots are in and it's a repeat of the
mayoral race the city has seen before in 2001. Now we'll watch
it again along with millions of Southern California residents
who don't even have a say in Los Angeles city politics, but have
a stake in the outcome. Do you care who's elected mayor of the
city of Los Angeles?

Herb Katz>> Yeah, I care. I care too much.

Toni Guinyard>> Santa Monica mayor pro tem, Herb Katz, cares
because he knows the person who sits in the mayor's seat at Los
Angeles City Hall has the potential and the power to impact
policy and the quality of life in nearby cities. Katz moved to
Santa Monica in 1963. As an elected official, he has a front
row seat to witness the often frustrating way problems are dealt
with in one city that inadvertently affect another.

Herb Katz>> It's basic physics. You push at one end and
something else bulges at another end, whatever it is, and
homelessness certainly did.

Toni Guinyard>> Homelessness. It's a big city problem shared
by Los Angeles and Santa Monica.

Herb Katz>> We've welcomed the homeless, for instance, and it's
been over-welcomed and our citizens are now saying we've got to
do something regionally.

Toni Guinyard>> It's one of many issues Katz believes needs to
be addressed by mayors working together rather than standing
alone.

Herb Katz>> The mayor says I'm the mayor of Los Angeles and
that's what I do. That's my goal. I was elected in Los Angeles
and I'm working with Los Angeles. I think they have to start
saying no, no, I'm a mayor in Los Angeles, but I must work in
the state of California and certainly in the region of Southern
California.

Toni Guinyard>> Katz is not the only elected official outside
of Los Angeles promoting a regional approach to dealing with
city issues nor is he the only elected official monitoring the
Los Angeles mayor's race and listening to what the candidates
have to say.

John J. Duran>> Well, I'm looking at them because whoever wins
that race is going to impact my city.

Toni Guinyard>> West Hollywood Mayor, John Duran.

John J. Duran>> People are very opposed to development here in
West Hollywood, some people are, and they say no more
development. We don't want any more traffic. Well, even if we
didn't build another thing starting today, it wouldn't matter,
given whatever Los Angeles is going to do all around us.

Toni Guinyard>> While city limits are clearly defined, the
boundaries are blurred when it comes to addressing what many
consider to be individual city concerns. How best to deal with
transportation issues, traffic is the common thread tying city
to city to city. It was a key campaign issue in the primary and
is expected to be an issue addressed by candidates leading into
the runoff election.

John J. Duran>> I think they've all thrown out traffic light
synchronization which, to my mind, is just tinkering with the
bigger problem. I mean, it's a nice idea, but it's really
tinkering. It's going to require multi billions of dollars to
construct what we should have constructed eighty years ago.

Herb Katz>> Transportation. If it doesn't bother me, why do I
care about you? I think that's wrong. If I don't go to
downtown Los Angeles, then I don't care what's downtown? Yes, I
do, and I think we have to start thinking beyond our block.

Marsha Ramos>> Los Angeles traffic issues certainly impact
Burbank.

Toni Guinyard>> Unlike some other local elected officials,
Burbank Mayor Marsha Ramos puts a positive spin on the
relationship between the city she represents and the mayor of
Los Angeles. In this city of one hundred thousand people, Mayor
Ramos says there are benefits to riding on the coattails of Los
Angeles.

Marsha Ramos>> I think it's a matter of -- the city of Los
Angeles mayor has a very loud voice and that's because of the
population. So certainly when the loud voice of the mayor of
the city of Los Angeles speaks up, everyone pays attention,
everyone listens. Where we certainly have a voice, we do not
carry the kind of clout that the city of Los Angeles carries
throughout the state.

Toni Guinyard>> Ramos says Burbank has a closer working
relationship with Los Angeles city council members whose
districts abut her city compared to the mayor of Los Angeles.
In her opinion, leading a smaller city has its pluses,
especially when luring business and industry.

Sharon Ramos>> They took a look at what Los Angeles payments
were and requirements were going to be. They looked at us and,
hello, we welcomed them aboard.

Toni Guinyard>> Decisions made or influenced by the mayor of
Los Angeles could have a negative or positive effect on
surrounding cities and some elected officials won't admit they
favor one candidate over another. But they do say the person
who makes it into the mayor's seat will make a difference in
their community.

Steven Rose>> I believe that the choice of the people of Los
Angeles will have an effect on the city of Culver City.

