Candidates for a rare open seat on the county Board of Supervisors visited black churches large and small Sunday, hoping to grab last-minute support before Tuesday's vote in one of the most vigorously contested election campaigns in decades.
State Sen. Mark Ridley-Thomas (D-Los Angeles) and Councilman Bernard C. Parks focused their remaining hours attending several Sunday services at churches throughout the 2nd Supervisorial District, each highlighting their differences and urging congregants to turn out for the Tuesday election.
It was the final push in a months-long campaign that promises to change the dynamic of the powerful five-member board.
On Saturday, both campaigns held major events as they tried to reach undecided voters. Parks began an 18-hour bus tour across the sprawling district, which stretches from Culver City and Mar Vista to Watts and Compton, Lynwood and Carson.
Ridley-Thomas held a get-out-the-vote rally, convened several strategy meetings and took up an invitation to visit the New Millennium Barbershop in Leimert Park to talk politics.
Simultaneously, hundreds of volunteers from both campaigns have manned phone banks and knocked on doors.
But on the last weekend day before the election, the candidates turned to those among the most likely to head to the polls: churchgoers.
So along with entourages that included elected officials, business leaders and community activists, Parks and Ridley-Thomas crammed into church pews to make their case -- and knock each other.
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), one of the county's most powerful black politicians and a Parks supporter, sought to turn congregations against Ridley-Thomas by invoking the closure of Martin Luther King Jr.-Harbor Medical Center. Both candidates have said reopening the long-troubled hospital in Willowbrook would be their top priority.
"The opponent said, 'Close the hospital,' she told churchgoers at Hays Tabernacle Christian Methodist Episcopal Church in South Los Angeles. "Now he says, 'Oh no, I meant close the trauma center.' Well, we all know that the trauma center is the hospital."
(Ridley-Thomas said in 2004 that he favored closing the trauma center if that would save the rest of the hospital.)
Waters repeated the criticism at church stops throughout the day, energizing congregants before Parks took the microphone. Others who joined him Sunday included Los Angeles City Council members Herb Wesson and Jan Perry, as well as Culver City Mayor Alan Corlin.
