[img]1436|left|Bernard Parks||no_popup[/img]Is Herb Wesson lucky or shrewd that the controversial redrawing of districts for the 15 members of the Los Angeles City Council just happened to coincide with his – some would say – sullied elevation to the main seat of Council authority?
Forget 12 of the districts.
At raging issue this afternoon and for months to come are the three black districts.
They have begun to look like a heaping plate of scrambled eggs cooked by Helen Keller. The 8th and 9th districts are sizzling with unrequited anger because, goes the accusation, the 8th District of Bernard Parks and the 9th District of Jan Perry have been liberally gerrymandered, heavily shuffled, to shift the most desirable dimensions into the nearby 10th, which belongs to The Boss himself, Mr. Wesson, not Mr. Springsteen.
Meantime, say Mr. Parks and Ms. Perry, they have been saddled, strongly against their will and their constituents’ will, with the shabbiest, intensely undesirable leftovers.
That is Council-talk for out-of-sight poor.
At 61 years old, Mr. Wesson, small but mighty, wakes up these spring mornings finding that he is gripping more raw power than he ever has come close to accumulating during a long, meandering political career that has swung him from Los Angeles to Sacramento and back.
Brick-wielding President of the Los Angeles City Council for the past six months, Mr. Wesson has joyfully leaped into a roaring political furnace, the kind of controversy that makes at least him smile.
Mr. Parks and Ms. Perry called in sick on the Friday morning last January when Mr. Wesson was crowned President. Mr. Wesson’s allies believe they were trying to show him up. Mr. Parks and Ms. Perry say their health was impaired.
Who Is Talking?
Until hours ago, Mr. Parks and others believed a vote on redistricting would go through on Friday.
Mr. Wesson’s office said next week.
Nobody knows when.
Seventy-two hours’ notice is due.
Unanimous assent is needed. Mr. Parks intends to be the nay vote, which will delay the inevitable for a week, but it will make the heaviest statement Mr. Parks can at the present.
Even though the remarkably nasty, race-splattered debate over census-driven redrawing of Council districts is the biggest political squabble in years, the steel-fisted home-brewed argument has been ignored by the metropolitan area’s leading media, with the LA Weekly being a stinging exception.
The Weekly has not hesitated to spank Mr. Wesson for the blindingly fast manner in which he arguably has ramrodded his singular notion of redistricting through a Council that seems to sleep more when working than members do overnight in their own beds.
Spectacularly disinterested, the Los Angeles Times has shoved its hands deeper into its pockets daily ever since Mr. Wesson’s singularly contrived master plan splashed slightly into public view last winter.
Many believe that the feisty Mr. Wesson’s end game is to eventually spring himself into the Mayor’s chair.
[Next: Mr. Parks speaks out – forcefully.]
