Council Race--It’s a Matter of Emphasis : Mike Hernandez: The longtime Latino activist stresses local roots and takes an ‘up-close and personal’ approach in 1st District contest.

Although his wife is getting tired of hearing the story, City Council candidate Mike Hernandez never misses a chance to tell voters how the two first met in the Northeast community of Cypress Park.

“I met my wife, Sylvia, in the seventh grade over at Nightingale Junior High,” the 38-year-old Hernandez usually begins. “In the ninth grade, we had our picture taken in front of this house in our neighborhood and we decided that one day we would get married and live in that house.

“We bought that house in 1978 and that’s where we live now.”

The anecdote about falling in love and the dream home on Arroyo Seco Avenue is part of the “up-close and personal” approach that Hernandez, a longtime Latino activist, has taken in hopes it will help him succeed political ally Gloria Molina on the Los Angeles City Council.

Finishing first out of a field of six candidates in the June primary with 42% of the vote, Hernandez has taken on the mantle of a front-runner in the 1st District race, one who attracted more than $100,000 in contributions--more than twice what the five other candidates combined had raised for the primary.

He also has garnered an impressive list of endorsements, including Molina, Mayor Tom Bradley, Rep. Edward Roybal (D-Los Angeles) and Rep. Esteban Torres (D-La Puente). Two of the Latinos who lost out in the primary for the 1st District seat, Lincoln Heights businessman Caesar Aguirre and Echo Park social services administrator Sandra Figueroa, have endorsed him.

And in a surprising twist, Hernandez last week was endorsed by Molina’s most bitter foe in the city’s Latino political community--Councilman Richard Alatorre.

But it is the personal side that Hernandez has been emphasizing with the Aug. 13 runoff approaching.

A product of local schools--Loreto Street Elementary, Nightingale Junior High and Franklin High schools and Occidental College--he has a straightforward answer to why he is running for the council.

“I’m from this community,” he says. “My wife and I have chosen to live here and raise our two children (daughter Michelle, 15, and son Emiliano, 13). I’m running for office because I want to represent my neighbors.”

Beginning with his days as a student community relations commissioner at Occidental, Hernandez has a long record of community involvement in the Northeast area of the 1st District.

Beginning in 1977, he served for two years as secretary-treasurer of the Highland Park Optimist Club. At about the same time, he was a member of the board of directors of Plaza de la Raza Cultural Center in Lincoln Heights.

In the early 1980s, he served as president of the Northeast Los Angeles Jaycees and was named honorary mayor of Highland Park. He was also chairman of the Highland Park Christmas Parade for four years and head of the Cinco de Mayo celebrations at Sycamore Park in Highland Park for three years.

During that period, Hernandez got politically active, supporting Molina’s successful campaign for the state Assembly in 1982. He also was a supporter of other Latino officeholders, including Alatorre when he gave up his Assembly seat in 1985 to run for the City Council.

More closely identified with Molina, Hernandez joined her and other Latino activists in 1986 in the fight against the proposed state prison near downtown Los Angeles.

In his only other try for public office, Hernandez in 1986 lost a bitter Democratic Party primary in the 55th Assembly District to Alatorre aide Richard Polanco. Hernandez got 37% of the vote to Polanco’s 39%.

The hard feelings engendered in that campaign were evident in the primary when Polanco, now an assemblyman, endorsed Figueroa over Hernandez.

On his daily forays to talk to voters, Hernandez is an imposing figure at 6 feet and 230 pounds. A gregarious sort, Hernandez allows that he has to lose some weight put on during the primary.

“My mom says if you’re fat, you’re satisfied,” he told one voter recently. “But you got to be hungry this time around if you want to win.”

Hernandez on the stump usually recites his stances on various problems. For example, he said he favors development “that makes sense,” contending that developers too often ignore the needs of growing families or for open space. He also wants the 1st District, currently patrolled by six different divisions of the Los Angeles Police Department, to be consolidated under two stations.

He said he supports an expansion of the community-based More Advocates for Safer Homes (MASH) program as a means to combat street gangs, drugs and graffiti.

Hernandez’s easy small-talk style turns decidedly defensive and tense when the conversation turns to his occupation. He said it is unfair and incorrect that he has been identified as a bail bondsman.

He said that he holds two bond licenses--one for bails and the other for civil bond and insurance--in connection with Bea Hernandez Bail Bonds, his mother’s business. Although he does do some bail bonds work, he said the bulk of his work is in the civil field.

One opponent in the primary, affordable housing advocate Frank Juarez Foster, does not accept Hernandez’s explanation. “I don’t care what he calls himself, he still comes up as a bail bondsman to me,” Foster said.

Polanco used the bail bonds issue against Hernandez in the 1986 primary fight and some in the area think it was pivotal in Polanco’s narrow win.

In the latter stages of the primary election campaign for Molina’s old seat, Figueroa attacked Hernandez for his apparent reluctance to discuss his profession. On the ballot, she pointed out, he called himself a “businessman and community activist.”

Hernandez thinks the issue will not have a major effect on the runoff’s outcome.

“Did the attacks help Sandra Figueroa?” Hernandez said, repeating a reporter’s question. “If you believe the primary election results, it didn’t.”

1st City Council District at a Glance

The 1st City Council District winds from the impoverished Pico-Union area to the hills of Mt. Washington and the middle-class neighborhoods of Highland Park. Nearly 74% of the district’s residents are Latinos, with Asians making up 17%, Anglos 7% and blacks 2%.