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Five
Running for 25th District State Senate Seat
Two teachers,
a businessman and a State Senate operative take on Assemblyman Mervyn
Dymally in race
By
Cheryl Scott
Bulletin Staff Writer
Five candidates
will vie for the open State Senate seat of Sen. Ed Vincent, D-Inglewood,
who is termed out of the office, in the Statewide Direct Primary on
June 3.
Assemblyman Mervyn Dymally, former Assemblyman Rod Wright, West Basin
Municipal Water District Board of Directors member Don Dear and community
organizer and political consultant Kevin Biggers are all Democrats.
Lydia Gutierrez, a teacher and neighborhood council member, is the
lone Republican in the race. She will face off in November with the
winner of the June primary.
Kevin Biggers
Los Angeles born Kevin Biggers was born in 1962 in the city of Los Angeles. He
was appointed by Governor Gray Davis as director of the Inland Empire Office
of the Governor.
A former professional football player in the NFL from 1985 through 1989, Biggers
became a real estate agent in the High Desert. Four years later he became a real
estate broker and started his own company, Biggers and Associates.
“I’ve always loved politics,” he said on his Website. “When
I was 12, I knocked on doors for Tom Bradley. I was bitten by the political bug
and I have worked on campaigns ever since.”
Biggers ran for congress in the 40th Congressional District garnering 24 percent
of the vote in 1994. Two years later he ran for the Hesperia City Council and
upset the mayor by 102 votes. With nearly 5,700 votes cast in his favor, he became
the first African American to serve on the Hesperia City Council.
He also served as a director with the Mojave Desert Resource Conservation District
for six years, and on a national Water Committee with the National Resource Conservation
Service and the United States Department of Agriculture.
In 1998, he joined the Californians for Gray Davis Campaign, and was the statewide
field director and volunteer coordinator.
He is married to Katherine Adkins. The couple has two children.
Donald Dear
“I can make a difference in Sacramento,” Donald Dear told The Bulletin. “I
have a great deal of experience and I think I have a good chance to win.”
Dear has been elected mayor of Gardena nine times. “I have a lot of experience
running successful political campaigns,” he said. “I think that will
be helpful to me in the upcoming race.”
Dear was elected to the West Basin Municipal Water District Board of Directors
in 2000, representing the cities of Gardena, Hawthorne, Lawndale and unincorporated
portions of El Camino Village. In 2004 he was elected as one of the representatives
for the Los Angeles County Independent Special Districts on the Local Agency
Formation Commission (LAFCO), on which he still serves.
Dear taught at Stephen White Middle School in Carson for 37 years. “I think
one of the most important issues today is the budget cuts being made in the field
of education,” he said. “There are too many unfounded mandates and
the future of our students is being adversely affected because of the budget
cuts in education. This affects their ability to find well paying jobs. What’s
being done to education is a crime.”
Dear plans to work for the return of funds to local cities if elected. “The
state is still taking a large chunk of money that should be going to cities,” he
said. “This was supposed to be a temporary measure, but there don’t
appear to be any plans to discontinue the policy. Our cities are all strapped
for cash, and it’s affecting their abilities to provide important services
like law enforcement, infrastructure maintenance and social programs.”
He believes his background in Gardena gives him the ability to represent a diverse
community like Compton. “Gardena has a very diverse population,” he
said. “The 25th District has other diverse communities as well. But the
need to restore funding to local governments is common to all of the cities in
the district.”
Dear has pledged to take no donations from Indian gaming interests. “The
Indian casinos would put our casinos at a disadvantage,” he said. “Compton’s
Crystal Casino is a vital revenue source for the city. There is no need to bring
in outside casinos.”
He is also a strong supporter of gun control. “I will not be taking money
from the NRA either,” he said. “The problem of guns on the streets
is extremely serious. Gun control is necessary if we are to make our communities
safer.”
Dear also believes his experience with water issues will be a benefit to the
cities in the 25th District. “Water policy is becoming more important as
our population increases,” he said. “I want to educate the public
about desalinization of water from the ocean. That is the way of the future.
We have the technology, but we need more public support for the idea.”
Mervyn Dymally
Mervyn Dymally has been in the forefront of political action in this area for
nearly 30 years.
“It has been my pleasure representing the citizens of Compton for over
28 years and I look forward to continuing to fight for them in the California
Senate,” he
told The Bulletin. “Compton is a solid, working-class, labor-oriented community
and I am proud to have the endorsement of the California and Los Angeles County
Federation of Labor AFL-CIO, Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and
the American Federation of State, County, and Municipal Employees (AFSCME).”
Some of Compton's most respected elected officials have also endorsed his candidacy,
including City Councilmembers Isadore Hall, Yvonne Arceneaux, and Barbara Calhoun
as well as City Attorney LeGrand Clegg.
Compton Unified School District Board Members including Micah Ali, Emma Shariff
and Satra Zurita, have also endorsed Dymally.
He believes there are a number of significant accomplishments he has achieved
in the Hub City that some Compton voters may not be familiar with. “To
address the incidence of gangs and gang violence in Compton and other communities,
I introduced Assembly Bill 128, which passed and is now in the Appropriations
Committee,” he said. “That bill is intended to ultimately direct
Compton elementary students and others away from gangs and into more productive
activities.”
