Jose Huizar Destroys Rudy Martinez in L.A. City Council District 14 Election: Here's What Went Wrong for the Challenger

bhnative

Yes, Huizar is up to speed, but in what? Great for Monterey Hills, he cleans your area, he probably does that for Mount Washington, and some for Eagle Rock. The rest have to clean it up themselves. But the un-inform voters win again. Huizar has not change and he will not, he will continue to drained our resources for a downtown trolley that will travel eight miles roundtrip.. In the meantime, Senior Day Care are closing because lack of funds. El Reconsito will be close this week, and more to come. Economic Crisis has not been felt in LA, Huizar will make sure we will in the next few months. As long as he keeps building his tory train, he will be okay in jail, probably.

Guest

Martinez only won three precincts as far as I can tell. The two in the old Eagle Rock City Hall where the Weekly camped out and one at the Eagle Rock Rec Center. All of them, as we say here in ER, "North of Colorado." Not exactly widespread support in the district for the challenger.

Guest

People seem to want trouble "getting" the numbers in the CD14 race. Here are some important facts that can't be disputed - based on the Clerk's report.

Huizar's district had the best turnout in the City, percentage wise.

His opponent was about the best funded of any challenger, and this race was covered more by local and citywide media - so it was hardly a secret.

Huizar and Martinez, combined, put more mailers out to the voters of the district that just about all other districts combined.

Only one incumbent Councilmember (Krekorian), actually got more votes in his district than Huizar did in CD14 (and Krekorian's district has about 30,000 more registered voters).

Percentage-wise, Martinez did no better than the last person to challenge Huizar four years ago (Alvin Parra), and Parra had only about one-third as much money to spend. Parra also started his campaign against Huizar about 3-4 months later than Martinez did. (For Martinez to still only get about one-third of the votes - with 3 times as much money and almost twice as long to get people's attention is a HUGE failure on the part of his campaign).

Increased interest in this race, not only put Huizar's time in office under and intense microscope, it raised participation above the level of any other district in the city and Huizar still won in a landslide.

That's total victory, that's an affirmation that the district wants him to remain, and that's a mandate for him. Any other interpretation is sour grapes and fantasy.

ex LA resident

I'm so happy I don't live in LA anymore. Your city is pathetic, dirty and broke and you vote in the same SOBs that made it that way.You get what you deserve.

H8sRW

We're glad you're not in L.A. anymore...you're probably too broke to afford a home here and too pathetic to appreciate cultural diversity. And you're probably a dirty teabagger.

mexmont

Martinez was duped into running by Eric Hacopian, Paul Krekorian's consultant. Hacopian took Rudy's money, told him he had a chance of winning, and spent Rudy's money to tar and feather Jose Huizar. Huizar is an attorney. Who lives in LA. Who is talked about to run for City Attorney. Paul Krekorian wants to be City Attorney. You do the math. Martinez never had a chance. He was a dupe with an ego, a gleam in his eye, and a lot of cash. That money was used to further Krekorian's career by Eric Hacopian.

Nimby Pimp

Mexmont, Now that is interesting. Do you have any proof of what you contend?

Robert

I should have said Martinez got over 5,000 votes to Huizar's 9,266 meaning the incumbent with major union money couldn't surpass 10,000 for a district with 250,000 and Huizar has been in office how many years? Simone luv your comment about being in CD14 for 12 hours. All anyone has to do is drive around and see the filth, blight, traffic, graffitti, illegal vendors and more gangsters in a concentrated area then any other part of the city. But hey, they're Huizar friends especially the Ramona Garden gangsters who when stopped by LAPD tell the police they have Huizar's cell phone and threaten to call.

Tall Madge

You STILL don't get it. Maybe NUMBERS just aren't your thing, Robert. Yes, there are 250,000 people in the district (actually closer to 270,000), but most of those could not have voted on Tuesday, under any circumstances -- they are not yet 18, they're not citizens, or they've never bothered to register to vote. The actual number of registered voters in the district (including people who have died since the last one, moved away, become incapacitated by age, etc.) is only about 95,000 -- just over one-third of the population.

