Black has. Black pants. Black coat. Black hoodie. Gray sneakers white sweater?

When I greeted Richard Alarcon

last week

outside Lenchitas in Pacoima

last week

I wasn’t sure if he was in a witness protection program or gearing up for a DJ gig.

Maybe both?

The former LA wealth broker lives in an apartment in Chatsworth and works as a broker, consultant and van driver

take for

children to

their

medical appointments. It’s a life a long way from when he ushered in a new era of representation by becoming the first Latino to represent the San Fernando Valley on the LA City Council in 1993, and then the area’s first Latino senator in 1998 .

The Legacy of His Pioneering Efforts: Latino power in the Valley stretches from the Los Angeles Unified School District Board of Education, where North Hollywood’s Kelly Gonez served as

the planks

president from 2020 to 2022, to Capitol Hill, where Pacoima native Alex Padilla becomes the first Latino to represent California as a U.S. Senator.

That all ended in 2010, when a grand jury indicted Alarcon and his then-wife on voter fraud charges. LA County prosecutors alleged so

the two they

lied about living in a dilapidated Panorama City home, when their main residence was a nicer home in Sun Valley, outside the municipal district representing Alarcon.

Alarcon, a Valley resident, claimed they did not live in the Panorama City home because they were remodeling it. A jury in 2014 found them each guilty

in 2014

, and Alarcon spent 51 days under house arrest before an appeals court overturned the conviction. In 2019, then-Dest. attentive Jackie Lacey announced she would not resubmit the case, and Alarcon sank into obscurity.

Still, Alarcon was all smiles when we met: the next day was his daughter’s quinceaera and he had just gone shopping.

I’ve got a million ties, but no gold ones, Alarcon

said told me

as he showed me a picture of her on his phone. I don’t wear ties anymore.

I told him he looked young for a man nearing 70. Alarcon laughed.

Oh, I’m old, he replied. I feel it.

Alarcon reached out to me for a pair

by

weeks ago to disagree with my column that lumped him in with disgraced Eastside politicians. I offered to listen to him and also ask his thoughts on city politics at a time when his residency scandal seems like overconfidence by comparison.

The day before we met, a jury had convicted political giant Mark Ridley-Thomas

loads of

federal bribery, conspiracy and fraud

cost

with votes cast as LA County supervisor in favor of USC after the university hired his son as a student and professor.

Earlier this year, former council member Jose Huizar pleaded guilty in his corruption case, about a year after former council member Mitchell Englander served a federal prison sentence for his own corruption scandal.

Those fiascos were overtaken in the public eye by Alarcon’s foe, LA City Council President Nury Martinez. She resigned last October after a leaked recording of her making vile comments about black people, Oaxacans and political opponents. A special election is held for her replacement

Note: today we don’t say “today”

Tuesday, but turnout is expected to be woefully low, in part because too many voters have lost faith in politicians.

There was so much to talk about during our hour-long dinner that Alarcon barely touched his chili verde or sipped his medium-sized

i.e

horchata. He was calm and gentle, with a good laugh. he

So

convinced that history will judge him kindly.

People should Google me and see what I did once they get through all the crap, Alarcon said.

Hi

Calm

claims the case against him and his then-wife was politically motivated, though he refused to openly explain why. I told him it was foolish for him to let a residency issue ruin a career that had no major scandals, certainly nothing on the level of Ridley-Thomas, Huizar and Englander. Or even Martinez.

People knew: don’t come and offer me something that’s illegal,” he said. “I’m proud to have a record like that and then this [conviction]? He threw his hands in the air.

But you know what? I haven’t always felt this way. I mean, it takes time to go through the process, but eventually I got to a place where I realized that you’ve done a lot of good things.

I moved on to the Ridley-Thomas sentencing.

Very sad, Alarcon replied about his former colleague counsel

.

He was a very good friend, and he did a lot of great things, and I know what it’s like to be in his position.

Did he think the allegations were exaggerated, as many Ridley-Thomas supporters claimed?

I have to admit I was bothered by the donation, he replied, referring to a $100,000 contribution to a nonprofit led by Sebastian Ridley-Thomas. Prosecutors alleged that the older Ridley-Thomas’

campaign committee funneled the money through USC.

