Parks’ Answer to Ridley-Thomas: How Many Lies Do You Get to Tell?

Once his longtime family friend Yvonne Brathwaite Burke last year disclosed her intention to retire at the end of her fourth four-year term, Mr. Parks immediately leaped in.

Exiting City Hall has been one of his more recurring thoughts.

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Former Mayor Albert Vera is a supporter of Mr. Parks

The present year-long campaign marks the second time in five years he has tried to leave the Council, counting a markedly unsuccessful run at the Mayor’s office.

Friends say the Council lifestyle never has been a good fit for him, either the daily grind of meetings or the team-player aspect. Instead, they say, the 64-year-old lifelong police officer is more suited for private, quiet settings.

Mr. Parks most closely resembles a button-down Chairman of the Board, which could mean that a seat on the Board of Supervisors will correlate with his tastes. Supervisors operate independently, and at a far more remote distance from the public than City Council members.

On the other hand, former Culver City Mayor Alan Corlin, Mr. Parks’ No. 1 booster in this town, was raving about the impressive way the candidate conducted himself at last Saturday’s Vets Park Pancake Breakfast in his honor.

“For an hour and a half,” said Mr. Corlin, “people threw all kinds of questions on a wide variety of subjects at Bernie. He patiently, and fully, answered all of them. I don’t know if he changed the minds of anybody, but he made a very good impression. He really knows the issues.”

Bashful by nature, Mr. Parks seems to prefer one-on-one contact, and he would have that opportunity with the Board of Supervisors, except for the grueling all-day Tuesday community meetings.

In contra-distinction to his opponent, the outgoing , crowd-rousing state Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Culver City), Mr. Parks has run a low-key, and apparently underdog, campaign for two reasons:

It aligns better with his more reclusive personality, and he has not attracted anywhere near the record-setting financial support that the Senator has drawn.

This has limited his activities. Money is the boss. When the subject of polling arose, Mr. Parks said the campaign could not afford to canvas as widely as he would have liked. Therefore, he said he did not have an idea how his support is trending in these last days, and whether he can reverse his five-percentage-point loss to Sen. Ridley Thomas and a crowded field in last June’s primary election.

Unlike his opponent who is a career politician, Mr. Parks was 58 years old when he unfurled a new phase of his life. Why didn’t he return to private life six years ago when his contract was not renewed as Chief of the LAPD?

“What kept me going,” said Mr. Parks, “was that when I was retiring, I had people come to me and say they enjoyed my 38 years of public service. They felt I had been a very positive, visible symbol in the community. They did not want to see me retire. They asked, ‘Would I consider running for office?’ I never had thought about running. I never had any interest in it.”

Question: Aren’t you more of a behind-the-scenes person?

“If you follow my career, I probably have been the most visible member of the Los Angeles Police Dept., throughout the city, throughout my career. When I joined the Police Dept., I was fortunate enough to align myself with a number of people who helped me in my career. They made a point that it wasn’t enough to just to be inside the Police Dept. making changes. It as important to be a visible person out in the community, whether you were coaching Pop Warner football, or whether you were out with community groups. You had to be a part because the community was looking for visible symbols whereby they felt somebody was listening to them and providing leadership within the department.”

Question: How long did it take to get the taste of the way you left the department out of your system?

“I left the department in August of 2002. I was a City Councilman as of March 2003. So I don’t think it took long at all.”

Question: This is the third office for which you have been a candidate. How comfortable are you as a Councilman?

“I feel very comfortable. When we go back and look at how Councilmen do their work, I think I am the only one who sits on five standing committees. I was the Budget chair after one year in office. I have run the $7 billion budget. I am very comfortable. I think my colleagues feel very comfortable. They know I will do the work. I will take the time to address issues, and I will understand the issues. With the background I have gotten from the Police Dept., I do things a little different than my colleagues. I don’t look at a lot of issues such as who is supporting what. I am not interested in the special-interest groups. I look at issues and how they affect the city in general and my district specifically. I study the issues and take my time with them. I have a good comfort level. Thirty-eight years in city government gives you a sense of how the city functions, understanding the Council rules — which takes a little time — and how the City Council process works, understanding the community issues and understanding how the city is laid out. Those are things I have been dealing with my whole life.”

Question: Would moving from the City Council to the Board of Supervisors be a lateral move regarding the way you do business?

“I don’t think I will ever change the way I do business. But it certainly is not a lateral move. There are so many unique issues in the County. The responsibilities and the size of the district are so much greater . There would be a learning curve, and it would be a step upward. There are some similar issues, but you are dealing with 88 communities , mayors, city council members, and also there are city managers. Plus you are dealing with a variety of services that cannot be gotten anyplace else. You are dealing with childcare, dealing with foster children, dealing with mental health, healthcare concerns . The only place those services come from is the County. You need administrative ability to deal with departments that are enormous, that basically house over 100,000 employees. Coming from the Council, this would be another massive step upwards. You go from being responsible for a $7 billion budget to a $22 billion budget. You go from being responsible for 250,000 people in your district to 2 million. When you add up that plus being responsible for services that are County-wide, it certainly is not a lateral move.”