Factor into that how many people were completely turned off by the mudslinging STARTED by Huizar's challenger, and the turnout is really pretty amazing. (CD14 actually had just about the HIGHEST percentage turnout in the City, at 17 percent of registered voters). And even with the large amount of money raised by his opponent (more than raised by most of the challengers in the 6 districts COMBINED), Huizar still managed to get elected by nearly 2 out of every 3 votes cast. Sorry, but a near-30 percent point spread, is a HUGE landslide, in any election.

It was a total, complete, massive victory for Jose Huizar - as L.A. Weekly's headline accuratekt says - Martinez as DESTROYED, even with all of the mudslinging against Huizar, and you're just going to have to come to grips with the fact that the VAST majority of constituents in this district want Jose Huizar in that seat, Sorry you don't, but you're a part of the TINY minority (5,000 out of 95,000) who felt strongly enough against him to vote that way.

That's the REAL telling number only 1 out of every 19 registered voters felt like the district needed a change. The rest either voted for the status quo at the ballot box, or by staying away when they had a chance to vote.

MRinLA

Doesn't matter how big the district is - on Tuesday the district consisted of 14,429 voters. All you need is 7,215 votes to win. And Rudy spent his own money and now has nothing to show for it - Jose spent someone else' money and won - who does that reflect more poorly on?And CD14 has more blight etc than any other part of the city? Sounds like someone should actually go to other parts of the city. There are plenty of other parts of the city that make 14 look pristine in comparison. This statement makes your labeling of 35% of the votes at 1/2 seem reasoned and well thought out in comparison.

Tall Madge

For the very UNinformed "Informer" at the L.A. Weekly, CD14 (a part of Los Angeles), is not "change resistant" by any definition. We've had 4 different Councilmembers in 12 years, and one contest (in 2005) involved the overwhelming defeat of an incumbent.

Council District 14, one of the most diverse, proud and historic areas in L.A. is resistant to UNNECESSARY change, and we don't cotton much to outsiders from the Westside, Valley, etc. ( = many of the bloggers who bang on us) telling us what best for our district. We know, and have now reaffirmed for the third time -- against opponents who collectively have spent almost $1 million to smear and unseat him -- that Jose Huizar is a fine, hardworking, and productive civil servant. We have had no better options to vote for in many, many years.

Stop by sometime. You're reporting about us might just become more accurate.

Simone Wilson

I did! For 12 hours yesterday. It was beautiful, and like you said, much more informative than sitting in the office all day. Huizar's done more harm at a citywide level, which we watch more closely... but I see now that many locals are devoted.

Guest

Wow, 12 hours on the Eastside.

You should write a book about it!

Simone Wilson

No, I shouldn't.

Sharpnwitty

though they both lost focus for a bit and thought bringing up negative stuff about the other would help them....in turn actually lost the voters respect, trust and was exhausting to listen to. bottom line Rudy is a businessman Jose is a politician with his history proving he knows what he's doing. its unfortunate Rudy spent more time digging up trash on Jose then focusing on possible great changes he MIGHT have brought to the city of LA.

Guest

Martinez really didn't have a lot of choice -- with no track record of activism of his own, and no real understanding of the district or willingness to really learn about in the 8-9 months he campaigned -- his only play was to be purely negative. This is the bane of being a "carpetbagger" - in his case, recently moving into CD14 from Glendale. And, this is why CD14 residents - very proud of what and who we are, have alwayr rejected the carpetbagger, regardless of how sincere they may seem or how much money that have to try and buy an election.

Jopnathan Jerald

I think the margin of victory suggests there is more to it than just that Huizar is perceived as the lesser of two evils. His staff is very active in working with local communities on their problems. Does that make him a "pothole politician"? Constituent service is the bottom line for City Council members. The most important consideration is whether or not residents and small businesses believe their lot has improved under Huizar's leadership. Clearly, a lot of voters in CD 14 think that is so.

