David Ryu Wins City Council Seat
What a pleasant surprise to find that David Ryu beat the supposedly unbeatable Carolyn Ramsay, and by a wide enough margin (1,600 votes) that the election was decided quickly. This morning the LA Times published an interesting map of the voter turnout http://graphics.latimes.com/la-cd4-results-map/ that shows why Ryu won: beyond his Koreatown stronghold, he won handily in Sherman Oaks and the eastern Hollywood Hills (where Beachwood Canyon is located). He also did well in Hollywood and sections of Hancock Park.
Carolyn Ramsay won Los Feliz (including the large blue swath that appears to be Griffith Park, in which two people constituted 100% of the vote), West Hollywood and the western Hollywood Hills, as well as her stronghold, the Windsor Square section of Hancock Park. I lived in Windsor Square for sixteen years and can't recall a previous election in which the district didn't choose the winner, which makes last night's result all the more remarkable.
It's a new day for all of us in CD4, but before we say farewell to the era of Tom LaBonge, I'd like to tell a story. A few months ago, one of my neighbors described the crowds of tourists walking alongside cars on the northern part of Beachwood Drive, which is narrow and has no sidewalks. When she said she was afraid someone would die, LaBonge responded, "People die all the time." So do political ambitions, as yesterday's election proves.