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Civic Circus with Ankur Patel breaks down local politics, with a weekly report on city, county, and state bureaucracies. This week on Uprising I’ll take a close look at Joe Buscaino the newest City Councilmember for the city of Los Angeles.

Council District 15, which includes San Pedro and the Port of Los Angeles, was previously represented by Janice Hahn who vacated the City Council seat to take a congressional seat last year.

The 15th district exemplifies the diversity of problems facing Los Angeles as it has more federal public housing projects, more Environmental Protection Agency Superfund cleanup sites, more oil refineries and oil wells than any other council district. And after the closure of Martin Luther King Jr. Medical Center, it has become a healthcare desert.
The initial field of city council hopefuls consisted of 11 candidates, but was narrowed to Joe Buscaino and Warren Furatani after a primary election that saw hundreds of thousands of dollars spent not only by candidates, but outside interests.

The race presented many different dynamics as Buscaino who has never served elected office is a first generation Italian American, and at 37 years old, has been a Los Angeles Police Officer for 15 years. Warren Furatani on the other hand is a 4th generation Japanese American who is a current State Assemblyman, and has served as an elected official for over 20 years with some time as an LAUSD board member.

In last Tuesday’s election, Buscaino won 9,734 votes to Furatani’s 6,304 — a 60/40 split, showcasing a voter turnout of 15.9%, which is relatively high compared to what we are used to in special elections in Los Angeles.

Even though the Daily News and LA Times both endorsed Buscaino, they did it hesitantly. Both papers cited that Buscaino had vague and uninspiring solutions to our budget and economic problems.

With the realignment in California County Prisons underway, another police officer making decisions at the city level probably won’t have a major impact on goings-on at the county level, especially as Buscaino’s campaign focus was on neighborhood security and jobs. It is possible that Buscaino would shake things up on the stale City Council, but he becomes the 4th former or current LAPDer on the council.

Moreover, Buscaino’s major support from political insiders includes endorsements from 7 sitting City Council members and huge independent expenditures from the Police Protective League and the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, both famously powerful unions in Los Angeles city politics. Buscaino, also appointed Janice Hahn’s former Chief of Staff, Doane Liu, as his new chief of staff, already thinning out the new blood.

But Buscaino does have a story-book origin: his wife is an elementary school teacher in the LAUSD, and he has over 500 family members in the area that he now represents. Buscaino brought his family on stage, and then his volunteers during a campaign party held on the night of the election. Hopefully his family and community background keeps him grounded as opposed to pleasing the special interests and unions that spent over $500,000 thousand dollars to get him into office.

Joe Buscaino has been calling himself “the average Joe” – I honestly hope that he doesn’t become an average politician in Los Angeles’ dog and pony show called city council.

For Uprising, I’m Ankur Patel with Civic Circus.