SOULVINE UNCHAINED-The 54th Assembly District’s annual election of California Democratic Party delegates and executive board members scheduled for Sunday, Jan. 11 has gone completely ballistic as word of intimidation by politician has spread among already displeased residents and potential voters.
Word in the district had it that County Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas, father of the district’s Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas, had strong armed Tom Camarella, an executive board member of the California Democratic Party and the Assembly district’s premiere slate-maker, into putting candidates with ties to and who support the supervisor on Camarella’s slate of community candidates.
Camarella has been active in the district’s political affairs for 14 years and for eight years in a row, his slates of community candidates have won the district’s delegate elections.
I asked Camarella if the rumor that Supervisor Ridley-Thomas had threatened him into including his family and associates on his slate is true, and Camarella said, “No. It was his son, Assemblyman Sebastian Ridley-Thomas (photo above) who did it.”
Camarella said: “In the final hour of the last day on which candidates for delegates would be accepted, Sebastian came to me and said he wanted me to put his people on my slate or else he would put out an opposition slate of people with big name recognition who will wipe out all of my community candidates and take over completely.” Wow.
“Of course, I did not want that,” Camarella continued. “If carried that out, Sebastian’s threatened slate could win and the people would lose or we would find all of us in a huge fight against each other and the people and the party would lose. After all, we are supposed to be fighting Republicans, not fellow Democrats. I didn’t want either of these two things to happen, so I compromised to make sure they didn’t,” Camarella explained.
Camarella’s compromise resulted in his adding the assemblyman’s father, his public relations employee, Fred McFarlane, and two women to his slate.
What Camarella calls “a compromise” is being called “a caving” by the more street wise residents of the district. A particularly outspoken potential voter said: “There’s no way in hell a brother would have caved like that. We would have told Sebastian to ‘Bring It!’”
The Camarella slate now reads as follows: Tom Camarella, David Mielke, Max Kanin, Ryabingi Kuti, Stephen Murray, Fred McFarlane, Mark Ridley-Thomas, Jackie Hawthorne, Debra Weinrauch, Suzanne DeBenedittis, Michelle Weiner, Mary Beth Fielder, Denise Collier and Lillian Carter.
I called Sebastian Ridley-Thomas to discuss this move of his as described by Camarella and got no response. I left three messages and my calls were not returned.
The election will be held Jan. 11 at 2 p.m. in the Multi-Purpose Room of the Veterans Building, 4117 Overland Ave. I’m going to get there early. All registered voters who reside in the 54th Assembly District are eligible to vote in the assembly district election.
(Betty Pleasant, a longtime LA observer, columnist and urban voice, writes Soulvine and is a contributor to CityWatch.)
-cw
CityWatch
Vol 13 Issue 3
Pub: Jan 9, 2015