Toni Guinyard>> In Culver City, one concern is how the person
voters elect as Los Angeles's mayor will address the planned
expansion of LAX. The initial proposal came from Los Angeles
incumbent mayor, James Hahn. Mayor Steven Rose is worried about
what is not addressed in the Environmental Impact Report.

Steven Rose>> The EIR that LAX has prepared talks about traffic
leaving LAX, but as soon as it arrives at the border of Culver
City, it disappears. We need answers about where the traffic is
going. People don't live in one city, work in one city and stop
in one city, that we are a very mobile community in Southern
California, so we have to be aware of what the effects of
development in one city is going to have on another.

Toni Guinyard>> Just days before the primary election, the Los
Angeles Times ran a full page ad promoting its election coverage
and posing the question "Why should L.A.'s mayor matter to you?"
Reasons listed in the ad include the need for affordable housing
to the need for more police, fixing the education system in
schools to dealing with SigAlerts.

Herb Katz>> We all know how bad our traffic is and you can't
solve it city by city.

John J. Duran>> Most of the traffic patterns in West Hollywood
are not people who live or even work here. They're people
passing through trying to get to Century City, trying to get to
Beverly Hills or UCLA or going the other way trying to get to
Hollywood.

Herb Katz>> The Santa Monica Freeway going home at night,
meaning west, I laugh at the people going east. They're bumper
to bumper and I'm skidding home. That means they've all been in
Santa Monica all day and they're all going home to Los Angeles
or other cities. It's got to be regional.

Toni Guinyard>> City officials in communities surrounding Los
Angeles clearly have reason for concern and are speaking out now
to ensure the next mayor of Los Angeles knows they are watching
and ready to react.

John J. Duran>> We're all just getting washed into this and I
hope that the mayor of Los Angeles is cognizant of that and,
when he thinks about fraud or public policy, he's got to
remember all the other cities and how we're impacted.

Herb Katz>> I think it's provincial and nimbyism. I got mine.
Why should I let you in, whoever you are and whatever the issue
is? Or I don't have mine and I want mine. People have got to
start thinking more broadly rather than just of themselves
unilaterally.

Marsha Ramos>> We're pretty much an island within all of Los
Angeles, so am I frustrated? I would say no. I like to protect
my island.

Toni Guinyard>> In many ways, these cities are islands, some
almost completely surrounded by Los Angeles, but fighting to
keep from being overrun by Los Angeles's big city problems, all
recognizing the impact the mayor of Los Angeles could have on
the cities they call home.

John J. Duran>> I guess I would say to the mayor of Los
Angeles, don't forget there are eighty-seven other cities in the
county of Los Angeles and that we're impacted by the decisions
that are made by the big city of Los Angeles.

Toni Guinyard>> I'm Toni Guinyard for Life and Times.

Kcet.org is the place to look for the very latest on Life and
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Val>> So what's most important to you when you step into the
voting booth? Your race or your address? Is your ethnic
identity a bigger factor? Or is your neighborhood a bigger
influence in your decision? That's the question one political
scientist asked and he got some answers through some exit polls.
Vicki Curry talked with Fernando Guerra of the Center for the
Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University.

Vicki Curry>> Fernando, the Center for the Study of Los Angeles
conducted an exit poll yesterday during the local elections, but
it was a different kind of exit poll. Tell me how you went
about it.

Fernando Guerra>> Well, there were some traditional aspects of
it, of course. Visiting the polls, we had over one hundred
students from LMU at over thirty-nine precincts and we focused
and over-sampled communities such as the Latino community and
the African-American community. Exit polls are very good at
being able to get the overall results. Oftentimes they don't
dig deep enough in certain communities and that's what we were
trying to accomplish and I think we did that.

Vicki Curry>> How is that different from a traditional exit
poll?

Fernando Guerra>> Exit polls, all they want are the actual
results overall. Let's say that African-Americans were just
fifteen percent of the vote and we only get fifteen percent of
them, which is appropriate. But then for us to be able to
really tell how they voted, we would need many more respondents
from that community. So what we did, instead of getting fifteen
percent, we got, let's say, twenty-five percent. But then, when
we added to the overall results, we weigh it back as though they
were only fifteen percent. However, we can now take a look at
the data and see why did African-Americans vote the way they
did? What were their issues? What were they concerned about?
We have a better understanding of the city, better understanding
of certain neighborhoods.