Robert

What ever your name is you don't get it. With Martinez getting 1/2 of the votes it goes to show Huizar has a lot of people upset with him. Huizar was the incumbent in office for years and yet he couldn't even muster up 10,000 votes of a district that is 250,000 even with the hard UNIONS MONEY. Just yesterday he voted to transfer $1 billion of CRA money to hide it from Controller Chiang and Gov Brown, Huizar's laziness cost City Council to cancel 3 times once because he was at a restaurant opening. The guy is never around and I can tell being active for decades he's told his groupies to monitor blogs and post post post. AT least 7 organizations in his district didn't support him. Unfortunately, everyone in the city knows you don't go against the Latino politicians in CD14 or else. Ask any business owner on the Cesar Chavez corridor how they were threatened if they didn't put Huizar signs in their windows. C'mon we're not in a sophiscated City anymore. Its more like Tijuana gangsters and drug cartel mentality on City Council. If you dared to come out against Huizar in this race you were verbally assaulted, thrown things at, heckled, harassed and so on. This is typical and what friends have had since the days of the Gangster Mayor in a Suit Antonio.

MRinLA

Thanks for quoting those stats twice Robert - I'm so glad I got to read them again. Shame you have no understanding of fractions or percentages. Here's the official results from the City Clerk's website:COUNCIL DISTRICT 14 Votes PercentJOSÉ HUIZAR 9,266 64.22%RUDY MARTINEZ 5,163 35.78%So when you say "With Martinez getting 1/2 of the votes" you're just embarrassing yourself. Martinez actually got a hair over 1/3 of the votes. Of every three CD14 voters, two supported Huizar while only one supported Martinez. He lost by over 28 points! In the parlance of our president, that's a shellacking! Rudy embarrassed himself early and often and he got the defeat he deserved.

Guest

Robert. Take a refresher course in basic math. Martinez did NOT get half the votes, he didn't even get close.

In fact, he got almost 5,000 LESS votes than Nick Pacheco did 5 years ago against Huizar.

You may hate Huizar, that's obvious. But the vast majority of your neighbors like and admire him and have re-elected him now for the third time but a landslide. There's NO other way to describe.

You can rail ignorantly about Huizar getting "less than XX" votes. But in America, the winner is the one who get the MOST votes among those who care enough to vote. Huizar got almost TWICE as many as Martinez. That's called a slaughter, everywhere where elections are held.

bhnative

From reading your comments, it sounds that many of you are not imformed about the real Huizar, or you just don't want to see, or hear the real issues we have with Huizar. HE WOM the vote, in my book no one won, except the mega developers and mega bill boards. What is more of an issue, is that he has not disclose the complete transactions from the CLARTS fundsl, he just showed numbers with maybe a brief description, what we have asked is an accounting from 2005 to March 2011. Debits, Credits and description of how the money was spend, when, where and who benefited, as it is a requirement, and he refuses to disclose the information and the motions submitted. We have been asking for transperancy, since 2006, we wrote to Laura Schick asking for this records. When Gruel can into office, she was asked the same, both have ask Huizar to produce these reports, and six years later no response. Many of you are also covering it up, so I really want to know who benefited from that money. You are not concern about the budget, well than you do not live in LA. Huizar has made a mass of the budget, with the help of the rest of City Council and the Mayor. Simple question, why would Huizar pay a person $27,200 for a few days of work to over see the distribution of FREE TURKEYS. If you do not see the spending habits of Huizar as an issue, you need to keep you comments of Rudy or Nick to yourselfs. When Huizar started campaigning, he new less. He did not know about the 710 extension, and he lived in the community that would be most affected, El Sereno.Huizar has done a lot of wrong in Boyle Heights, but his day will come. Yes the Catholic Church supports him, but they also support child molesters. .

