Cardenas Won’t Seek Alarcon’s Council Seat

Assemblyman Tony Cardenas said Thursday that he will not run for the Los Angeles City Council seat soon to be vacated by Richard Alarcon, who has been elected to the state Senate.

“It looks like I will stay in Sacramento, barring any outrageous events,” Cardenas (D-Sylmar) said in a phone interview.

Cardenas’ decision leaves the field open to a bevy of possible candidates to run for the 7th District seat.

Alarcon, who had earlier voiced support for Cardenas, said his backing would now go to his wife should she choose to run. Corina Alarcon, who runs an insurance agency and domestic violence shelter, is still deciding whether to run, he said.

Cardenas, who had been considered the strongest potential contender, said the decision came after he discussed the move with his wife, Norma. The couple, who live in Los Angeles, have four children.

He had earlier said that constant travel to Sacramento was hard on his family and that he was eyeing the City Council seat in part because he wanted to return home.

But “to my surprise, my wife was one of the first to let me know that my decision shouldn’t be based on being with the children every night,” Cardenas said. “A lot of people, including myself, thought she would weigh in differently.”

Cardenas, who could serve a maximum of two more two-year terms in the Assembly before being forced out by term limits, said he wants to stay to finish work he started, especially in education.

Asked who he would support for the seat, Cardenas named his deputy, Alex Padilla, 25, a graduate of Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Padilla has been named by other insiders in Democratic political circles as a young talent whose successful work on Alarcon’s primary campaign and for Gov.-elect Gray Davis and U. S. Sen. Barbara Boxer in the recent election is drawing notice.

“I can’t see anyone at this point who has proven to me their commitment to the community and has shown growth like he has,” Cardenas said.

Padilla, like the other Democrats favored for the seat, is a lifelong resident of the northeast San Fernando Valley, raised in Pacoima. Asked why he would run, he said: “This is a great city.”

Alarcon’s election to the Senate earlier this month will mean that he will leave his City Council seat in December.

City Council President John Ferraro has said the council will order a special election in April to fill Alarcon’s seat. Alarcon’s term ends in June 2001.

A number of other possible successors have stepped forward or been advanced by political insiders.

These include Raul Godinez, a Los Angeles city civil engineer and mayor of San Fernando; Irene Tovar, executive director of the Latin American Civic Assn., a community service group that manages Head Start programs; Michael Trujillo Jr., a 19-year-old member of the city’s Commission on Children, Youth and Their Families; LeRoy Chase, executive director of the Boys & Girls Club of the San Fernando Valley, and Marcos Castaneda, an aide to Councilman Richard Alatorre and former aide to Alarcon.

Alarcon has said he will not support Castaneda, who was arrested last month on suspicion of lewd conduct in an incident involving a prostitute.

Castaneda acknowledged that the arrest might damage him politically, but said it “won’t keep me from putting my best foot forward to make the place I live better.”

He also grew up in the district and says he knows “every street, every corner, every tree.”

The council is expected to set the date for the special election, opening the way for candidates to formally apply, in coming weeks.