It is difficult to find out where the heart of a district is when the shape is reminiscent of brass knuckles.

That’s what went through my mind as I criss-crossed District 6, the collection of San Fernando Valley neighborhoods once controlled by Nury Martinez before her career imploded over the racist things she said about black people and Oaxaca on a leaked recording . On April 4, voters will choose their replacement from a field of seven new candidates.

The roster offers voters a Choose Your Own Adventure that reflects much of District 6’s dizzying diversity. Do they want another homegrown Mexican American to represent them in the form of Marisa Alcaraz, Imelda Padilla or Marco Santana? A Central American in Douglas Sierra? Do they want to go with an immigrant, Armenian-born Rose Grigoryan? A black woman in Antoinette Scully? Choosing Isaac Kim to sit next to another Asian American, John Lee, and represent the Valley?

All have participated in forums in person and online to engage voters. But Sierra, Grigoryan, Scully and Kim fell far behind in fundraising compared to Alcaraz, Padilla and Santana, each of whom can tap into different factions of LA’s political class.

Alcaraz is deputy chief of staff to South LA Council member Curren Price; Padilla is chairman of the board of the LA Valley College Foundation and a former organizer of Pacoima Beautiful, the community group where Martinez once served as executive director and which Padilla’s sister now leads. Santana was a former staffer for two Valley lords, former statesman

senator

Bob Hertzberg and Stream

Congressman Rep.

Tony Crdenas although the latter recently endorsed Padilla.

If no one wins the majority of votes cast, the top two finishers will advance to a runoff in June. With so many competing yet intertwined stories, there was no way I could find one place that included all aspiring councillors, or could I?

A pharmacy and an Arco station greeted me at the eastern gateway of District 6, the 5 Freeway North Roscoe Boulevard exit in Sun Valley. I drove past humble single-family homes and industrial parts of the Latino working-class enclave as I made my way to the pretty residential area of ​​Arletas. Panorama City was a swirl of apartments, shopping plazas and malls. Van Nuys was more working class, while Lake Balboa was the only neighborhood where I sensed remnants of the Valleys’ history as the domain for LA’s white suburbs.

Everywhere I went, I saw the best of Los Angeles and its challenges

whoever

ultimately he represents District 6.

There was an abundance of ethnic supermarkets and restaurants, but not enough parks. I saw Van Nuys Airport, which many residents want to close because of noise and air pollution. I took a moment to pray at the Kaiser Permanente in Panorama City, where my father went to collect the body of his cousin, who died of COVID-19 in 2020. I didn’t see any campaign signs among the dozens of posters on light poles with phone numbers in case you want to sell your car or house.

My big tour ended in North Hills, where Roscoe Boulevard meets the 405 Freeway. It’s a straight line from here east and south through most of District 6. There are job makers within walking distance

like like like

Van Nuys Airport, the Anheuser-Busch brewery and the Galpin car dealership empire.

There was a small homeless camp on the sidewalk on the south side of Roscoe. Also hanging around was something I didn’t expect: bears.

The Bear Facts/Los Osos mural was painted on both sides of the 405 underpass in 1999 by students from nearby James Monroe High School. It wasn’t the most inspiring thing I’ve seen, and it was partially obscured by the encampment tents, but I smiled. The bears slept. They hunted salmon. They frolicked in the snow, hung out in meadows, stood in the woods.

I’m not a bear expert except for Yogi and Care, but they looked like grizzly bears. Then I thought of ex-Councilman Martinez.

Before her demise, she styled herself as the mother bear of the eastern San Fernando Valley, a no-nonsense resident dedicated to uplifting a community she felt the rest of Los Angeles was ignored and demeaned. The daughter of Mexican immigrants attended area schools from kindergarten to Cal State Northridge, then progressed from activist to bare-knuckle politician.

Her trajectory was swift and impressive: mayor of the City of San Fernando, trustee of the Los Angeles Unified School District, then a special election victory in 2013 to become a District 6 council member. In 2020, she became the first Latina to serve as president of the city council.

Even though she was a Democrat, Martinez wasn’t afraid to push back against progressives who she felt were trying to impose their values ​​on her Valley. When homeless advocates denounced her 2021 vote to ban camping near schools as cruel, she bounced back by saying District 6 residents couldn’t come to council meetings to show their support because they were at work .

Latinos are frustrated; they are tired, Martinez told my colleague Benjamin Oreskes last fall. They don’t want to deal with these encampments anymore.

This was the Martinez seen during the infamous leaked tape, always for her constituents and Latino political power, always against anything or anyone who stood in her way, always her own worst enemy.

Her anti-black barbs against rivals ranging from former LA Councilman Mike Bonin to LA County

District Attorney Dist. thoughtful

George Gascn came during a conversation with ex-Councilman Gil Cedillo, former Los Angeles County Federation of Labor Chairman Ron Herrera, and current Councilman Kevin de Len. In the secretly recorded chat, each of them alleged a conspiracy that outsiders were trying to reduce Latino political power through redistribution.

At one point, Martinez complained about how proposed maps would take Van Nuys airport and the Anheuser-Busch brewery out of her district.

What kind of neighborhoods are you trying to create? she complained. Because you’re taking our belongings. Are you just going to create poor Latino neighborhoods with nothing?

Those neighborhood institutions ultimately remained.

If Martinez had shown any humility, she could have roared her way to higher political office. Instead, like the California maybe grizzlies before me on Roscoe Boulevard, her career died out.

All District 6 hopefuls should make a pilgrimage to the mural. They should ask the people in the camp what help they need. They should figure out how to refresh the bears, which are no pun intended and are showing signs of fading.

Then they should remember Martinez, like I did. All her harsh words to the homeless did little to solve the problem. Its Latino-first politicization has also died down in a city council where alliances are formed based on class, not race, like never before.

And every night until

Election Day Election Day

the council candidates should say the following prayer, considering Martinez and the mural:

Go there for the grace of God

We

.