Rosendahl Gains City Council Seat

Bill Rosendahl, previously best known as host of a Westside public affairs show on cable television, defeated Flora Gil Krisiloff in the L.A. City Council District 11 runoff election on Tuesday. He will succeed two-term Councilwoman Cindy Miscikowski on July l. Rosendahl, who turned 60 last Sunday, received 26,613 votes (56.6 percent) to Krisiloff?s 20,439 votes (43.4 percent), with 99.41 percent of the ballots counted. His campaign manager, Mike Bonin, said that Rosendahl carried 136 of the 170 precincts in a district that stretches from Pacific Palisades and Brentwood in the north, east to the 405 freeway, and south to Westchester. Endorsed by nine members of the City Council and a wide range of community leaders and organizations in the district (including the Pacific Palisades Democratic Club), Rosendahl had to overcome Krisiloff?s three key endorsements: Miscikowski, County Supervisor Zev Yaroslavsky and the Los Angeles Times. He gained a pivotal boost after the March primary when he was endorsed by the third candidate, attorney Angela Reddock, after she was eliminated from the race. Reddock is a Westchester resident and her support helped Rosendahl, a Mar Vista resident, build on his strength in the more populous southern part of the district. ?I truly believe this is the beginning of a new day,? Rosendahl told the Palisadian-Post early Wednesday morning as he juggled congratulatory calls on three lines at his Mar Vista office. ?My large margin of victory is clearly a mandate and an affirmation of what I stand for and the issues I believe in. I?m very grateful and humbled by the support.? Reiterating the main themes of his campaign, Rosendahl said: ?One thing I want to do is give people a more positive sense about politicians and how a democracy can work. I want to fight the sense of powerless, alienation and cynicism I encountered across the district, and I?ll do it by raising the level of citizen involvement as we work to solve our problems with traffic, congestion, development and the environment.? In Pacific Palisades, for example, Rosendahl said he wants to get engaged in the rent-hike controversy that has threatened the small-town business atmosphere along the 1000 block of Swarthmore, between Sunset and Monument. ?I want to sit down with the owners [Palisades Partners] and work with them on how we can resolve this situation, so that the character of the village?and the joy that Swarthmore brings to community members?is maintained.? On Election Day, Rosendahl ate his good-luck bowl of matzo ball soup at Mort?s Deli on Swarthmore, a tradition he began in the March primary, and he vowed to hold community forums in the adjacent Oak Room. Rosendahl?s election-night party was held at a home in Venice, where he waited until 98 percent of the vote was announced before declaring victory, around 1:30 a.m. ?I was waiting for a call from Flora that never came,? Rosendahl said, ?but I want to emphasize that I plan to spend time reaching out to those people who were involved with my opponent. I think we should have reconciliation and healing as we move forward.? Rosendahl, who is the first openly gay person to be elected to the L.A. City Council, said he respected what this means in terms of politics and public acceptance, ?but [the label] certainly doesn?t go deep enough into who I am as an individual.? Krisiloff, who met with her supporters at the Luxe Hotel in Brentwood on Tuesday evening, told Post Senior Editor Libby Motika that the high point of the election campaign was ?making it into the runoff, especially when you look at where I began. I wasn?t supposed to get this far.? ?I know the district really well after this campaign,? said the longtime Westside activist, ?and regardless of the outcome, I understand how important it is to be engaged.? But before reimmersing herself, ?I?m going to take some time off. I have spent the last 15 months campaigning, putting my life on hold.? She continued, ?I will continue to be active and involved. I am still the president of the Brentwood Community Council, and will serve on the year-long VA property commission. I am 53 years old, have two children who are grown, and I am definitely at a place in my life where I am looking to put more of myself into either public service or a job.? In an interview Wednesday morning, Rosendahl?s campaign manager, Mike Bonin, analyzed the election results. ?We had a wonderful, charismatic, open candidate who genuinely appreciated reaching out to everybody in the community, regardless of party affiliation or perspective [ e.g., conservative Republican politician Bill Simon]. We built a phenominal, truly grassroots movement that brought people together in an enormous coalition that included every neighborhood in the district and harnessed the energy of the environmental community, organized labor and average citizens who were fed up with traffic gridlock and a government that doesn?t bring them into the tent. ?I also think people didn?t like the tenor of the campaign that was raised against Bill,? Bonin said, ?and I think the results are an affirmation of positive politics.?