Krekorian defeats Essel in L.A. City Council race

Assemblyman Paul Krekorian claimed victory tonight in the bitter and expensive race for the Los Angeles City Council seat previously held by City Controller Wendy Greuel.

Krekorian, the former head of the Burbank Board of Education who was elected to the Assembly in 2006, defeated former film executive Christine Essel by a 14% margin with all precincts reporting. 

Krekorian’s win was a major rebuke to some of the city’s most powerful unions, which flooded the race with hundreds of thousands of dollars in independent expenditures to support his rival.

At his campaign headquarters Tuesday night,  Krekorian said voters had united around "a common vision about a city government that is marked by integrity and accountability, for starters — a city government that actually works for the people of the San Fernando Valley."

“We’re all going to have to continue to work together and if we do, I think this is a time that all of us will be able to look back to and say that the reform of Los Angeles began tonight,”  Krekorian said. 
 

Essel could not be reached for comment Tuesday night.

Essel also outspent Krekorian 2 to 1 in Tuesday’s runoff and the primary campaign, where they faced  eight other candidates.

Outside groups, including the Los Angeles Police Protective League and the union representing workers at the city’s Department of Water and Power, spent nearly $1 million, setting a record for independent spending in a non-citywide race — with most of that money backing Essel.

Both candidates grew up in the San Fernando Valley but moved into the 2nd Council District, which stretches from Sherman Oaks and Studio City to Tujunga, in May to run for Greuel’s seat.

Essel argued that her three decades of business experience at Paramount Pictures Corp. made her uniquely suited to work on retaining businesses in Los Angeles and creating jobs. Krekorian said he had a better understanding of the issues facing residents of the district, after representing some of them in the Assembly. He courted neighborhood leaders throughout the race, promising to curb development and preserve open space.

-- Maeve Reston

Photo: Candidate Paul Krekorian with his son Andrew, 4, votes Tuesday in the special election for the Los Angeles City Council 2nd District seat in the library at Ulysses S. Grant High School in the Valley Glen neighborhood of the San Fernando Valley. Credit: Brian Vander Brug / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[James]

Congrats to Paul Krekorian

[Independent skeptic]

Hey unions, how's about dem apples??

[steve]

With the economy being like it is Krikorian will have an easy time keeping his promise not to back development. But, he is going to have to make some hard choices in a future without redevelopment the City will not grow and the tax base will continue to shrink. This will mean cutback in constituent services and higher fees (including police).

[Q. Macphail]

14% margins

And so Christine Essel discovers that fabricating charges of racism and sexism, while being a public union lapdog doesn't win elections.

So much for reality - back to making movies

[Schigolch]

Thank god! That Essel is a union shill.

[Charlie Baker]

Although Krekorian is not perfect, its nice to see a decisive defeat of a very pro-development candidate, Essel. Now that voters of CD-2 need to stay engaged with Krekorian to ensure that their wishes are heard.

[Julian B Duron]

I am glad to see the Electorate of the city has woke up and smelled the coffee. No more business as usual. This wake up call must continue until next elections of council seats. By 2 to 1 Essel's compaign outspent Krekorian in this attempt to purchase a council seat to further this existing corrupt Political Machine presently in control. Good for Krekorian and his team.

[Raffi]

I'm glad Paul won. He was widely favored by the electorate, even though he was outspent 2-1.

Paul, I'm glad you favor open spaces for people, since LA has too little of this. I hope you also favor smart development in targeted areas, that will allow for denser, more urban and public transportation friendly areas, that you just can't get if everything is one huge suburban sprawl.

[Peter Musurlian]

The status quo just got reamed. From the Los Angeles Times to the corrupt unions to the insecure council members, who endorsed Essel's expensive & dirty campaign, I say, "You ought to be ashamed of yourselves.

Essel and her benefactors spent millions (outspending Krekorian 7 to 1) to accuse Krekorian of being sexist, racist and a fan of the Holocaust. What a disgrace. What a disgrace.

We have serious problems in Los Angeles, and it is about time the electorate realize that the dying local newspaper, the business-as-usual, back-room dullards on the City Council and the corrupt unions, do not have the city's best-interests at heart. They just don't.

If you're wondering why Los Angeles is moribund...take a look at Essel's list of supporters.

[Christine Beatty]

On one day I counted more than *ten* Essel brochures in my mailbox! I don't want any politician with that much money (and political debt) behind them making decisions affecting my neighbors, my city and me. A proper rebuke of moneyed interests trying to buy an election. Now if we could start doing this at state and federal level, we *might* just wrest back control of our government from Big Money. Campaign finance reform NOW!

[Brad]

And the revolving door continues ....