Question: When you address crowds, what do you tell them the difference is between you and Sen. Ridley-Thomas, a lifetime politician vs. a relative newcomer?

“I think the advantage is very clear. I am not a lifetime politician. I am a public servant. People have seen me work. The best indication of your future success is your past success. The major differences in this election start, fundamentally, with integrity, how you handle issues and deal with the public. Clearly, we have a record of consistent integrity. I don’t believe Mark Ridley-Thomas, in his campaign, can say that, particularly in light of the federal investigation and the County investigation of the SEIU and how it is connected to his campaign. Certainly all of my career, I have been independent when talking about issues, irrespective of whether it’s friends, relatives or dealing with communities that you are sensitive to. Mark Ridley-Thomas’s silence has been bought, just in this campaign, on a variety of issues. He refuses to speak out about the illegal contributions that SEIU has taken from their union members. He refuses to acknowledge that his friend Tyrone Freeman (ousted head of the SEIU) has abused $9 an hour employees.”

Question: Have you asked Sen. Ridley-Thomas about these accusations?

“Directly. He said he wanted the due process to go forward. How much due process do you need when the union itself has verified that (Mr. Freeman) used union dues to pay for his wedding? To use union dues and $9 an hour employees to pay for a Cigar Club membership? How much due process do you need before you stand up and say, ‘Stop doing what you are doing’ to make sure these people are not harmed any more. I think the connection between this illegal money and his campaign is very clear. Somewhere around October of 2007, Mark Ridley-Thomas announced he was running for office in the 2nd (Supervisorial) District. Also in October of 2007, Tyrone Freeman started taking illegal dues from his members. Tyrone Freeman began to push those dues into Mark Ridley-Thomas’s campaign. It is amazing that it was only after I had a news conference in August that said ‘Tyrone Freeman is illegally taking these dues’ that he stopped on the very same day. Mark Ridley-Thomas has yet to stand up and say to his friend Tyrone Freeman, ‘You harmed 150,000 homecare workers by taking additional dues illegally.’ Mark Ridley-Thomas’s silence has been bought on several fronts. To make a point about honesty, his campaign, we recently found out, is telling voters I am the one who ordered the (May Day) raid on MacArthur Park. They just didn’t bother telling the people I had been out of the department for six years. They are out telling the public I am a Republican when they know I am not.”

Question: Would it be correct to call you a conservative Democrat?

“No, it would not. Go through my record. I am an issue-by-issue person. I certainly am very concerned about how money is spent. On cultural issues, after-school programs, the library and social programs, you will find I am sensitive in all of those areas , and I want to make sure money is available to them. When we talk about this issue of being a Republican, he is the only person in the campaign who funded a part of the Republican campaign with several thousand dollars to promote the Reagan Revolution and to promote John McCain over Obama. And yet in other brochures, he tells Democratic voters he is the endorsed candidate of the Democratic Party That is as disingenuous and dishonest as you can be.”

Question: Sen. Ridley-Thomas has leveled numerous charges against you. What should the proper response be?

“Astute people know the charges are frivolous because they have done their homework. He chose to throw charges out because he doesn’t want you and others to ask what is his record. He doesn’t want you to force him to tell you what he stands for. He spends his time on two issues. He tells you he is supported by the unions, and second, he tells you what is wrong with me. He has yet to tell you what is right with him. When you bring up the $8.5 million that the L.A. Times said Sunday that unions have raised for him, he says no, that is union-bashing. Wrong. It is clearly buying a seat. He doesn’t even have to be here as a candidate because they have recruited him. They have bought his seat. They already have threatened (Supervisor) Gloria Molina in two years. They already have threatened (Supervisor) Don Knabe in four years. They want to buy three seats on the Board. Anyone in these districts should be offended that a small special-interest group believes they can buy a community. Who is the real Mark? He has consistently been on various sides of issues. Who is Mark Ridley-Thomas? The reason he keeps up this camouflage of throwing out allegations is so that you and others in the media will never say, ‘Hey, Mark. How do you reconcile the inconsistencies in your record? How do you continually talk on both sides of issues? How do you bring Wal-Mart to the community in 2002, go to their opening, but then when the union is opposed to it, you basically decide that Bernard Parks brought in Wal-Mart — after I left. How many lies do you get to tell before the community says, ‘If you can’t believe him when he is running for office, how do you believe him when he is in office?’”