But anything else I thought was part of the course, he continued, because anyone representing that area around USC would have supported USC. So he just did things for USC that any politician would have done.

CAN WE PUT THE PHOTO HERE THAT ACCES THIS ARTICLE

https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-ex-la-councilman-alarcon-sentencing-20141013-story.html

Alarcon, who was an aide to LA mayor Tom Bradley before he first served on city council, nevertheless said greed now rules LA politics like he’s never seen before, adding:

That

Every time you look at it, there are different motivations.

Then he brought up Martinez, who was working

for a decade

under him

for a decade

. She was very angry very quickly. That was her personality. So I wasn’t shocked by the tenor of her comments, he said.

But he was “sad that there was racism, which he claimed Martinez never disclosed in his neighborhood, probably because he has an Afro-Latina granddaughter.

Which would show she’s sharp enough, he continued. But why would she think Kevin and Gil would put up with that? That was so disappointing.”

“Kevin and Gil” are, of course, Kevin de Len and Gil Cedillo, who served in Sacramento alongside Alarcon and were councilors when they were in the room with Martinez, making

pendejo

own comments while saying nothing to restrain her.

“They’re very good friends of mine. Honestly, if someone had said so [racist remarks in front of] if i was in the room i would have told them so

quiet

‘ said Alarcon.

I asked about the District 6 special election. Alarcon is supporting Marisa Alcaraz, his former sheriff’s deputy. But the lack of experience shared by the seven candidates, none of whom has held an elected office, worries him.

People don’t realize that politicians have no control over their jobs, he said. LA’s bureaucracy is heavy. You must finally. You have to flatter. You have to outflank them to make them do what you think should be done.

He hopes that whoever wins District 6, along with the new progressive generation of LA politicians like Councilmembers Eunisses Hernandez and Hugo Soto-Martinez, will learn some lessons about what greed can do to a political career and their constituents and avoid those situations.

So is his daughter, Andrea Alarcon, who

last year

won a seat on the Palmdale City Council

last year

. It’s an unlikely comeback for the former president of LA’s Board of Public Works, who stepped down in 2013 after leaving her then-11-year-old daughter alone at City Hall while she partied with nearby friends.

I live vicariously through her,

Richard

said Alarcon

of his daughter

. He didn’t work much further

her campaign, except to give the following advice: I explained to her that you know that you will be touched by all the things that will come your way. And of course she said she knew. And I said how are you going to overcome it?

I had chewed

down

my chile rellenos to studs. I had two more questions for Alarcon.

Should De Len heed the call of political leaders and activists to resign after his embarrassing role in the racist tape scandal?

The simple answer would be yes, you should resign. But the more difficult question is: what would you do in this position?’ I don’t know what I would do,” Alarcon said.

all around,

Okay. Okay.

He described De Len as a good person who is not a racist, although De Len should have spoken out against Martinez during their conversation. He advised De Len to file a claim against Jason Reedy, the activist whose heated altercation with the council member during a holiday toy giveaway ended with De Len pushing him against a table.

I scoffed and moved on to my finale: What lessons can Angelenos draw from Alarcon’s life, given

That

he seems to be at peace with it?

That may be an exaggeration, he said with a laugh.

He told me about a gift his mother gave him upon graduating from Cal State Northridge. It was a letter written to her by his sixth-grade teacher, saying that her son would be a “failure at life” because he was too disruptive.

And I looked at my mother and I said, ‘Why didn’t you show me this letter?’ She said, “Because I’ve always believed in you.” … I think too many people give up on people when they make a mistake too soon.

So, has LA given you up, Richard?

It’s like everything else. They rather like you; they don’t like you now. I don’t think they let me down. A new generation just arrived, I served 20 years. That’s more than most.

We got up, paid for our respective dinners and headed out into the evening. I made sure to pass the Panorama City house where Alarcon’s political fortunes sank, just a few minutes

away

from Lenchita. It is now a gated collection of houses developed by his former wife.

A political legacy, discarded for subdivision. May the next generation of Latino politicians from the Valleys be better than this.