Yj Draiman

Los Angeles elected officials, can you handle the task ahead of you.Now, let us see how the new elected officials can -Make the City of LA more responsive, accountable, streamlined, efficient, and productive and user- friendly?YJ Draiman

Pattycoyote

I am a Monterey Hills resident with South Pasadena to my right and El Sereno to my left. I have called Huizar's office to clean up the debris in my neighborhood. It was done within 24 hours. There are field offices that are open for opinion, support, complaint and complement. I own a house in Hermon and there have been steady improvements for the last 4 years such as the Dog Park, community disaster preparedness workshops, Fresco Market and local coffee cafe. He has a presence in the community which makes it a better place to navigate the safety, graffiti and trash issues. There is a human being on the other end of the line. That is a rarity these days. Ole Jose!!

Joseph Mailander

"Out of touch, indeed. You tell us: How did Martinez tank this hard?"

Isn't it ironic for you to ask such a question? After all, the Weekly's "news" section failed as dramatically as Martinez did, maybe even more so. It put Box on a cover and he couldn't crack 16%, even when the other challenger in that district was busy getting twice as many votes. David Futch filled a column with ridiculous talk about "bloggers" who were at best tangential to the races. You ceaselessly astroturfed blogs that agreed with you rather than finding real civic discourse. Last night you even thought food truck tweets were big political indicators.

Here's how your publications own failure was accomplished: by ceaselessly astroturfing (to the degree it's possible) people who don't so much participate in real civic dialog but in the hopeful realm of make-believe, and by not conducting dialogs with people who truly participate in the City's political process.

I don't blame you, Simone, or David for that, I blame that on your editors. It's time for them to stop looking at sucky bloggers who agree with their points of view and time to start looking at the voices of all stripes who actually matter to local civic discourse.

Robert

I've been reading blogs and some analysis and when you put the numbers together as the incumbent Huizar didn't fair all that great. The City was apathetic all around and didn't come out to vote strong. Although the incumbents won Huizar got less then 10,000 votes even with Union Money. Martinez got a little over 5,000. Cardenas only got 4,000 which is beyond sad and gets to say in office. I hope this shows Huizar constituents about half aren't happy with his job performance. Controller John Chiang is just beginning to uncover the corruption and abuse of CRA money. Thanks to the Weekly for pointing it out yesterday. As someone posted on another blog this is the beginning of what happened to Bell. Emails I've already received are saying we need to start campaigning for a Mayor who isn't associated with City Hall NOW. No incumbents should be promoted to hire office for the mess they've done to our City. I give credit where due and the LA Clean Sweep have proven a group to be reckoned with. I didn't support Bitter Bernie but they got the media attention. Regular folks not as involved as many of us we need to inform on the CRA corruption, DWP and other issues they probably are clueless about.

Nimby Pimp

I too signed a petition to get Rudy on the ballot. Alas, poor Rudy revealed himself to be vain, stupid and thuggish. Huizar appears slightly bewildered and over his head in the job, but Rudy is a complete naco.

MRinLA

Q: How did Martinez tank so hard? A: The constant dinner-interrupting phone calls from him and his fellow restaurateurs (the owner of Colombo's most egregiously) showed he/they didn't understand the fundamentals of his current job and by no means should he be entrusted with a more complex job which would effect me more directly. I signed the petition to get Rudy on the ballot. He made a strong argument that CD14 deserves better but his campaign was so despicable it suggested he would be worse. He didn't just lose my vote, he also lost my business. I'll never eat at Mia Sushi again, never drink at Marty's again. And for being so complicit in the lies of the campaign I'll never eat at Colombo's again either.

Sharpnwitty

seems your opinion of his "bad campaigning" is more personal. this was an opinion of why he "tanked so bad", and that will prevent you from patronizing his establishments? or Colombos? wow!

MRinLA

I might have been more forgiving of his interruptions if they hadn't been full of false, baseless accusations. Rudy and the restaurateurs who comprised the 'Friends of Rudy' group showed themselves to be classless, characterless individuals so no, I don't trust them with either the food I put in my body or the leadership of my city.