This should come as no surprise, considering the fact that Mayor Jim Hahn booted him out of a very tall chair, but Councilman and fired LAPD chief Bernard Parks is due to endorse Antonio Villaraigosa tomorrow morning, reports Noti Los Angeles, echoing a KCAL-9 report.
Villaraigosa's campaign site reports only that Tuesday at 9 he'll be "joined by a prominent elected official who will announce his support for the campaign."
Writing in Sunday's Daily News, Earl Ofari Hutchison called Parks Hahn's biggest problem:
t was tempting a few years ago to dismiss anger over Hahn's decision to get rid of Parks as yet another shuffling of the racial deck by black leaders. But that misses too much. Blacks didn't storm the racial barricades for an embattled black official merely to save the political hide of one of their own.
Their frenzy over Parks, then and now, reflected two tormenting problems. One is the deep distrust and hostility that many blacks still feel toward the Los Angeles Police Department. The other is the atrophying political muscle of the black community in city government. Parks was the immediate payback African-Americans expected from Hahn for delivering the crucial black vote that did much to put him in the mayor's seat. If they were unable to wring that concession out of the man who supposedly owes so much to them and who has identified more strongly with the black community than any other local white politician, then they're in even deeper political trouble than they realize.
As weakening in political strength amid the growth of Latino L.A. as Hutchison says they are, black neighborhoods are nonetheless a powerful and important square in L.A.'s ideological quilt - and worth far more in the already vitriolic runup to the May 17 election than the likes of Walter Moore.
Hahn's only hope for potential political redemption may be the backing (albeit highly unlikely) of as-yet un-committed former opponent Bob Hertzberg, who's apparently done looking back.
It's done, and no sooner is it done than Hahn operative Kam Kuwata points out the irony in Parks' stance:
He also pointed to conflicting statements made by Villaraigosa to South Los Angeles and Granada Hills voters during the 2001 campaign as to whether he would keep Parks as police chief if he were elected.
"Antonio has had about four, five, maybe six positions on Bernard Parks, but Bernard Parks has had one position in this mayor's race and that's to oppose Jim Hahn," Kuwata said.
Villaraigosa dismissed the charge, saying he respects Parks "profoundly."
(earlier) Meanwhile, Hahn's under more fire from the D.A., the city Ethics Commission and the feds, who are investigating a 2002 trip the mayor and his entourage took to Asia. A short while later, EVA Airways signed a deal to shift its cargo operations to Ontario Airport, effectively taking traffic pressure off of LAX.
Here's some perspective from today's Times story by Patrick McGreevy and Noam Levey:
The Times reported in May that the State Lands Commission was looking into whether aides to Hahn improperly interfered on behalf of Evergreen Marine in negotiations for a lease at the city's port to curry favor with its affiliate, EVA Airways.
Evergreen had expressed an interest in 2002 in expanding its port operations in Los Angeles and was competing with two other firms for 43 acres on Terminal Island.
In 2003, the Harbor Commission considered a proposal by two commissioners to lease that land to P&O Nedlloyd, but an aide to Hahn intervened to stop it because the mayor's office wanted to "build a long-term relationship" with Evergreen and EVA, Liu said last year.
The Harbor Commission has since solicited new bids, and the panel voted to enter negotiations with P&O in December.
Liu denied that the city broke any rules in linking the airport and harbor deals, because the city has an interest in both.
Posted by: mack_reed on Monday, April 04, 2005 - 11:43 PM