Krekorkian will make $180,000 not including benefits and extras. How is he supposed to represent the people of Los Angles who average 6 times less that?

[JPS]

I'm glad KREKORIAN won.
As soon as i started to receive all these pro ESSEL flyers with tons of endorsements i realized that she was part of the current big 'Villalaraza mafia' ie group of primarily incompetent and illegal alien loving city officials who sit there watching our city decay. The flyers had a detrimental effect for her.

[Al]

Essel argued that her three decades of business experience at Paramount Pictures Corp. made her uniquely suited to work on retaining businesses in Los Angeles and creating jobs.

I'm a Dem and have worked below the line in the film industry for 25 years and I wouldn't vote for a ex-studio exec for dog catcher. They are amoral scum of the Earth.

[steve]

The unions OWN City Hall. Trust me on that one. It's nice to see the voters of CD2 rejected the ugly campaign Essel ran, however, at the end of the day it doesn't matter....voters are an afterthought. Once elected, the officials place the unions first and the voters last. It is out of control over there. I worked at City Hall for many years.

["JP" John Perron]

Re: Brad's comment

Paul has many friends and associates in this town. This includes folks with very modest or fixed income, not to mention those who are out of work. I know this first hand. There is no mansion. He worked his way up and earned respect, if not agreement on the issues. There is something to be said when some of the most politically active neighborhoods gets behind a campaign and grants endorsement after endorsement to a true career politician. Paul knows the ropes and does not believe or claim he will "clean up this town" as his opponent did (of course she got the endorsement of many council members, although she called them incompetent - they can't be friends and enemies at the same time). We expect much from Paul and those who know him are quite confident in the way he has conducted himself so far.

Let's not forget that he has a growing family that needs him at home. When people learned he was running, all of his friends said the same thing; "HE DID THIS SO HE CAN BE HERE WITH HIS FAMILY - AT HOME!"

[Joseph Mailander]

Peter Musurlian is right on the money. The old Riordan team is dead at last. Shallman spent over $109/vote--nobody can waste your money like John Shallman. And Essel not even available for comment? What the hell kind of message does that send about whose interests she was working for?

Biggest losers: Jim Newton and Rob Greene. Two news hacks who are 0-for-2009 (they did endorse Trutanich, which it is obvious now was wrong too), and haven't yet figured out why nobody reads the canned ham they and Sue Horton publish on this paper's dismal editorial page.

[Alexandra]

I'm no fan of Paul's, having lived in the area he represented...proof comes in actions, not words. Living in Burbank and seeing him jump from one pond to another, for more power and money, and now the biggest jump, I hope you get what you think he has promised. Doubt it! In Burbank and at the State level SO glad to be rid of him!

As to Essel, so what she out spent him, so what she had the Unions behind her, neither equal sell out or pawn. She worked tirelessly as board chair of the California Film Commission to retain industry jobs, to create the State's first incentive program Film CA First. Paul had his facts ALL wrong about her (makes you wonder what else he had wrong!). I challenge you to research the facts and see what Essel did do not only for California but Los Angeles. Don't categorize her as a Prod. Executive meaning evil... she knows how to build consenus and get results and that's what a good council person does. Time will tell if you all wasted your votes.

[Umm]

Can somebody tell me WHY unions are allowed to spend money backing ANY local candidates for office? Is it really a surprise how the unions manage to mantain the absolute Mafioso-like power they have now over our "elected" officials?

If I see ONE more rate increase on my DWP bill I'm starting a revolution!! DWP needs to have a very bright light shone upon it, to watch all of the roaches start running...

I am one of those thousands of City employees that are doing the exact same job as DWP workers with the same classifications...and not being paid nearly what they get. Nor should I be! It's unthinkable to be giving any of us raises in these economic times!!! I'm blessed to have ANY job! Unions will be the downfall of us all. There was a place for them in America many years ago, but now they symbolize nothing but greed and hubris.

[Tom Paterson]

Congrats to Paul.
Paul passed a test of committment to the community on Oct 22 when both he and Essel spoke at a City Planning Commission hearing and requested that a long running controversial development project decision be delayed until after the election so further negotiations could be held with the community. While they both called for delay, Essel left immeidately after her 2 minute comment but Paul stayed to the end of the hearing and during that time also lobbied the developer to agree to a decision delay, which of course the developer wouldn't do. We were all impressed with Paul's handling of the issue that day and he gave us a preview of how he'll operate.

