L.A. City Elections: Parks declares victory, but Hogan-Rowles will not concede

Los Angeles City Councilman Bernard C. Parks declared victory early Wednesday after results showed him narrowly avoiding a runoff by less than 1 percentage point in unofficial tallies. But his chief opponent, Forescee Hogan-Rowles, said she would not concede and would wait until all the provisional and remaining absentee ballots were counted.

Parks, the former city police chief who was heavily opposed by organized labor, had to win more than 50% of the vote in Tuesday’s primary to declare outright victory. With all 95 precincts in his South Los Angeles district reporting, he led with 50.89% of the vote, followed by Hogan-Rowles with 43.99% and Jabari Jumaane with 5.11%.

But Hogan-Rowles' campaign consultant, Steve Barkan, said he believed that there were still between 1,800 and 3,000 provisional and late vote-by-mail ballots to be counted. Hogan-Rowles, who runs a nonprofit in South Los Angeles, said she expected further information from the City Clerk on Wednesday.

"While the results of the election are inconclusive as of tonight, I’m proud that we’ve got Bernard Parks on the ropes," Hogan-Rowles said in a statement sent at 2:30 am. "Given the trends we saw as the results came in tonight, we are in a position to force a runoff."

Parks declared victory an hour earlier at his election night party in Leimert Park after a long and nerve-wracking night for his campaign.

"I think we have some good news: four more years to serve you, we look forward to it," Parks told supporters who gathered on the dance floor in the Regency West venue in Leimert Park. He raised his hands in a victory cheer as "Eye of the Tiger" pumped over the loudspeakers.

Over the past few months, public employee unions spent at least $1.2 million to defeat Parks and marshaled operatives on Hogan-Rowles' behalf. Parks became the central target of public employee unions after repeatedly arguing that their pensions were too generous and calling for layoffs and furloughs to solve a $404-million budget shortfall.

"Today we said the 8th District is not for sale," Parks said as he declared his win Tuesday night. "Starting tomorrow, we’re back to work."

The campaign had called a 5 a.m. press conference to discuss the results, but it was abruptly canceled. Parks' son said the event would have conflicted with his official duties.

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-- Maeve Reston

Photo: Bernard C. Parks and his supporters cheer his reelection early Wednesday morning in Leimert Park. Credit: Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times

Comments

[Will]

I would vote for Mickey mouse if the racist police union was backing his charlenger. But truth be told, Bernard Parks huge double salary is the reason why L.A is going broke. All polititions are snakes.

[Marley]

Parks said, "Starting tomorrow, we’re back to work." Well it is about time! You sure as heck haven't been working for the people of your district during the past 8 years.
Great, four more years of Parks and his nepotistic, rude, do nothing staff fleecing the constituents for paychecks and perks.

[Tony]

Wow, we almost allowed someone who doesn't know the boundaries of the district to lead, we almost allowed someone who doesn't know where the 8th district boundaries start and stop to spend our resources on property located outside the district and in the county. It is really ashame that Mark Ridley-Thomas is playing politics by pushing someone with 0 community ties and leadership experience on us. We had a knee jerk reaction to get rid of Gray Davis and now look where we are, we should think before we start having knee jerk reactions to replace what we have with people we dont know.......

[Bradford Talamon]

In short, someone who has done absolutely nothng for Los Angeles as a City Councilman except to take up space and draw a salary won yesterday solely due to name recognition.

Los Angeles pretty much gets the government that it deserves.

[pargrad]

I happened to be one of the poll watchers yesterday for the Parks campaign. Having not spent a lot of time in South LA (I live in Westchester), I was very pleasantly surprised by the quality of the neighborhood schools where some of the polling locations were located. Also, the neighborhood parks were safe, had excellent lighting and residents could be seen jogging after dark. This is due in part to Councilman Park's efforts in his district. There was a sense of life in these neighborhoods. It was quite an eye-opening experience. The best candidate won yesterday.

[RoBoTech]

Figures.
Now, the Unions have more time to stuff the box with threats and bribes.
THIS is why Unions need to go!
They have NO problems with cheating, oppressing, or out and out thuggery.
Communist Union leaders have no morals. The ends justify the means.

[Robbie]

How upset are eighth district citizens at Parks? Two people who were completely unknown to them a couple of weeks ago combined to get 49.1% of the vote against the former police chief who has the highest name recognition of any local black politician, short of Maxine Waters - who also was an endorser of Parks.

With a bunch of ballots left to be counted this one is going to be close. We saw what happened with Steve Cooley declaring victory in the attorney general's race. But either way, the message is clear: a whole lot of people in the district really don't like Parks.

[txtoast]

Parks has nothing to do with the reduction in crime in his area nor the City of LA. The only thing certain that along with his ridiculous salary, his son and wife are expected to make easily over 100K, drive a city vehicle and make calls on a city phone. The Parks family would now like to thank the 8th district for making them very rich.

Remember 8th district, you will reap what you sow.

[u know]

LA voters are absolutely brain dead! The city is in the worst financial shape since The Great Depression and they go and vote in incumbents....the message sent is, keep doing what your doing,....we're not mad....we'll just rollover and be happy with the status quo

A great opportunity to demand change has been squandered!

[emin]

Ive seen the 8th district its streets are full of holes and graffity everywere ive talked to people all over the district and they really wanted a change its terrible that we couldnt allow new leadership the district is in need of a leader not a person who only does it for the money i am ashamed of all the ill informed voters that voted their voice for this unworthy person.