Posted on 03/07/2005 10:43:53 PM PST by ambrose
Monday, March 07, 2005
A confident Bernard Parks says he can win L.A. race
Some say ex-chief is unlikely to capture mayor's job but can play a big role in determining who will. (Second of five profiles on major L.A. mayoral candidates.)
By Alison Shackelford
Copley News Service
Among the top five candidates in the Los Angeles mayoral race, Councilman Bernard Parks is the closest thing to a Republican, displaying conservative instincts and a contrarian streak so intermingled they are often hard to separate.
At a recent debate in front of a mostly black audience, two of his opponents talked about the need for local companies to provide higher wages and better benefits. In contrast, Parks said no-frills companies such as Wal-Mart should be welcomed into the city to provide more jobs.
His fellow candidates tiptoed around the issue of whether charges should have been brought against a police officer who battered car-theft suspect Stanley Miller last June with a heavy flashlight. But Parks -- a registered Democrat and former chief of the Los Angeles Police Department -- declared evenly that police officers must defend themselves in dangerous situations.
Such statements also demonstrate another key part of Parks' personality: confidence. In fact, to some observers he gives the impression that he sees two sides to each issue: "His way and the wrong way," said Duke University law professor Erwin Chemerinsky, who formerly taught at USC.
"Parks has many of the traits to be an excellent mayor," Chemerinsky noted. "He's very smart, he's very attentive to detail, sometimes obsessively so. ... But he sometimes sees people who disagree with him as against him."
Widely viewed as running for mayor in part to exact revenge against Mayor James Hahn, who pushed Parks out after five years as police chief, Parks denied that he's motivated by the prospect of a payback and said that he stands out from the other four top candidates.
Blames 'career politicians'
"I'm not a career politician," the 39-year veteran of the LAPD said. "The reason Los Angeles is in the fix that it's in is that career politicians have moved the city away from serving the true needs of the public."
"Having been a police officer most of my life, I've had the opportunity to solve problems in the community without concerns about the individuals' affiliations. I'm not tied to special interests," he added.
As mayor, Parks said, he would foster business growth and keep taxes low while still finding a way to pay for more police officers.
He also promised to take the pressure off expanding LAX by putting the city's other three airports to greater use. "I don't believe that the city of Los Angeles should be spending $11 billion in revenue to fix one airport when we own four," Parks said.
He has also proposed freezing the city's water and power rates, lengthening police officers' work weeks, and reducing traffic congestion by coordinating housing and business development with transportation plans.
Beyond that, Parks is running in part on his record as a no-nonsense police chief, a position he lost in 2002 when the newly elected Hahn publicly opposed reappointing him in favor of naming a more reform-minded chief. But Parks recovered quickly and handily won election to the City Council the following year.
As a councilman, Parks helped reshape the city's business tax code, a move that helped him to gain the recent endorsement of the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers' Association. He also voted against Hahn's proposal to revamp Los Angeles International Airport. And as a city representative on the Coliseum commission, he is leading the effort to bring a National Football League team back to the city.
Family aids his campaign
The 61-year-old father of four gets campaign support from his family, including Bobbie, his wife of 35 years who helps manage his campaign, and his son, Bernard Parks Jr., who is his press aide. But does he have a chance of winning the mayor's race?
"No," said Jaime Regalado, a professor of political science at California State University, Los Angeles. "Well, stranger things have happened, but no."
Parks, a Baldwin Hills resident, is battling for votes on his home turf of South Los Angeles with Hahn, according to Regalado and other political experts. Parks has also raised significantly less money than his three top opponents, and has parted ways with his top political advisers -- a mutual decision, he said.
Still, "There are a lot of ways to influence a mayor's race without winning," pointed out Raphael Sonenshein, a political science professor at California State University, Fullerton. During the March 8 primary election, Hahn stands to lose a sizable chunk of votes to Parks, Sonenshein said. And Parks could influence the race after that by endorsing one of his rivals in the expected two-man runoff.
Parks insists he'll win, and released his first campaign commercial Friday, which highlights his service as a police officer. By airing it in select theaters before the new Will Smith movie "Hitch," Parks hopes to reach a younger crowd than he expects to attract later with television commercials.
He has also snagged a handful of endorsements, including those of two apartment owners' groups and county Supervisor Michael Antonovich -- one of the few prominent people to support Parks for mayor.
Antonovich said the city had "gotten out of control" because of the allegations of pay-to-play contracting involving city commissions and the Mayor's Office. Parks has accused Hahn of either covering up his involvement in the scandals or failing to lead and manage the city in a way that would prevent corruption.
"Parks has the vision to provide the leadership that the city of Los Angeles is lacking," Antonovich said, praising the candidate's integrity as well as his business-friendly stance. "He could restore credibility to the city."
