Councilmember Eric Garcetti’s two-year campaign to become Los Angeles’ first Jewish-Mexican-Italian-American mayor ended in victory early this morning when his challenger, City Controller Wendy Greuel, phoned the candidate shortly before 2 a.m. to concede.
A preliminary count released by the L.A. City Clerk’s office put the margin of victory at eight points, with Garcetti taking 53.92 percent to Gruel’s 46.07 percent. Those numbers mirrored an unofficial Loyola Marymount exit poll taken earlier on Tuesday.
With 380,108 total votes cast, Garcetti’s victory comes amid one of the lowest voter turnouts ever for an L.A. mayor’s race, with a mere 19 percent of registered voters bothering to cast a ballot.
Early returns had Greuel out in front by a slim two-point margin. And while the Garcetti camp remained publicly confident throughout the evening, campaign insiders were nervously eying their smart phones, worried that an especially low turnout could result in the kind of squeaker that would deny their candidate a definitive win until the City Clerk’s official tally three weeks from now.
Although voters had been warned that it might take weeks after Election Day for a winner in the Los Angeles mayoral race to be declared, outgoing City Councilman Eric Garcetti decisively bested the outgoing Controller, Wendy Greuel, to become the city’s 42nd mayor. Garcetti, 42, will take office July 1.
The race, which had been predicted by some pollsters to be headed toward a dead heat, was effectively over by 11 p.m. last night, when Garcetti pulled ahead of Greuel and never looked back. In a forecast of his victory made hours before, exit polling by Loyola Marymount University showed Garcetti ahead by a comfortable eight points.
By 3:15 a.m. Wednesday, the City Clerk’s final election bulletin placed the vote count as 181,995 for Garcetti (53.92 percent) and 155,497 (46.07 percent) for Greuel.
Frying Pan News will post first-hand coverage of scenes from the two candidates’ Election Night celebrations later this morning.
Los Angeles’ polls close at 8 p.m. tonight, so there’s plenty of time to vote – and brush up on who and what is on the ballot. Frying Pan News, which does not endorse candidates, has been providing election coverage throughout the spring — offering in-depth interviews with mayoral hopefuls Wendy Greuel and Eric Garcetti, as well as asking political thinkers like Raphe Sonenshein and Jonathan Parfrey their opinions on what L.A.’s next mayor should do in his or her first term. We also sent veteran reporter Marc Haefele around town to ask what advice (and complaints) voters have for City Hall.
For a complete index of our features, see Frying Pan News’ Next L.A. section.
» Read more about: The Polls Are Open — Read Before You Vote! »
When you see a news story about Election Day in Los Angeles there’s a good chance it’s not about any issues or personalities involved during any one campaign, but about the city’s poor voter turnout. Depending on who you read, L.A. is the city that is too lazy for democracy, or too cool, bored or indifferent. Watching our turnout numbers fall has become a spectator’s sport, like watching a limbo dancer – how low can we go?
But whether 200 or two million people vote today, the future of this city cannot be sneered or shrugged away. We remain a troubled town with infinite resources, a divided city with the potential for great unity. Pundits may bemoan a sameness with the two mayoral candidates, or the lack of sexy ballot initiatives, but like it or not, Los Angeles will begin changing July 1, when the new mayor takes office.
(Editor’s Note: Last week Randy Shaw broke the story, which follows below, about a plan by U.C. Berkeley to use FEMA to clear-cut thousands of trees in the Berkeley-Oakland hills. Shaw’s story provoked an outcry of protest, which he details here, in this followup post.)
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is moving to chop down 22,000 trees in Berkeley’s historic Strawberry and Claremont Canyons and over 60,000 more in Oakland. This destructive plan is rapidly moving forward with little publicity, and FEMA cleverly scheduled its three public meetings for mid and late May while U.C. Berkeley students were in finals or gone for the summer. U.C. Berkeley has applied for the grant to destroy the bucolic Strawberry and Claremont Canyon areas, claiming that trees pose a fire hazard. The school has no plans to replant, and instead will cover 20 percent of the area in wood chips two feet deep.
