By Marc B. Haefele

ALVIN D. PARRA, Los Angeles County Commissioner

How soon we forget. This is the roster of candidates who ran for the LA City Council’s 14th District seat in 1999. Thirteen candidates. One of the biggest rosters  in LA history. What a sight that was! There were candidates’  forums all over the 14th, from scrubby El Boyle up to trendy Eagle Rock. Not a block of Huntington Drive nor Soto Street nor Cesar Chavez Ave. that wasn’t draped with campaign signs and bunting. All  those baker’s dozen  people. All those names. All those candidacies.

Unfortunately, not all those political futures. When the deal went down, Nick Pacheco was elected to a solitary term of office before an onrushing diesel locomotive named Antonio Villaraigosa knocked him off the political rails in 2001. (Villaraigosa then made a promise--taken seriously by a callow few--that he’d not run for mayor in two years.)  Alvin Parra is the only one seriously back again, more about him later: but that’s what Parra’s best at, showing up.

But not a peep from Cathy Molina, Zeke Quezeda, Victor Griego and most  of the others. The 2007 primary is really a non-election as far as the Los Angeles City Council is concerned: If you didn’t know better, you’d think the 14th District, with its one and a half candidates (not even including the also-returned, virtually underfunded Juan Jimenez), was the bottom event out of all the council districts holding elections.

You’d be wrong. It’s perhaps the hottest act in an unspeakably cool political season, the least meaningful city primary election I’ve seen in 26 years. There is only one other contested council race in town  in the 7th District, where it appears that term-limited  state Sen. Richard Alarcon will probably relive his happy political childhood as a councilman at City Hall. And the way Alarcon’s allies Mayor Villaraigosa and Speaker Fabian Nunez steamrolled the serious potential Alarcon opponents,  nothing’s going to keep Alarcon from collecting his full city pension in a couple of years except a possible long shot win by former Riordan aide Monica Rodriguez, who's bravely weighing in with $74,000 in contributions and matching funds against Alarcon's $184,000 and huge name recognition. (In the 6th District, Tony Cardenas has four nominal opponents, but only one, Jamie Cordaro, has raised as much as $15,000 against the incumbent's $213,000.)

In no other district does anyone not enamored of his city representative have a choice for change.Look, I don’t make the rules around here. You, the voters do. That's why we have term limits--to prevent automatic incumbent succession. Right? So how come that's exactly what we got today--just lately upped to three terms of office? Now, with Alarcon’s return, it’s impossible for bright young hopefuls to get a crack at an open seat, unless the political demigods say so. Hoboken, NJ in its worst machine days never had it so good.

Which brings us back to Alvin Parra. I confess that: when I lived in El Sereno, we used to meet, Alvin and I, at the local Pollo Loco (in Alhambra--that part of the 14th was too poor to support its own Pollo Loco) on Sunday nights and talk politics. Alvin had a lot of ideas, some good, some not so. But he had, as they say out, there plenty ganas.

He ran against big, bad Richard Alatorre in 1995 when Alatorre was running for what no one then realized was his last term. Now Parra’s running -- from way behind -- against his onetime employer: sleek, personable Jose Huizar. Who is as nice a guy as you might meet; unfortunately he is also a little too fastidious about getting his hands dirty in a dirty district. Huizar also has had a huge staff turnover and that is kind of remarkable, since he’s only been in office 13 months. Is that reason enough to ditch the guy? I don’t know. But it’s enough reason for someone else besides Alvin to declare against an elected official who is, after all, just barely an incumbent.

Or is it that, in just eight years, people have learned not to bother? With a lineup like this, please, nobody complain to me about the low voter turnout on March 6.

(Marc Haefele has been covering LA politics for 25 years for the LA Weekly, KPCC Radio and other media. Haefele is a regular contributor to CityWatch.) _