Vicki Curry>> So one area you were looking at is the idea of
ethnicity versus location. What did you find?

Fernando Guerra>> Well, you know, unfortunately for Mayor Hahn,
he was not the top vote-getter among any ethnic groups. He was
number two among whites, he was number two among Latinos, he was
number three among African-Americans which was really
surprising, and he was number two among Asian-Americans. He won
no ethnic group, but he was in second in many of those.

Interestingly enough, among the precincts, the city of Los
Angeles has over fifteen hundred precincts. In those precincts,
Antonio Villaraigosa was the top vote-getter in fifty-two
percent of those. Hertzberg in thirty percent of those. Parks
in twelve percent of those. Mayor Hahn was only the top vote-
getter in six percent of the precincts. So the mayor did not
win in any geographic area and he did not win any ethnic groups.
People will say, well, how did he come in second? Well,
basically he was a lot of peoples' number two choice, a lot of
groups' number two choice.

Vicki Curry>> Well, did your polling show whether people tended
to vote more along ethnic lines or geographical lines?

Fernando Guerra>> Yes. Antonio Villaraigosa, for instance, got
close to two-thirds of the whole Latino vote and Alarcon picked
up an additional ten percent. So, yes, Latinos overwhelmingly
voted for Latino candidates. Council member Parks got two-
fifths of the African-American vote and then, in terms of
whites, Hertzberg got two-fifths of that vote. Among Jews, it
was mostly split, but Hertzberg still got the plurality and
Antonio was a close second.

So in general, there was a tendency for ethnic groups to vote
for their ethnic candidate. They feel an affinity. They feel
that those individuals know the communities a little bit better.
They feel that they know their neighborhoods better. People are
very attuned to citywide issues, but also very attuned to
neighborhood issues which tend to coincide with ethnic issues.

Vicki Curry>> So what else did you find in yesterday's
election?

Fernando Guerra>> Well, I mean, there were all kinds of very
interesting findings. You know, the mayor, I think, is in
trouble in that his unfavorable rating was pretty high. People
who felt that the city was going in a wrong direction actually
voted against him, so he's going to have to really run an
incredible election, which I think he's capable of, and he's
going to really have to negatively impact Antonio because
Antonio is going into this election with a ten point difference.

That is, he has about thirty-three percent of the vote and Mayor
Hahn about twenty-three percent, a ten point difference. The
last time, there was only a five point difference. Mayor Hahn
went in with some geographic areas where he was really a front
runner among African-Americans. He's not doing that this time,
so he is a wounded candidate. But, you know, you can never
count Jimmy Hahn out, but I still think Antonio Villaraigosa is
going to be able to win. Our findings when we asked if this was
a runoff between Antonio and the mayor, who would you vote for?
Antonio was about fifty-six percent of the vote.

Vicki Curry>> So four years ago, Mayor Hahn pretty much took
the Valley and the African-American vote, but that's not the
case this time?

Fernando Guerra>> No. The mayor took those two. Those were
the cornerstones of his coalition, but to a large extent, it was
an unsustainable coalition, a very strange coalition in that,
when he pursued one policy in favor of the other, it somewhat
alienated the other group. Then, of course, the two big
accomplishments for the mayor was keeping the city together
which alienated some Valley voters and then, of course, reducing
crime in partnership with Police Chief Bratton which, of course,
is why he ended up firing police chief at that time, Bernard
Parks. So he did the right thing in keeping the city together.
It may cost him the mayoralty, but it was the right thing to do.

Vicki Curry>> So how correct do you think your results were?
What was your margin of error?

Fernando Guerra>> Our margin of error was three to four percent
and it compares favorably, for instance, to the Los Angeles
Times whose margin of error is about two percent. They
interviewed a few more people, a few more precincts, than we did
and our polling was almost identical and then they're very
identical to the actual results. We have, for instance, in our
exit poll, obviously, Villaraigosa number one and Hertzberg
number two barely, then Hahn third. But then when you add the
absentee voters which, of course, we did not survey, then Hahn
barely jumps up into second place.

So we believe we reflected the reality. People are pretty
honest when they come out of the polls. They've just voted.
We're really not asking them their opinion. We're asking them
what was your behavior? What did you just do? There is very
little incentive for people to mislead especially students and
people who are trying to find out a little bit more about what
is politically happening in our city.

