The Times has endorsed former studio executive and city commissioner Christine Essel in Tuesday's 2nd District City Council runoff. We urge voters in that district -- from the hill communities of Lake View Terrace, Sunland and Tujunga, south to the boulevards of Sun Valley, Valley Glen, Van Nuys, North Hollywood and Valley Village, and back up into the hills of Sherman Oaks and Studio City -- to go to the polls and vote. And just get it over with.
This has been a frustrating and troubling special election season. Even before Wendy Greuel resigned her council office to become city controller July 1, the campaign to fill the seat has become a surrogate for all of the emotional issues -- but few of the substantive ones -- that confront Los Angeles. In the first special election campaign, in which Essel and two elected officials faced off against seven self-styled grass-roots candidates, a disturbing percentage of the debate focused on who had lived in the district longest. Another line of discussion centered on which candidate had been least tainted by politics and City Hall -- as if naivete were a virtue in office and inexperience a weapon to be effectively wielded in public service.