» Read more about: U.C. to Strawberry Canyon Trees: Drop Dead »
In recent weeks, Congress has been looking into last year’s outbreak of meningitis, which killed 53 people and injured more than 700 Americans in 20 states. The cause was a tainted steroid distributed by the New England Compounding Center (NECC), which is part of an obscure $2 billion-a-year niche of the pharmaceutical industry called “compounding pharmacies.” Recent reports document that this rogue industry is out of control, operating dangerously in the shadows and putting the lives of millions of Americans at risk. Democrats have been trying to give the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) the authority to regulate this shadowy niche of the drug industry, but the companies and their Republican allies have pushed back, arguing that states can do a better job and that stronger federal regulations aren’t needed.
Sometimes it takes a scandal to get the public’s attention, but it also helps to have a courageous figure who takes on big business to protect public health and safety.
» Read more about: Thalidomide Tragedy: A Lesson for Today »
Dozens of Stockton-area workers and seniors streamed into the parking lot of the Walmart Supercenter [Thursday] morning to deliver an important message: Walmart must pay its fair share for health care.
It was the second stop on the statewide “Close the Walmart Loophole” tour.
Not even the grey sky or the rainy weather could dampen the spirits of the members of AFSCME [American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees], UFCW [United Food and Commercial Workers], Teamsters and other unions and seniors from the California Association of Retired Americans who all came together to fight for what is right for taxpayers.
Richard Andazola, President of the San Joaquin-Calaveras Central Labor Council:
“We’re here to send a message that a few big corporations like Walmart shouldn’t get to evade the law just because they have an army of lobbyists on their side.
» Read more about: Stockton Workers and Seniors Fight “Walmart Loophole” »
On May 15, Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa celebrated the launch of the L.A. Department of Water and Power’s Small Business Direct Install (SBDI) energy efficiency program at Supermercado Latino, a neighborhood market near Memorial Coliseum in South Los Angeles. The market received free retrofits that will save it 44 percent on utility bills while helping reduce L.A.’s reliance on coal power. SBDI is one of the key initiatives won by RePower LA, a coalition committed to saving Angelenos money on their energy bills, reducing dependency on dirty coal and creating local, career-path jobs for L.A.’s hardest-hit areas. RePower LA has also been instrumental in the creation of the Home Energy Improvement Program (HEIP) and the Utility Pre-Craft Training program (UPCT).
“The cleanest, cheapest energy is the energy you don’t use,” said Villaraigosa. “The Small Business Direct Install program helps reduce the carbon footprint of small businesses that would otherwise be unable to afford energy audits and retrofits.”
Through the SBDI,
» Read more about: Mayor Applauds RePower LA’s Small Business Program »
Maria Elena Durazo serves as Executive Secretary-Treasurer of the Los Angeles County Federation of Labor, which represents more than 600,000 union workers. She is also the Chair of the National AFL-CIO’s Immigration Committee and recently spoke to Frying Pan News about the pending immigration bill in Congress, as well as a new student film competition that her organization and UNITE HERE are sponsoring. (Part 1 of this interview appeared yesterday.)
Frying Pan News: Is there something in particular that bugs you about the immigration bill?
Maria Elena Durazo: Yes! We want to make sure that there’s an alternative to the past guest worker model. We’re hopeful that we can fix the language through what’s commonly referred to as the Labor-Chamber agreement. There are three elements to it. One, that there be an objective, data-driven analysis of the future needs of workers in this country.
» Read more about: The New America: A Talk With María Elena Durazo, Part 2 »
Phoenix, Arizona — Amber Zenzak, an office manager at a small carpet-cleaning company, took a moment recently to consider what life would be like each week without state support for child care for her children ages 3, 4, and 9.
“My day care costs would be $100 more than what I gross a week. My family would be out on the street,” she said, choking back tears and referring to the stability it provides.
“Those three young children would have nowhere to go, no food to eat. That’s not a situation that children should be in.”
Calls for the security and stability of children throughout the country, especially in Arizona and California, are continuing to surface, as families strive to earn a living in an economy that is still feeling the pinch of the Great Recession.
Requests for lawmakers to protect child care and other social services are occurring as many state budgets remain constrained and spending priorities are weighed and scrutinized.
» Read more about: Western Families Face Child Care Service Cuts »