[img]1987|right|Sebastian Ridley-Thomas||no_popup[/img]After the Los Angeles Times tooted the news on last Saturday morning’s front page that among the long-serving members of the County Board of Supervisors, Mark Ridley-Thomas will be the last to leave, seven years away, here is an update:
Any hour, Mr. Ridley-Thomas, still a youthful 58 years old, may step aside with supreme confidence in subsequent developments. The family’s proud political legacy is about to be safely transferred to the next generation through a process that, at a glance, sounds more convoluted than President Obama’s runup to his present Syrian crisis.
In a special (lopsided) election one week from today, state Assemblyperson Holly Mitchell (D-Culver City) easily will be voted into the state Senate seat vacated last May by Curren Price when he was elected to the Los Angeles City Council.
Following that automatic choice, Gov. Brown will call for another special election, presumably between Thanksgiving and Christmas, to fill Ms. Mitchell’s Assembly chair.
On that day, Sebastian Ridley-Thomas will be heavily favored to defeat former City Councilman Chris Armenta. Imperturbable order will prevail for the next several years – until Ms. Mitchell chooses to run either for the Board of Supervisors or the Los Angeles City Council. That, however, is a different story.
Today’s topic is the impressive 26-year-old Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, of whom political magpies are sure to say that he hitched a ride on the coattails of his father.
Proof, Pudding, Poof
Balderdash, his defenders will answer.
Even though his father has been politically prominent for three decades, and often is called the most powerful black politician in Los Angeles, Sebastian Ridley-Thomas is walking in his own shoes, not borrowed ones, not inherited ones.
For most of the five years since graduating college, Mr. Ridley-Thomas the Younger, a twin, has been apprenticing in Sacramento, until this summer on the staff of the former Sen. Price.
Sitting across a table from him yesterday afternoon at Akasha in Downtown, MRT-Y not only bears an unmistakable facial resemblance to his father, close your eyes and their voices sound twinned.
However, accumulated knowledge, penetrating insights, philosophical conviction, unwavering eye contact cannot be imitated.
They may not represent the difference between a fresh loaf and yesterday’s bread – Supervisor Ridley-Thomas is at least seven years’ shy of the political bonepile – would-be Freshman Ridley-Thomas surely is the best-informed, most-rounded rookie competing in the present electoral system, inarguably his own man, not a knockoff.
That is evident as soon as Sebastian Ridley-Thomas starts speaking.
(To be continued)