Dymally supported efforts to bring Major League Baseball to Compton College in
order to reinvigorate that sport among Compton's youth.
“I also authored ACR 80 which benefited the Compton Unified School District
Board of Trustees by terminating oversight by the State Superintendent of Public
Instruction,” he
said. “I have worked closely with the Compton school board members and
am proud of the distinction Bursch Elementary received with their recent designation
as a distinguished School.
“Bursch Elementary’s California Distinguished School Award confirms
that with the use of an educational prescriptive plan that involves rigor in
the design
of curriculum and delivery of public instruction, Compton’s children are,
without a doubt, competitive.”
Dymally is also working on universal health care for all children in the state
through Measure AB1X.
“There have been some real successes in Compton and there is still much
to be
done,” he said. “I was able to deliver $4 million to the Compton
Unified School District, $30 million to Compton Community College and $65 million
to the Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science. I will continue to
fight for the Hub City in the Senate.”
Lydia A. Gutierrez
An elementary school teacher and a representative of the ILWU Local 13, Lydia
Gutierrez serves on the Coastal San Pedro Neighborhood Council and is the chair
of the Budget and Finance Committee. She is also on the Public Safety Committee.
She pledges to be a voice for the individuals in the 25th District. “I
am committed to protecting businesses from obtrusive government regulations in
order to provide benefits and employment for our families,” she said. “I
am also committed to cutting government waste so that more money is available
for use in protecting our neighborhoods and educating our children.”
Gutierrez has a master's degree in multicultural bilingual education and holds
to credentials in multiple subjects K-12 and bilingual education. “I am
committed to ensuring that students graduate able to read, write and speak English,” she
says. “I am also committed to providing all students their books and school
supplies at no additional cost to their parents or guardians.”
One of 10 children in the Gutierrez family, she is focused on the issues that
most affect families. “I am committed to protecting small business owners
who have risked life savings in order to provide a better quality of life for
their families,” she said. “I think we can find a solution to the
health care crisis in California so that families do not become bankrupt from
paying for health care.”
She cites a lifelong commitment to volunteerism as an asset in her campaign. “I
have always been committed to the welfare of others,” said Gutierrez. “I
have worked at the grassroots level, visiting the elderly, helping with chores
for neighbors and reaching out to teens to give them hope for the future.”
She plans to work to increase the use of “green” energy. “This
is important to protect the water we drink, the air we breathe and the health
of our children.”
Gutierrez has garnered support from a long list of local legislators and activists,
including State Senate Minority Leader Dick Ackerman, Assemblyman Jim Silva,
Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca and the California State Republican National
Hispanic Assembly.
Roderick Wright
Compton Mayor Eric Perrodin and City Councilwoman Lillie Dobson have endorsed
former Assemblyman Rod Wright, who now works as an assistant in the State Senate.
He was a member of the State Assembly from 1996 to 2002, representing the 48th
District.
“I am proud to have earned the support of the teachers and the longshore
workers
in the 25th District,” he said. “We are also excited to have Compton
Councilwoman Dobson join with Mayor Perrodin and other Compton elected officials
who have expressed their confidence in our campaign.”
Wright believes experience in Sacramento is important to anyone representing
a district in the State Senate. “I believe that my biggest advantage is
that I know how things are done in Sacramento,” Wright told The Bulletin. “You
can have great ideas, but unless you can translate them into legislative bills
that can be passed, you will not accomplish anything. Sacramento is a very relationship-driven
town. I have working relationships with very important players and I know the
channels through which changes can be made.”
Wright says that the true measure of future effectiveness in the legislature
lies in past accomplishments. “I have extensive experience doing bills,” he
said. “I authored AB 1015 which gave public employees the freedom to engage
in the campaign against the governor’s initiatives in the special election
of 2005. Before AB 1015 was passed, public employees could be fired, denied promotions
or benefits if their managers didn’t approve of their lawful activities – including
union activities – or conduct outside of the work place.”
He worked to block construction of a Wal-Mart super store in Inglewood and he
cast the deciding vote to pass the bill that would have prevented Wal-Mart type
stores from selling general merchandise and food under one roof.
“I played a leading role in the campaign to defeat Los Angeles City Council
Proposition
O in 1978,” he said. “This proposition would have eliminated prevailing
wage requirements in the city of Los Angeles.”
Wright would work toward the reopening of King-Drew Hospital, the city’s
only facility with emergency and obstetrical services and full surgery capability.
He assisted with negotiations with the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors
over the size of a new hospital being planned for the country. “I think
it’s of the utmost importance to bring back a full-service hospital to
the area,” he said. “The community needed this hospital, and its
closing left a gap in health care that must be filled.”
He says the state was derelict in the matter of the closure of the hospital. “The
governor could have declared an emergency,” he said. “This was an
option that was not considered.”
He believes that more could have been done to keep Compton Community College
open and self-governing. “The administration problems caused the management
issues that resulted in the college losing its accreditation,” he said. “It
would have been better to have stabilized it and put it back into local control.
I’m committed to working toward the re-establishment of the college under
the control of the Compton Community College District.”
He has pledged to put his political savvy to work for all the cities in the 25th
State Senate District.
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