Vicki Curry>> So do you feel that your new kind of polling and
the results that you got tell you anything about the makeup of
Los Angeles today and for the future?

Fernando Guerra>> Well, our polling is verified because it's
very similar to another poll, very similar to the actual result,
but now we have much more information about certain
neighborhoods and we're very happy about that, to understand why
people were voting a certain way, to understand what their
incentives are to vote.

You know, one of the major aspects of this election is that only
twenty-six percent of registered voters came out to vote. That
is a sad commentary, so we want to know what caused people not
to vote and let's help get the vote out. Let's have people
participate to make the city more dynamic, a better place. We
need to have much greater civic engagement and it begins with
local elections.

Vicki Curry>> Fernando Guerra, Director of the Center for the
Study of Los Angeles at LMU, thank you for taking the time to
share your results of the poll.

Fernando Guerra>> Well, thanks for having me. Appreciate it.

Val>> To send a comment or a question to our program, you can
reach us by mail at this address:

Life and Times
4401 Sunset Blvd.
Los Angeles, California 90027

You can also call our viewer comment line (323) 953-5555) or
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Val>> Can a book unite a city? Well, that's the idea behind
the "One Book, One City L.A." initiative. It encourages people
to read the same book and then talk about it. This year's
selection is Walter Mosley's "Little Scarlet". It's a mystery
novel that takes place in South Los Angeles after the Watts
riots. Philip Bruce talked with the acclaimed author about how
his personal experiences influenced the story.

Walter Mosley>> This time I decided that there's always the
crime novel and the mystery and really that's why many people
read the books. But in order to have a good crime novel, you
have to have underneath another story, something that people can
sink their teeth into that's not merely plot. For this book, it
was a reaction that my father had had to the riots many years
ago, the Watts riots of the summer of 1965.

This novel happens in the five days directly after those riots.
What happened there, what went on, how did it impact Easy,
particularly, the crime that he's investigating? But also just
the rest of the country, maybe even the world and to talk about
his very personal reaction. My father's reaction when I saw
him, I walked into a room in the middle of the riots and my
father was sitting there drinking and crying.

I said, "Dad, what's wrong." He said, "It's these riots." I
said, "Are you afraid?" He said, "No, I'm not afraid, Walter.
I want to get out there with them. I want to start shooting. I
want to start throwing Molotov cocktails. I know why those
people are angry." I said, "Are you going to go?" I was
worried that he might really go. He said, "No, I'm not going to
go because it's wrong. It's wrong to hurt people you don't know
and it's also wrong to burn down your own community, but I
understand why people are doing it."

That response of my father had the biggest impact on me from the
riots. I had been in Watts during the riots, but to hear him
say that really made me think. Then all these years later, I
said I want to deal with the impact of those riots on people
like my father and how people saw my father.

Philip Bruce>> Well, you clearly got the attention of President
Bill Clinton who long ago said you were his favorite writer.

Walter Mosley>> Yeah, that's true.

Philip Bruce>> Now you're both out there with books on the
market and he's selling his everywhere (laughter). Have you
bumped into him out on the book trail anywhere?

Walter Mosley>> Well, you know, a couple of times. Two weeks
before he went on tour, we were both given honorary PhDs at City
College of New York. He was very nice to me there and it was
really a lot of fun to talk to him and be there. Then a week or
so later, he had his book party at the Metropolitan Museum of
Art and I was invited, so I came and celebrated his new book. I
was very happy about that. He was talking a little bit about
writing fiction. He didn't say that he was going to write
fiction, but he was thinking about what it took to write
fiction, which led me to think that maybe he'd start writing
some novels. That would be kind of interesting.

Philip Bruce>> So what impact does it have on you when the
President says you are his favorite writer?

Walter Mosley>> Well, you know, first, I just love it that
somebody of that stature would say something so wonderful about
me. But on the other hand, it was really great because every
journalist in America and in much of the world all of a sudden
knew who I was. Most journalists don't know all the writers.
They know the writers they like and they know the big ones that
they learned in school and that's it.

When the President says that he reads your books, everybody
says, well, that's Walter Mosley. It's still true today. You
know, a decade later, and still people are saying what's this
thing about Clinton? So that's been very helpful to my career.
But if somebody comes up to you and says you're my favorite
writer, that's a great thing no matter who says it and, you
know, if it's the President, that's just an added dimension.

