DAVE HILL/Daily Bruin Senior Staff (Left to right)
Mayoral candidates Antonio Villaraigosa,
Xavier Becerra and Joel Wachs
talk on Wednesday.
By Karen Albrecht and Michael Falcone
Daily Bruin Senior Staff
A Los Angeles mayoral debate in Royce Hall was cancelled last
night due to protests staged by proponents of affirmative
action.
But three of the six invited candidates made an appearance
despite the cancellation.
Two of them ““ Congressman Xavier Becerra and former
California State Assembly Speaker Antonio Villaraigosa ““
spoke to students in support of their fight against SP-1.
The third candidate, Joel Wachs, also said he is a strong
believer in affirmative action, but added that the debate should
still have been held.
“This was a missed opportunity to have students involved
in the debate,” Wachs said. “It may have been one of
the greatest we have ever had.”
It would have given students the opportunity to air issues they
care about, he said.
All candidates were informed that the debate was canceled. Those
who did not show were State Controller Kathleen Connell, City
Attorney James Hahn and businessman Steve Soboroff.
Shortly after Villaraigosa arrived at Royce, he met with a group
of protest leaders. Villaraigosa and Becerra, who arrived later,
became impromptu liaisons between the students and Chancellor
Albert Carnesale.
Acting as middlemen, the two candidates shuttled back and forth
between students inside Royce Hall and university administrators
outside to negotiate a time for students to leave the hall without
being arrested.
Students were initially directed to leave Royce by 6:30 p.m.,
but the candidates negotiated for time to speak to demonstrators
before the building was cleared, according to Clarence Chapman,
chief of university police.
The demonstrators were later given until 8 p.m. to leave Royce.
No arrests were made.
“You didn’t cancel the debate; you started
one,” Becerra said to the students, while promising to pursue
the issue of SP-1 with the UC Board of Regents. “Martin
Luther King Jr. would have been proud,” he said.
Because two mayoral candidates spoke to the students despite the
cancelled debate and expressed their support, the protest was
successful, said Marc Lispi, a fourth-year philosophy student.
“Interrupting the debates will bring a lot of public
attention to the issue of SP-1,” Lispi said.
Some students said they were disappointed that only a small
number of tickets were initially set aside for student attendance
at the debate.
But only 16 of the 200 student tickets which were made available
at the Central Ticket Office were picked up, according to Keith
Parker, assistant vice chancellor of government and community
relations.
The mayoral debate will be rescheduled some time before the
April 10 election, although its new location is unknown, said Scott
Regberg of the Verizon California State Forum, which co-sponsored
the event along with the League of Women Voters.
“It’s a shame because the protest was not related to
the mayoral debate,” Regberg said.
Regberg said he hoped student protesters did not have what he
called “a misdirected sense of opportunism” in planning
the protest to coincide with the debate.
Elias Enciso, internal vice president of the Undergraduate
Students Association Council, said he and other students called
Villaraigosa earlier in the day, asking him to pressure the regents
to put SP-1 on today’s agenda.
Enciso and other students met with Villaraigosa at his home in
L.A. several weeks ago to discuss their concerns with him. With the
help of UCLA Chicana/o studies Professor Paule Cruz Takash, who
telephoned Villaraigosa on her cellular phone Wednesday, the
students convinced the candidate to come to UCLA even though the
debate had been canceled.
“By coming into Royce and interrupting the debate, we are
trying to put pressure on the regents,” said Christopher
Young, a third-year physiological science student.
The attending candidates remained at Royce until the students
had left the building at 8 p.m. Both Becerra and Villaraigosa
planned to speak with the regents at the Four Seasons Hotel in
Beverly Hills after leaving Royce, but neither did.
Though only three of the six invited candidates made it to UCLA
after the debate’s cancellation, several of the nine
lesser-known candidates who were not invited came to protest
limiting the mayoral forum to only a few of the candidates.
Candidates Addie Mae Miller and “Melrose” Larry
Green both made an appearance outside Royce. A third uninvited
candidate, Steve Mozena, said he had also planned to come to UCLA
and publicize his candidacy.
“Not one of the leading candidates have shown the backbone
to say that leaving other candidates out is not right,”
Mozena said. “They could have held it in Pauley Pavilion and
would not have had to exclude us; I bet most of the students and
local residents would have come.”