Finally CD2 woke up and elected someone who will represent their interests and not just developers. Glad Greul's gone from CD2.
Tom Paterson
Valley Village

[Marco]

How about finishing your Assembly terms first? Finishing working for your Assembly district? Not just "job hopping" in order to have a better resume... I hate politicians that do that. That tells me that they are more interested in themselves rather then the people. I don't really care for any of the candidates but I'd rather have Essel... a new comer with new ideas then a politician who just last year won re-election and had started a new committee for a re-election in 2010. But of course... something opened up and here comes Krekorian doing it for the money.

[Pam Springs]

When I saw Paul Krekorian winning the seat, I had to cringe. I lived in Burbank for over 45 years and recently moved to North Hollywood to get away from the racisim and monoply that plagues Burbank now. I can only hope that Paul is going to do the right thing for EVERYBODY, and not discriminate.

Good luck Paul, and honesty is the best way to get a good night's sleep.

Pam - North Hollywood

[laura]

I totally agree with Joe Mailander - if Jim Newton and Bob Greene are the ones who pushed for Essel and kept endorsing and re-endorsing her (getting nastier and nastier each time to Krekorian and more desperately "out there" in the fantasies they spun about Essel's experience) they should be fired.

No wonder no one takes the endorsement of this paper seriously any more - word is, they do whatever Riordan and the "old boy's Republican club" downtown tells them, starting with an almost passionate hatred toward anyone who will actually enforce and respect environmental laws which might impinge on their ideas of uncontrolled development.

The way they fabricated excuses to push for Essel, even claiming her credentials on public safety were superior, reminded me so much of how they slandered Jack Weiss in the City Attorney election just to find excuses to support Trutanich who was all wrong: on the wrong side of law enforcement for the past 25 years (just ask Chief Bratton and anyone who was familiar with LAPD); on the wrong side of environmental law (his fake ballot designation of "environmental attorney" when he "wrote the book on how to defeat municipal environmental laws" notwithstanding); inexperienced in and spouting nothing but empty plans and promises in every other area, vs. Weiss who had the experience to back up his promise.

Both these elections for the Times and the interests they represent was really about kow-towing to the same interests. The ones who fund the Republican party and people like Riordan and Steve Cooley. While the Times wrote hit piece after hit piece on Weiss near the elections when his poll numbers were "too strong," playing up a minor technical ethics violation that the Ethics Commission had put to rest because it couldn't find any real issues, and playing up approving developments which have stood up as internationally respected and renowned for their design and being environmental as well as aesthetic architectural models in most cases.

Yet the depths to which they sank in citing only his critics, and getting more vitriolic with every attack and refusing to report the truth about Trutanich who's a REAL investigative journalist's wildest dream, was shocking and eye-opening.

This time the level of dirty tricks Shallman sunk to was too much even for the Times Spin Team to spin away. And besides, Chris Essel is basically a nice lady who fell in with the wrong crowd and maybe didn't have the heart to go as down and dirty as they'd have liked her to - she hadn't made a career of it unlike her predecessor. According to a poll published, only 16% of Times staffers think the paper will survive its current incarnation - with Newton and Greene and an obviously approving publisher or editor doing these sorts of disservices to the voting public, good riddance. (And I hope you have the guts to at least publish this - it IS still a free speech country, right?)

[daisy mae]

I filled out an absentee-voter form sent to me by the Krekorian campaign. Apparently this made them think I was voting for him.

After I filled out the form, there were no less than six personal visits to my home, and endless telephone calls from the campaign. This doesn't count the endless amounts of junk paper that overfilled my mailbox.

Essel's campaign called often and papered my mailbox with bird-cage liner.

I was seriously PO'ed by all the attention, and I ripped up my absentee ballot, because the campaign behavior of both candidates disgusted me. Don't bother me at home next time by knocking on my door over and over again, and I might vote for you. During one of the last few visits from Krekorian's people, I was in the back of the house, breast feeding my new baby, and it was the cat who went nuts because someone was pounding frantically on our front door.

I swear to God I thought the LAPD was busting down my front door. You know what a cop knock sounds like? It was the Krekorian folks, and it was evening time, probably eight o'clock. This time I yelled at them before I slammed the door in their face, and they still came back at least two more times before election day.

[Sally S]

This is good news for the City of Los Angeles.
Essel is 100% politician. Her platform was that she was not a politician; it did not take too much intelligence to see through that illusion since practically all of City Hall was behind her and she collected most of the money.
Let's hope that Paul remembers the voters and serves well and honorably. The tide is turning: the power is now returning to the people and against the special interests that run the City and Washington, DC.
Congratulations, Paul, and remember The People.

[Luka BUlatovic]

So, MR. Krekorian rents and apartment in May to be eligible to run. Voters in Sherman Oaks, Studio City and Tujunga will be represented by somebody who did not live in the area and did not know anything about issues until he "moved" to area. And people do not have great opinion about the politicians?