Philip Bruce>> It's great to have success when you're a writer,
but do you ever feel boxed in by some of your success because
you're so famous for the Easy Rawlins stories. People love
those. You've written many other things. You've gotten into
science fiction and other kinds of writing. Are people as
receptive to that or do they want you to keep on writing the
familiar, comfortable thing that they love so much?

Walter Mosley>> I'm not really sure. I think some people want
me to write the things they love so much, but they're not
necessarily the Easy Rawlins novels. Some people come up to me
and say I want you to write about Socrates Fortlow, you know, my
black Watts philosopher, and they start talking about other
characters that they want me to write about, that they want me
to do kinds of work that are non-fiction.

Certainly the Easy Rawlins novels are the most successful novels
and that's a wonderful thing, but in the long run, it doesn't
really matter because what's important for me to do is to do the
work that I'm doing. How people respond to it today, how they
respond to it in ten years or twenty years or a hundred or
whatever, I can't really think about that. I can only think
about what I'm doing and continue doing that work.

Philip Bruce>> When you were a kid growing up in Los Angeles,
did you ever conceive that there would be a Walter Mosley Day
proclaimed by the Los Angeles City Council?

Walter Mosley>> (Laughter) I didn't even know there were days
like that in Los Angeles before they told me they were going to
give it to me. It's a very wonderful thing. You know, the way
I think about it is that it has a kind of stunning impact on me
right now, so I'm a little numb about it. But I think, as time
goes by, it's really going to like dawn on me that this is like
this incredible honor from the city that I love and that I write
about so much.

Philip Bruce>> You've written about Los Angeles, warts and all.
Are you optimistic about this city?

Walter Mosley>> You know, yes, I am optimistic about this city.
I'm optimistic about America as a whole. I think that we're in
a really tough place right now. Our country, our city, our
economy, our sense of democracy and what it means and how it
works. But I think there's a lot of hope of us making something
out of ourselves. I think Los Angeles is a great example of
that. When I'm here, I see that so much has changed and so much
has gotten better really. A lot of the antipathy between people
has calmed down. A lot of people have recognized what we have
in common and that we have to work together, but we're in a very
difficult time in global history.

Philip Bruce>> I read somewhere, though, that you said in the
wake of 9/11 that black people in America weren't as likely to
be surprised when people attack us and when people don't like us
as white people are surprised.

Walter Mosley>> Well, that isn't exactly what I said. I said
that I had yet to speak to a black person who was surprised by
the attack on the World Trade Center. They didn't like it, they
were upset by it, they were afraid by it, they felt patriotic
because of it, but nobody was surprised. No black people I
talked to were surprised and I talked to hundreds.

Philip Bruce>> Why is that?

Walter Mosley>> Well, I think that black people in America have
a different relationship to America. We understand what it's
like to be under the yoke of, you know, so-called American
freedom, democracy and ideals. We were the property of America
for a long time. Because of that, we understand other peoples'
antipathy toward the country. Oh, those people are upset.
Don't you understand that, if we treat those people like this,
they're going to respond?

A lot of other people say, well, we saved freedom. We went to
Europe and saved Europe. We went to Africa with the World Bank
and we started giving them money and stuff. Not understanding
that giving money doesn't often buy something. Because of that,
I think that black people are in the best place to kind of work
and to think about a peace movement in America. We aren't doing
it, but I think that we should.

Philip Bruce>> Walter Mosley, as always, a great pleasure
talking to you. The new book is "Little Scarlet". Best of luck
to you on that.

Walter Mosley>> Thank you very much.

Val>> If you'd like more information on the "One Book, One City
L.A." initiative, you can go to their website or give them a
call. And that's our program. I'm Val Zavala. For everyone at
Life and Times, thanks for watching. We'll see you next time.

Life and Times was made possible through the generous support of
the L.K. Whittier Foundation dedicated to improving the quality
of life by supporting innovative endeavors in the fields of
medicine, health, science and education.

And by a generous grant from Jim and Anne Rothenberg.

Val>> Next time on Life and Times --

Prices at the pump are on the rise again, but will that get
people out of their gas guzzlers?

>> They take up too much room on the streets. It's their sense
of arrogance. They're doing more damage to the air. I mean,
they are doing the worst on every level.

Val>> That's next time on Life and Times.