CommentsLA ELECTION 2022 - Elections are supposed to be about ideas; about improving the lives of the folks you represent; about having a plan; and about who can offer a better future.
To tell the truth, both candidates to whom I lost in the primary, Tim McOsker and Danielle Sandoval, are too far left politically for me, but I’m supporting Sandoval because she represents a chance for change and has demonstrated a willingness to listen and come a little closer to the center on important issues like crime prevention, homelessness and Port of LA and City Hall corruption. And after this past week, I am more committed to my belief that Danielle Sandoval is the best choice of the two.
The McOsker campaign and some of its racial messengers have become unhinged at the prospect of losing this election to a single, underfunded, working-class, Latina mother with one-tenth the campaign money and ten times the vision. I know Sandoval took a lot of deserved heat for an eight-year-old wage dispute that has now been settled. I endorsed Sandoval because she simply has a better plan ― a plan that is aligned with much of my message when I decided to run for City Council.
Her plan will challenge the status quo and the politically corrupt. Her plan will change the way the Port of LA treats the community. Sandoval’s plan promises to address homelessness, support safer neighborhoods, and raise millions of dollars through port leases and fees for the people. LA City Hall, the Port, and the donor class establishment does not support Sandoval because she represents the one thing they fear most: CHANGE.
Maybe I wasn’t cut out for politics, I considered both Joe Buscaino and Tim McOsker friends before this election, Joe wrote just last year “Anthony’s work at the Port of Los Angeles and in the communities it neighbors are nothing less than remarkable.” Now, that I endorsed Sandoval he is writing I’m “a joke.”
Tim asked for my endorsement three times after the primary. He obviously thought I was a pretty stand-up guy at that time but it all changed when I endorsed Danielle Sandoval. Now, according to the attack mailer, I’m a phony, a scam artist, a fake cop, being sued for millions, and even part of a Ponzi scheme. What? All of this is false. But no doubt, if I would have endorsed McOsker I would be authentic, a good businessman, praised for my work helping arrest pedophiles as a sworn officer with Internet Crimes Against Children and for being an honest whistleblower fighting a baseless lawsuit. The Ponzi scheme lie is so ridiculous I don’t even know how to begin to comment.
The attack mailer also targeted Police Chief David Gascon and my uncle former City Attorney Carmen ‘Nuch” Trutanich, two of the highest-ranking LA City officials to ever come out of San Pedro. Both have endorsed Danielle Sandoval in the runoff. And both had an opportunity to work with McOsker professionally for many years. No supporters of Sandoval seem to be off limits to a small group of avid McOsker cohorts. A McOsker campaign extremist called a local minority-owned restaurant and threatened to burn down their Sandoval posters.
Tim’s surrogates knocked on the doors of my 80-year-old parents’ neighbors and ask them to tell my mom and dad to take down their Sandoval signs. When did harassing small businesses and intimidating the elderly become a campaign strategy? I’m calling on Tim to demonstrate some integrity and love of community and issue an apology to my parents, my uncle, Chief Gascon, the restaurant owners and businesses, and residents that have been subject to threats, lies, and bullying of his fanatic cronies and to denounce this type of behavior. A man that cared about our community would do that. I hope Tim McOsker is that kind of man.
I encourage my friends and Harbor Area neighbors to VOTE FOR SANDOVAL ― especially if you’re a San Pedro High or Mary Star Alum, a member of the ILWU family if you think the Port should be held accountable. You will vote for Sandoval if you want to see homelessness and crime decrease. You will vote for Sandoval if you ever supported Santich or Trutanich, or if you are just tired of lying, two-faced politicians and lobbyists running our District and our City.
In closing, I would like to thank local NAACP Vice President Joe Gatlin for withdrawing his endorsement of Tim McOsker in protest after learning about the attacks and threats on local business owners and residents and after reading the half-truths, embellishments and outright lies attacking Nuch, David, and me.
(This article was first published in Random Lengths News, the Los Angeles Harbor Area's independent progressive newspaper since 1979. Based in San Pedro, California serving the seven cities of the Harbor Area; San Pedro, Long Beach, Rancho Palos Verdes, Wilmington, Carson, Lomita and Harbor City.)