It’s a game of musical chairs but played SoCal style
By Rick Orlov, Columnist

Los Angeles daily News
July 18 2005

In the merry-go-round politics caused by term limits, an old-fashioned
political showdown has developed, with Los Angeles and Sacramento
forces at odds in a race for a San Fernando Valley seat in the
state Senate.

State Sen. Richard Alarcon is being forced from his 20th District
seat in 2006 and has announced plans to run for the 39th Assembly
District seat, which is being vacated by Assemblywoman Cindy Montanez,
so she can run for the Alarcon seat. She has been endorsed by Alarcon
and Assembly Speaker Fabian Nuñez.

Enter City Council President Alex Padilla, who is facing term limits
of his own in 2009.

While Padilla has not formally declared his intentions, he is close
to taking out papers to run for Alarcon’s Senate seat, too.

The Montanez forces do not want to face him in a head-on race, so
they have been trying to pressure Padilla to run for city controller
or any other office.

Padilla, however, has set his sights on the Senate, looking down the
road for a future run for statewide office.

Interestingly, Padilla scheduled an event Saturday — marking his
re-election to the council this year — with Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
featured. Montanez, at the same time, scheduled an open house at her
San Fernando offices. The annual Lotus Festival and its boat races
have come to replace softball games as the new rivalry at City Hall,
and Councilman Eric Garcetti’s office has proven to be king of the
Echo Park lake.

For the second consecutive year, Garcetti’s team finished first in
the event, trumping teams from the office of Councilman Ed Reyes —
who entered two boats in the race — as well as teams from the offices
of Rep. Xavier Becerra and Assemblywoman Jackie Goldberg.

The Goldberg team reported it came in last, amid complaints from the
assemblywoman that the event was overly competitive and that her boat
had been cut off by the Becerra team.

The contest has taken on so much interest that even Villaraigosa
attended this year’s race and said he plans to enter a boat next
year. As the City Council looks to its summer recess in late August,
foreign travel is dominating some council members’ agendas.

Garcetti said he was planning a trip to Armenia that is being arranged
through the Little Armenia community in his district.

His traveling partner could be Councilman Dennis Zine, who also
has been approached by officials from Beirut about establishing a
sister-city relationship with Los Angeles. Zine, who is of Lebanese
heritage, is said to be interested in promoting the relationship.

Los Angeles has 21 sister cities, ranging from Athens and Bombay to
Giza in Egypt and St. Petersburg in Russia. It also has sister cities
in such remote areas as Kauanas in Lithuania, and Lusaka in Zambia.

So far — and it has been only two weeks — the animal activists in
the city have given Villaraigosa a pass on personal protests at his
events and home.

Former Mayor James Hahn was nearly constantly dogged during his term
— including weekend protests in front of his San Pedro home — by
various organizations protesting delays in the city’s adoption of a
no-kill policy at its animal shelters.

No one knows how long the moratorium on Villaraigosa will last, but
it appears, through e-mails being sent out, that the patience in the
animal activist community is running thin.

During the recent mayoral election, Villaraigosa supported a no-kill
policy and promised a review of Animal Services Director Guerdon
Stuckey.

Activists now are bombarding the mayor’s office and reporters with
e-mails about problems they see and demanding that Stuckey be fired.

Aides to Villaraigosa said the mayor is continuing his review of
the agency.

Daily News, Staff Writer David Drucker contributed to this report.

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