However, some experts believe Parks' role in the LAPD could come back to haunt him. As part of the department's brass, he resisted outside investigations of police abuse in the Rampart division scandal. And as chief, he was widely criticized for reassigning popular community liaison officers to street patrols, and alienated many officers by opposing three-day, 36-hour work weeks and raises that have reduced attrition and increased morale.
Police union opposition
The LAPD officers union, which supported Parks' ouster in 2002, is campaigning against him again. "The havoc Parks wreaked on our department and our public safety was bad enough," union President Bob Baker wrote in a recent newsletter. "We can't hand over responsibility for our entire city."
Nevertheless, Regalado notes that Parks' demeanor has shifted since his days as police chief. Now that he serves a smaller, public constituency, he's become less authoritarian and more grass-roots.
"That doesn't mean he still doesn't feel as he did as an officer in the streets, that the public doesn't get what a dangerous job that is," Regalado said. "But it looks like he's taking more of a community role."
Parks and the author are both delusional.
This is the most ridiculous thing I read recently:
"Among the top five candidates in the Los Angeles mayoral race, Councilman Bernard Parks is the closest thing to a Republican, displaying conservative instincts and a contrarian streak so intermingled they are often hard to separate. "
Parks was a lousy Chief of Police, all the rank and file hated him, and he is about as much a Republican as Tom Bradley was.
The unions hated Parks.
Hertzberg is a Maldef front-man.
Who's side are you on?
Cops work 3 days work weeks.. Bernard Parks wanted to make them work 4 or 5 day work weeks. Surprise surprise, the unions hated him.
Parks opposes an additional half cent sales tax increase which was proposed recently, and wants to repeal the city's business tax.
Anyway, this is all basically an exercise in the lesser evils and who will be able to stop Villaigarosa in a runoff.
meant to ping you for the last message.
The rank and file policemen hated Parks.
I think you are making too much about Maldef -- Herzberg is on the board of director of dozens of various organization. He is a Democrat. All three frontrunners are Democrats.
It's too bad, that no electable Republican is even running in that race.
Ain't that enough to NOT vote for him?
Thanks for the post. It sounds like he is on the right side of a few important issues.
The fact that cops hated him (or at least the unions) is not surprising.
Well, it's going to be between Hahn, Villaraigosa and Herzberg. As I said, H. is another Democrat.
But between the 3, he is the only one left standing after eliminating V. as the absolute worst, then Hahn for all the corruption.
Where were the Republicans, why didn't they run someone half-way acceptable? They conceded the race and now we have this admittedly terrible choice.
The poll that Ambrose posted shows Hertzberg in 4th place, behind Parks.
No Republican has a prayer in hell in LA. Riordan was a one-time fluke. First, he was filthy rich, and second, he had the worst opponent imaginable (Mike Woo).
Good grief! No, I didn't see that poll. The poll I heard about was where V had 21, Hahn 20 and H 19 or something like that.
God help us, if Villaraigosa is that far ahead, he may make above 50% and there won't even be a runoff.
Now that is too terrible to contemplate.
Here's an interview with Parks:
http://www.laweekly.com/ink/05/14/transcript-parks.php
He really does look like the best of the bunch.
Hahn, Parks, or Moore at least give some chance of survival, albeit slim.
As a resident of Los Angeles all of my life (I'm 49) I have never seen a bigger bunch of crap political candidates running for any office in my life. Frankly, I wouldn't vote for any of these borderline communists for toilet bowl cleaner, let alone Mayor of Los Angeles. I am sitting out tomorrow's primary, and may sit out the probable runoff as well.
I guess here's another reason President Bush wants nothing to do with California!
V is maxed out with 95% of the Hispanic vote. Blacks will be the swing voters in a runoff, and I don't think they'll go for Herzberg. If Parks is in second place, he'll take 100% of the black vote, plus what's left of the Valley conservatives, along with some Westside Jews. That's 51%
The problem is that if you sit out the election, you basically allow the worst one to get elected, because presumably you wouldn't for the worst of the bunch.
Vote for Hahn or Herzberg or even Parks (ugh!), but make sure some others will have a few votes, so Villaraigose won't win outright.
calcowgirl posted a link to a poll originally posted by ambrose, which showed Villaraigosa getting 41%, which should make you really sick -- it made me pretty disgusted.
I live in LA too, so all this impacts me directly.
Gee, thanks, a runoff between Villaraigose and Parks!
I am going to have nightmares.
check this out:
http://www.animaldefense.com/greenwalt_hahn.html
Thanks for that link. Good interview.
I've always kind of liked the guy. He has more integrity than most, and truly seems to care about doing the right thing for the city, not himself.
He has been demonized by the same leftists (unions) that we need to defeat. The enemy of your enemy is your friend?
I wish I could vote tomorrow, lol. I'm in one of those "incorporated" areas of this borderline cesspool.
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